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Allbusiness.com Interview With Young Entrepreneur Ryan Allis
Ryan Allis, Knowledge Level: Expert, Keywords: interview, ryan allis, allbusiness, questions, answers, entrepreneurship
Our collegues over at AllBusiness.com had a few questions for Ryan and we wanted to share them with you. Enjoy!
Q: What are the must-have team members? In other words, what makes up the core group that an entrepreneur must assemble to have a chance at success?
There are definitely a few must-have team members that every entrepreneur should surround themselves with to build a successful company.
I recommend that, in the beginning, you find a good business partner who can compliment your skills and who has strengths where you may have weaknesses. Finding a good business partner who will become fully vested in your company can be a long process that takes a lot of research and time, but can often make the difference between your company™s success or failure. My business partner, Aaron Houghton, and I were able to create something greater than either of us could have created separately.
As far as the core group needed for a successful business, I believe you need a few key people to make up your Board of Directors: CEO, company Chairman, CTO, CFO, Marketing and Corporate Communications Directors, a Director of Customer Service and a Human Resources Director. Often when you are starting out, the same people will fill multiple management positions, as was iContact™s case when it began in 2003.
Q: What about growing a business? When is the right time to hire employees and tap the services of outside consultants?
Let me start off by saying that when you are initially creating your business and can afford to bring on your first employee, do so. If not, you will simply be creating a job for yourself rather than building a sustainable business.
Before you launch your company, you may want to bring additional persons onto your Board of Directors. These people could be veterans in your industry or key investors. As your company grows, you will have to add certain professionals and outside consultants to your team. You will want to have a good accountant, attorney, financial advisor, insurance agent, and banker. These advisors can be instrumental in helping your company succeed. Eventually, you may be able to develop a secondary layer of management depending on the needs of your business.
Q: You provide a solid list of questions to ask applicants, but what if your entrepreneurial skills don™t include stellar interviewing skills? How can you get around that? What if interviewing is the last thing you want to do?
If interviewing isn™t your strong point, you must hire a Human Resources Director to screen and possibly interview applicants for your company. Originally, I conducted all employee interviews for building the iContact team. Today, our HR Director screens all applicants, and the manager within a specific department conducts the initial interview. If the manager wishes to submit the applicant as a potential hire, I will then interview them. After the manager ensures that an applicant is qualified and has the necessary experience, I like to interview them to see that they are sane, have a good work ethic, and can communicate well. As the leader of your company, it is your responsibility to grow your team with well-qualified, high-quality people, and you should do whatever it takes to accomplish this goal.
Q: You say that the two most important things you look for when hiring are initiative and work ethic. Can you elaborate on each and tell us why?
These are the main things I have learned to look for after conducting many interviews over the past few years. I™ve learned that no matter what someone™s level of experience is, if they have a bias toward action, take initiative, and has a solid work ethic, you will want them to work on your team.
Having a bias toward action and taking the initiative means that a person will never become idle due to indecision. If they see a problem, they will be proactive and figure out a way to solve it, and are always looking for ways to improve the company. Having a good work ethic means that a person is able to see any issues that arise through until a solution is reached. These people will often have to multi-task and work on several different projects at once, and being able to focus to complete the tasks at hand illustrate their strong work ethic.
Q: Okay, I really love this one: "Consciously build a culture." I™ve always thought that company cultures sort of evolved on their own, but you offer another perspective. What do you mean here and can you give us examples? Also, why is this so important to a company™s success?
While it is true that some companies have cultures that can evolve on their own, we take it a step further at iContact. We consider ourselves a family, and at the same time respect each individual in the company. Everyone at iContact is working together for the same mission. While we work hard and continue to be innovative, we also have a great time doing it. We have a foosball and ping pong table at the office, Bagel Mondays, birthday celebrations and Outstanding Performance Award Ceremonies. These things all contribute to the wonderful culture we have built here at the office, and it certainly helps in the way our team members interact with one another. The more dynamic your company™s culture, the more likely your company will continue to grow and succeed.
Q: You give your readers some strategies for fighting bureaucracy. What top three tips would you offer someone reading this Q&A today in terms of being better equipped to manage this very old problem?
Having certain systems and policies in place is necessary to building a successful company. However, bureaucratic issues arise when these systems become inefficient, so I developed a management theory called proactive empowerment to reduce bureaucracy in the company. It is a methodology through which individuals are empowered to know they are in charge of a certain situation, and perform at their peak while completing certain projects within an organization. At any given time in iContact, we have thirty to forty unique projects being worked on simultaneously, and before I began utilizing proactive empowerment, I had no systematic way of knowing what projects to follow-up on and ensure they were all on track and moving forward.
Proactive empowerment is a three-step process, and should help you effectively deal with bureaucracy in your business.
- Identify the project on which work needs to be done.
- Identify the people working on the project as well as the project leader.
- Provide the brief to the project team and project lead, and ensure the lead knows they have the authority to do what is needed to get things done.
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