The Human Factor
“You think it’s expensive to hire a professional, wait until you hire an amateur.” We measure business performance by the margin that a business makes on all compensations paid to all its employees. Your Return On Investment (ROI) would be much more when you hire seasoned professionals instead of cheaper help!
It is the total of all your employees’ performances that result in your company’s overall performance. Therefore it would stand to reason that the better the performance of the employees, the higher would be the profitability of the company. However, under the impression of optimizing bottom line, many business owners simply attempt to minimize payroll by hiring less expensive, and therefore less qualified personnel with the hope that they can increase their talents and potential themselves. However the money spent on the payroll of inferior employees who demand less pay does not usually produce any viable returns.
We help generate a dramatic increase in our clients’ bottom line, by means of hiring superior and more skilled talents or, by optimizing the productivity of their existing workforce through development of exact and performance-based bonuses or compensation packages for them. Such compensations are normally a reasonable fraction of gains generated by the staff and will result in increasing the profit to payroll ratio.
We accomplish this objective further by means of helping individual employees to positively identify with the company’s goals and objectives. We use our proprietary processes that are designed to motivate employees to take actions which they can confirm for themselves to be in their own best interest (and of course being in the best interest of the company at the same time). In addition, We will help recruit and train new talents that are guaranteed to outperform many of your existing people in sales and other objectively measurable performance areas.
We will organize your current workforce and hire new and appropriate people for you.
If you are unsure about hiring appropriate personnel you should not feel bad. Most small business hiring practices that we see are not good at all. In fact, it is harder and more costly to hire or train a non-performing or non-compliant employee than it is to hire good new talents. The smartest thing that can be done is to make sure you are hiring correctly in the first place. We have the right, tools, strategies and assessments to insure you hire the right people the first time by:
1. Correctly matching people’s talent for each position and accountability
2. Determining what and how you should pay and reward them based on measurable performance criteria.
3. Showing you how do to deal with people you have hired and are not working out
4. Where and how to find driven and self motivated people
5. Hiring the right people with the right attitude and experience.
6. How to weed out people who do not fit into your organization and corporate culture
It doesn’t matter whether a company is large or small. we often come across companies with no defined organizational charts. They may have little or very detailed job descriptions. However they do not adequately and clearly depict individual accountabilities, structure, and the dynamics of the company. Often, businesses really do not know what they need in people and from them. Therefore due to lack of clarity, they do not know how to figure out whom they should hire as business expands, or in the event of unforeseen turnovers in personnel.
Hiring and defining employee accountabilities are a lot less complicated than you would imagine. The key is to get the business structure organized first and have clear goals as to where the company is headed and then delegate clear, non-conflicting and measurable accountabilities to each individual. The problem with small businesses is that their operators are so busy with putting out fires and running the day to day matters of the company that they are not able to dedicate quality time to this critical subject.
We have worked with clients in hiring numerous employees for every work role imaginable. We can work with you to handle every aspect of the process in optimizing your team. You may have existing people who are in the wrong job for their ability. We have the know how to measure and compare the talents and skills of all existing employees and new candidates.
Client Examples
We specialize in increasing human output in business with the specific goal of increasing sales and bottom line profits. Our work is not limited to any specific industry as they are all operated by human beings. Here is a partial list of some of our clients whose sales and profits we have increased:
Company Profile: Provider of Long-Term Care Plans
A local branch of an insurance company specializing in selling long term care plans was experiencing low sales. The normal mode of sales was cold calling by sales agents who would then make an appointment to see mostly retired individuals in order to explain the program and close the sale.
In the beginning there was no methodical approach to train the callers do this successfully. After six months, the sales increased by 35% as a result of the sales training routine that was established.
Company Profile: Niche Product Importer and Distributor
This is a company specializing in importing and distribution of food items from many overseas countries to US supermarkets. They were having problems establishing contacts and working relationships with buyers of companies in order to make presentation and get orders after many repeated trials.
We managed to find and train an individual acting as an inside employee with the necessary talent of making such appointments which resulted in obtaining many appointments for the VP of Sales of the company and a 50% growth in sales within one year.
Company Profile: Established Electronics Manufacturer & Importer
This $14 million consumer electronics company produces its goods in far east and markets them mainly in Mexico and other Latin American countries. They contacted us back in 2006 with the goal of establishing better organization and increasing the performance of their staff.
This business was started by two partners who had some long term communication and working issues between them.
We helped resolve the issues in between and bring a culture to the company that resulted in much smoother operation and 30% increase in sales within one year.
Company Profile: Growing Import Business
This was a $1 million company specializing in importation of home décor items such as artificial flowers, personal care and fragrances which are mainly sold in major retail chains.
Since the company started working with us three years ago, the company has grown by 300% in sales volume through business strategies impacted and coached by us, which included forming teams of highly driven people to work with the company, design of appropriate compensation plans and formulation of new business models.
Company Profile: Venture Capital Investment Firm
This is a multi-billion dollar venture capital company specializing in high technology and financial investments. We worked with them on one of their projects in 2008. We generated a new e-commerce division to an already existing brick and mortar operation which resulted in generation of $5 million dollars additional sales for the company within the following 12 months.
This is what the CEO had to say recently when we asked him for a testimonial to be put in our web site:
“Shawn Halimi Consulting is an essential resource for any CEO or senior executive who is committed to leading their organization to new, unprecedented levels of performance. They operate as partners with passion, integrity and dedication, employing their powerful methodology to build organizations that bring out the best in people while delivering outstanding business results.”
Company Profile: High-End Jewelery Manufacturer
This diamond ring manufacturing company sold 50% of its stock to an investor who was also supposed to remain as silent partner.The way, it turned out, the investor discovered that the partner had made certain misrepresentations and the company was experiencing operating losses almost immediately after the deal was closed.
We were brought in by the investor to remedy the situation. We changed the business model by disbanding local manufacturing and transferred manufacturing to Thailand, thus reducing both the cost of goods and operating expenses drastically.
The company became profitable again and was sold with a profit to a new owner.
Company Profile: Medium-Sized Sub-Contracting Company
This is a $12 company specializing in doing installation contract work for major cable companies with a staff of 200 people.
We were asked to help them with problems regarding management issues encountered with distant local branches and their staffing. Within six months the president of the company was very satisfied with the results and reported an impressive increase in his bottom line which he confired that it directly related to our intervention.
This is a $12 company specializing in doing installation contract work for major cable companies with a staff of 200 people. We were asked to help them with problems regarding management issues encountered with distant local branches and their staffing. The president of the company was very satisfied with the results and reported an impressive increase in his bottom line directly related to our intervention.
Company Profile: Niche Architecture Component Contractor
This is a specialized contractor of building products who came to us to develop a proper infrastructure for their company after 13 years of being in business and increase their annual volume of contracts, back in 2001.
After one year we implemented a new competitive bidding system that increased the contracts on hand from $2 million to $10 million.
Company Profile: New Architectural Component Manufacturing Company
This one million dollar contractor of architectural precast components which are used as decorative pieces for buildings.
The owner of this company started a business coaching relationship with us. During the course of one year, we helped increase their sales by 75%.
We developed a system for bidding and acquiring projects which has worked very well and proved invaluable in terms of acquiring new business for the company with minimum investment and capital.
Architectural precase concrete Contractor
Areas of expertise