My goal is to save you money in this post. (Strong opener, right?)
To run a small business, you need to be good at a lot of different things. Sure, you want to be good at whatever your trade is, that’s probably most important.
But it’s no longer enough to just be awesome at whatever you’re awesome at.
There’s a whole spectrum of other skills that are required in order to make your business hum; copywriting, graphic design, blogging, SEO, website management, newsletters, social media, email marketing, hiring and the list goes on and on.
And your options are to either hire someone to do those things, or to learn to do them yourself.
Hiring them out can get expensive. And doing them yourself can be really time consuming.
Having a basic level of comfort with creating graphics (or any skill) can be really liberating for you.
Too many times I’ve seen small businesses who feel shackled by a designer who isn’t getting back to them. Whether with web design work, with graphics, or video editing, the fact remains – it isn’t fun to be dependent on someone else.
And I’m not suggesting you devote weeks or months learning one of these new skills, but I am proposing that a basic foundation of knowledge will help tremendously. You might find that there are fewer projects that you end up outsourcing. Or, you might find that you’re able to reduce the number of design iterations it takes to get something done, because you can communicate your request more clearly. The list of benefits is pretty long.
So, today I want to introduce you to one of my favorite tools, Pixlr. (And it’s free)
Pixlr is a photoediting tool, and I’ve used it for years. It can do a lot of the basic things you can do with something like photoshop – apply filters, add captions, resize images easily and remove an unwanted background. There are thousands of uses for it, so I won’t even attempt to show you all the things it can do – instead, I’ll show you one thing you can use it for, today.
Here’s the scenario:
I created a series of 8 free Infusionsoft tips (grab them here). And I wanted a fancy graphic to go along with it. So I hopped on Fiverr and submitted a graphic request then boom, a few hours and $5.50 later I had this bad boy.
Not bad right?
Pretty stylish graphic. But here’s the problem, when I uploaded this to leadpages it had this awkward white background on it that totally ruined the aesthetic appeal the page had.
So, I reached back out to the designer and asked if she could create a version without the background. She kindly informed me that this was a paid service, and would cost $20 more. (She really was super nice, I’d use her again in a heartbeat)
Well, fortunately I have pixlr in my back pocket, so I hopped in there, made the changes I needed and in a few minutes I had a landing page that had the look and feel I was going for.
Not a big deal, right? It’s such a small thing, I know. But having little tricks up your sleeve like this can add up, and the more I use pixlr the more comfortable I feel tackling other tasks I would have otherwise outsourced. (I recently used Pixlr to create the graphics for this FB ad campaign you may have seen)
This simple trick saved me $20 on the spot. Hopefully adding Pixlr to your tool belt can save you time or money as well.
Here’s a tutorial with a detailed breakdown of exactly how to accomplish this with Pixlr:
My philosophy toward these types of topics is that I want to learn as much as I reasonably can, enough so that I can understand the project, and that I can identify when it’s out of my reach and I need to bring in an expert. Plenty of people take that approach with Infusionsoft. They want to learn the campaign builder basics so they know how it works, or learn enough so that they can confidently edit campaigns, or run reports – but they have no intention of building all their own campaigns.
I’m not a graphic designer. This should come as no surprise to anyone. But I also know the value of having attractive graphics to supplement my blog posts, my facebook ads, or to use on my website. For the most part, I just use free images I find online, but occasionally I need something a little more complex, and for these types of things, I balance between hiring out a pro using a service like Fiverr, and dabbling in the design space myself a little bit.
I’d love to hear how you approach these necessary ancillary skills!
Small businesses often struggle with knowing how to grow their team; especially without compromising what they deliver, or what they stand for. If you’re an entrepreneur, you’ve probably poured yourself into your business, and you probably take an immense amount of pride in your company. As you should. It’s that fact that makes hiring people who reflect your brand so important.
When it comes to finding talent, hiring, and growing companies, Lauren Hodgson is in her element. Lauren is a good friend of mine, and I asked her to share some of the wisdom she’s collected throughout her career, which included helping Infusionsoft grow from 200 to 600 employees, in the hopes that it’ll help your team grow.
3 Keys to Designing a Employment Branding Foundation
If you’ve ever been fishing you probably had to select what bait you wanted to use. And depending on how much you know about fishing, you may know that you should select your bait carefully, as it can attract different fish. If you’re fishing for salmon in lake Michigan you’re going to use a very different bait than if you’re fishing for yellow fin tuna off the coast of San Diego.
Let’s take it one step further: If you were a fisherman, wouldn’t you prefer that fish swam right up to your boat? Life would be a little easier if they were just jumping onto the deck instead of you having to seek them out. Of course. By attracting fish to your boat, you’re able to get a larger selection in less time. This saves you time and gets you more of what you want.
