Building the Right Team

Blue Collar Back Office continues to grow! We are extremely grateful for the sustained growth we have seen over the last couple of years. We continue to add new clients and new services to meet their needs. Throughout this growth period our team has continued to grow to meet the demand. I am extremely proud of the team and culture that we have here at BCBO and without the amazing members of our team we could never achieve the results that we have seen.

Hiring and training is not an easy or “fun” task. It takes a lot time to search through potential candidates and then interview those you think will be the best fit. When we are looking to hire for BCBO I try and remember the fantastic advice given by Warren Buffett:

We look for three things when we hire people. We look for intelligence, we look for initiative or energy, and we look for integrity. And if they don’t have the latter, the first two will kill you, because if you’re going to get someone without integrity, you want them lazy and dumb.

Especially in our industry, integrity is key. Our whole company is built on helping small businesses organize and grow their business, and the key function we provide is bookkeeping. With that, we have access to and see a plethora of information. While we take the necessary security measures to ensure that not a single person that works for our company (including myself) have access to our clients funds, we still see information that should not be shared. Hiring people with the highest level of integrity is the number one priority.

Intelligence and initiative are extremely important too. While we aren’t building rockets over here, bookkeeping and accounting is something that requires experience, training, and an extreme attention to detail. The majority of our team works remotely or at least semi-remotely. We are not Big Brother. We are not watching the keystrokes and micromanaging their day. We allow everyone on the team to take ownership of their day and their responsibilities. Every member our of team knows what is expected of them and has the initiative to take control of their day and deliver results for our clients.

It sometimes takes a lot of interviews to find the right person that checks all those boxes. This is not an area of your business to “settle” however. It is imperative that you surround yourself with great people that will represent your company well and provide outstanding service for your clients.