Lessons from the Outfield on How to Run a Business

Lessons from the Outfield on How to zulauf a BusinessLessons from the Outfield on How to Run a BusinessLessons from the Outfield on How to Run a Business RossheimWhether youre managing a major league baseball team with a nine-figure salary budget or a small business with a six-figure payroll, your talent and how you manage it makes all the difference in how to run a businesssuccessfully.With that in mind, lets look at some of the greatest baseball movies of all time for lessons in maximizing small-business talent managementin the 2010s.The Rookie Stage a Big Comeback In the 2002 based-on-a-true-story flick The Rookie, Dennis Quaids Jim Morris tosses off his hard-luck past to return to the mound at age 39 and surprise everyone with a 98 mile-per-hour fastball.If your business can harness the right talent, you might be able to overcome tough odds imposed by the long, deep downturn of the 2000s and have another shot at the bigs.The small employers that are getting the best people are thinking big and have thrown recession mentality off the train theyre not trying to hire people on sale, says Roberta Matuson, principal of Matuson Consulting and author of The Magnetic Workplace.To attract interest from top talent, youve got to communicate what sets your company apart from the competition. The whole concept is to be different as a company, and you have to let people know what youre doing differently, says Matuson.Small businesses get an edge in the war for talentby scouting for promising people in creative ways.Very small firms can promote themselves by partnering with classes at local colleges and universities, says George Cook, professor of absatzwirtschaft at the Simon School of Business at the University of Rochester.Baseball Takeaway Swing for the fences to hire the right talent. Moneyball Talent Management by the NumbersWho are your best prospects and where in your organization might talent be deployed less than optimally? Take a nod from Brad Pitts Billy Bea ne in Moneyballand look to the numbers to discover your competitive people advantage.Think of Jonah Hills Paul DePodesta. Dont depend entirely on hunches gained through the interview processand references hand-picked by the candidate.In interviews, we look at how people carry themselves, how they tell their stories, says Kevin Meyer, a senior consultant with Hogan Assessments, a provider of talent measurement tools. A scientific instrument gives you more systematic answers about how people can perform.The numbers that come out of behavioral assessments can help you focus your talent searches on what will most likely matter to your businesss bottom line. Among other things, interviews are a measure of social skills, which are important for sales, for example, says Meyer. But in many roles, being witty or charismatic is less relevant.You may also want to consider hiring moneyball marketing talent to mine your data and tap into new markets as well as old opportunities that you might h ave missed.Baseball Takeaway Use data to tap outfield talent.Field of Dreams If you Build a absatzwirtschaft Team, Customers Will ComeAs the owner and creator of a product or tafelgeschirr, its all too easy to believe that your baby will attract all the attention by way of its intrinsic beauty.But when it comes to running a business, if you build it, they will come is really just a magical philosophy best left to fantasy films like Field of Dreams.Some businesses dont always see the value in marketing, says Karen Mishra, professor at the Meredith College School of Business in Raleigh, N.C. Marketing seems intuitive, so the owners try to do it themselves. With no professional marketers on board, thats a mistake.So if youve been sent to the showers in the early innings by disappointing sales volume, rebuild with a long-term investment in the stuff of sustainable growth hiring marketing talent.Its all about pulling the talent in toward you, where employees love to work and customers lo ve to do business, says Matuson.To recruit top marketing talentwho likely will be tempted by bigger enterprises with more to offer up front, dangle the opportunity to be a strategic partner in the business.Small businesses give their marketing people much more authority than large corporations do, says Roger Beahm, professor of marketing at Wake Forest University. Just make sure that your marketing leadership does take part in the companys top-level decisions, not just marketing matters.Performance-based pay often given lip service by large corporations can be a lot more meaningful in a small business context. Let marketing talent benefit financially, and in a public way, from the fruits of their labor, says Beahm.Baseball Takeaway Make a winning play for marketing talent.