​Who’s your face of your business at a job fair? What type of person do you want to put in front of potential new employees? Pretty simple question. And the answer should be easy, too.
 
You’d want someone who makes your company/business look good. Someone who motivates others to want to come work for you.
 
Some businesses get this right and others must not be doing their homework based on recent observations and listening to speakers in public recruiting sessions. If a small sample of 10 companies is any indicator of the bigger picture, then most companies are not looking closely enough at who they put out there as their face, and how they come across.
 
One example: A car company had sales positions open. They sent out a man who started his “speech” by talking about how everyone needs a car: “How did you get here tonight?,” he asked the audience. “Did you walk? Did you take public transportation? Did you drive?”
 
His point was that everyone owns a car. Which implies everyone has to buy a car. Which doesn’t make sense. Because if you have a car, that doesn’t mean you need to purchase one. He was trying to make the connection that you can easily sell cars because everyone needs one. A tenuous connection, if you ask me, and no one visited his booth afterwards.
 
Second example: A guy gets up front and says to the effect, “You don’t want to be here tonight. I don’t want to be here tonight.” Hmmmm, sounds like a good reason to get up and leave at that point. He kept this train going throughout his talk, repeatedly indicating that neither he nor the audience wanted to be there.
 
What’s that tell the audience? That the job seekers don’t care, and that he doesn’t care. I don’t think that was his point. I believe his point was to indicate that looking for a job and getting hired is a very hard thing to do and a challenge for anyone. And, equally, hiring good people is a challenge for the employer. But he very poorly communicated this message (if that’s what he “meant”). The takeaway was “why be here” based on what he said and how he said it. You didn’t want to work for this company either.
 
Third example: A guy talks on and on and on about the good things his company does. He doesn’t tell the audience the name of the company. He doesn’t tell attendees what his company does. Instead, his repeated message is, “We give back to the community. Our employees care. We have great programs to help those in need.” In the last two sentences of his presentation, he finally named his company. By then, he’d lost those in attendance. No one would have interest in following up.
 
When you send an individual or team to promote your business to prospective employees, it’s tremendously important to get the right person with the right skills out there. Go watch the individual give the presentation and see for yourself. Then provide constructive feedback, if necessary. Perhaps video the presentation and play it back to dissect it later.
 
The people you want to recruit are critical to your success as a business. Make sure to put your best person forward.

​We all have our personal fantasylands. We go there when we’re stressed. Sometimes it’s just fun to let your mind wander and think good thoughts. That’s your fantasyland. Your sweet spot.
 
What’s yours?
 
Like a good friend of mine who lives in the Dallas-Fort Worth metro area, do you dream of a smooth morning and evening commute, getting to work and home on time with no stresses, your personal engine revved? If so, you have a powerful fantasy you’re keeping alive.
 
Do you think your seventh grade son is going to become a pro baseball player? Whew, are you ever living in a fantasyland. You’re dreaming. Look at the statistics on what it takes to make the JV or high school team. Then intensify those odds to play college. Then ratchet those odds up again to make it to the minor leagues. Then raise the odds higher if he’s to get promoted to higher level minor leagues or ultimately the majors. Good luck. Remember it’s a fantasy.
 
Do you fantasize about owning a Mercedes SUV? Well, you might want to start with your sights a lot lower and begin with being able to afford a secondhand car that’s functional, is low emissions and reliable. If you can get that far with an initial vehicle purchase and you work tremendously hard over many, many years and you make a high-end income (unrealistic for 98% of the United States population), then maybe you could consider an $80,000 vehicle. If you live this fantasy, you’ll be sorely frustrated.
 
Do you fantasize, like I do, that the college where you went to school, will have an elite football, basketball or baseball program? Forget about it. Acknowledge all the other teams out there which also seek to compete and win at the highest levels and realize some teams will finish at the bottom of their leagues, some in the middle and some consistently at the top. A fair fantasy recognizes the occasional bursts of greatness for a university’s sports program. Accommodate this mentality and accept that once in a while or once in a great while you may win the league championship and have a chance to do some damage in the post-season. But keep fantasizing. We all do it.
 
Do you imagine having the body of a world-class athlete? Well, you better have the drive and time to make that happen because without a tremendous commitment to getting your body there, no matter what type of event you want to compete in, it ain’t gonna happen without months, if not years, of sweating, grunting, straining and upping your game. You can do it. But forget about the rest of your life.
 
We’re battered with messages about who we can  be, what we can accomplish if we just work hard enough and stick with it. That’s a solid message, but temper it with realism regarding your talents and commitment to making something extraordinary happen.
 
“Extraordinary” is a great word, because it captures the high intensity necessary for greatness, or to bring a fantasy to reality. Certainly, it can be done. But for most people it makes a lot more sense to set logical, practical goals that drive you and can actually be accomplished by a normal human being.
 
“I got to work this morning and was only ten minutes late after that pile-up by the airport. Whew, I feel good.” Now that’s an accomplishment that marries your fantasy to reality.

​Many simple lessons culled from others can mean success for you in Business Management 101. Here are a few:
 

1. When you spend time developing your one-year or five-year strategic plan or goals, trot out your previous plans and change the dates since it will save time and headaches. Once prepared, it will likely be filed away to never see the light of day again, so don’t waste your precious energy on it.
2. Ignore problems until they solve themselves. Though I’m not a big believer in this one, I have a good friend who swears it works.

He used it when he managed teams and when he was directed to finish projects by his bosses. In whichever case he applied this tool, he found that people would forget or just not follow up. So, the problem effectively “solved itself.”
 
Though I don’t find that heartening and don’t believe problems “solve themselves” (they tend to crop up elsewhere), he swears by this technique, so feel free to give it a go.

1. Hire self-motivated people. It is useless to hire lazy loads. Now, the question remains how to determine when someone is self-motivated. When you figure that out, let the rest of us know, and we’ll add that as lesson number 4.
2. When you don’t know how to proceed, simplify the process. You’ve probably never seen this done if you’ve been in a business environment for over five years because so many people in positions of authority like to talk in big words that no one understands. They string together lengthy sentences that mean nothing. Watch as coworkers’ eyes glaze over. Smile to yourself. If you write something simply and understandable your teammates can easily execute and succeed. But, SHHHHHHH, don’t let on that it’s better to keep things short and simple.
3. Shorten meetings. Conclude meetings before their scheduled ending time. Cancel meetings altogether. You’ll be a hero, and staff can work on the projects they were hired to do. There’s no question meetings serve a value, so when you do hold them, keep them focused, engage your team, encourage participation and knock them off five minutes early. Then go to Dairy Queen to celebrate.
4.  Stop doing the same thing over and over. This one seems pretty self-evident, but that doesn’t seem to stop people from slogging through the mud on the same path they got stuck in last month.

Instead, do one thing different. For example, if you head up the maintenance department and the shrubs you plant in front of the building in the same place die two years in a row, don’t do it again. Find another spot to plant them because maybe the sunlight or shade caused the problem. Or, order a different type of bush and see if that will flourish. This is why the change-up is such a great pitch in baseball. Instead of continuing to throw the fast ball at 92 miles per hour that the batter is ready for, the change-up causes him to swing and miss and turn his body into a pretzel.
 
Shake things up in your office. You’ll have more fun, encourage productivity and quite likely increase your profits.