You likely already apply this principle to your business with your marketing & lead generation. It’s called inbound marketing. Good news! You can apply it to your hiring, too. In fact, when you do, you’ll find more of the right people for your business. More of the right people is a brilliant thing.
When you apply this principle to hiring, it’s called employment branding. It’s one of my favorite things in the world. It does the hiring for you. When you build an attraction machine, it brings in the right people who want to be a part of what you are creating. Plus, the better you are at proactively attracting people, the easier it is to find (& captivate them) when you need to hire. Employment branding is the magnetic force that helps you constantly fill the pipeline with people who are champions of you and your business. And those are the types of people you want on your team.
Here’s the kicker. It’s a proactive strategy, not a quick fix. Once you do it, though, you’ve got a machine humming in the background, doing the work for you.
By creating this attraction machine, you spend less time sifting bad resumes, asking unnatural interview questions, and crossing your fingers that interviewees are going to work out. This work goes side by side with your current marketing – it’s actually extension of it. In fact, the 3 biggest things you can do for your employment brand are things that should already be doing for your business. This work will attract customers, partners, and employees alike.
Quick recap: You invest the time upfront, it’s work you should already be doing, and it gets you more of the right people for your business.
Here are the top 3 things that create a strong foundation for your employment brand, getting the right people knocking down your door:
#1 Get super clear on who you are and what you stand for
But, seriously. SUPER CLEAR. When people interact with you (in person, on your website, etc.), you want them, in less than 30 seconds, to know what you stand for- your purpose. Not what you do, but why you do it. Tap into why you started. What problem are you trying to solve? What dent do you want to make? What do you want to be known for? The answer to these questions should be jumping off your website.
If you haven’t spent the time on deliberately articulating this or if you need a refresher, you may like the HBR article with the great Jim Collins on Building Your Company’s Vision. Clarity on your vision and purpose is the #1 thing in attracting the right people to you. Great people connect to purpose – they want to be working for something larger and they want that something larger to align with what they care about.
#2 Align every inch of the business to your purpose
Once you are crystal clear on why your company exists, you want every piece of your business to be a mirrored reflection of that existence. It should be evident in how your business behaves – your business model, client interactions, partnership pay structure, how you choose Partnership A over Partnership B, community involvement, website messaging, etc. Align everything to it because these decisions, these consistent behaviors over time, become your culture. Your culture is what attracts certain people and detracts others. Your company culture already exists (even if it’s just you!) – the goal is to intentionally design it in such a way that it is effective in driving what you want. One of the truest principles of culture, represented in a model by Ann Rhoades, former Chief People Officer of Southwest Airlines, is this:
“Leaders drive the values, values then drive the behaviors, the behaviors drive the culture, and the culture ultimately defines the performance.”
Your leadership dictates the culture. Be intentional about how you operate the business. When it aligns – living, breathing, and sleeping it’s most integral form of its existence – the right people can’t help but notice.
#3 Your people are your brand ambassadors
Your employees, including you, are your brand ambassadors. If you don’t have employees yet, think of your vendors, customers, investors, and partners as your ambassadors. Set and share the vision with them. When you’ve got the right people on your team, give them ownership, let them co-create the plan, and they will multiply your efforts way past what you alone can do. When your people have purpose, autonomy, & mastery in their work with you, it creates a multiplying affect that ripples throughout their life and in networks, communities, and people far past your own. This is the employment brand spreading organically. It’s also where you’ll generate employee referrals, hire recommendations, and make coffee connections, matching up you with amazing people to join your team. These “leads” are coming from your network of champions for your business, so they’ll likely be more qualified. More of the right people; it’s the beauty of word of mouth in action.
You are able to create a company that is simply irresistible to work for by focusing intently on the core of who you want your business to be in the world. This work generates the most authentically fitting people that want to be a part of what you are creating. Nothing overcomes a poor fit. Be clear on what you stand for, align your business to it, engage and empower your people to be your champions. This is the foundation of having an employment brand that is constantly filling the pipeline of people who want to partner up and do the amazing work you set out to do.
About the Author: Lauren Hodgson
I am a big believer that when we get clear on what we stand for and partner with others that stand for the same, we can create some pretty rad shit. As an Employment Brand Strategist, I help teams share the mission that they’re on and help them create a machine that magnetically attracts the right people to join their mission. I believe in fit because we are a better world when people can contribute their full selves. Plus, status quo is for the birds. In the past I led the hiring for a fast-growing tech company, Infusionsoft, growing it from 220-650 employees in 3 years. I’ve also led in the space of people development and culture at lululemon athletica and Apple. I am all about exceptional leadership, strategically designed company culture, and living into dreams. In late 2015, I start a new journey, traveling parts of the world for about a year with Peter, my husband and partner-in-adventure.
To run a small business, you need to be good at a lot of different things. Sure, you want to be good at whatever your trade is, that’s probably most important.
