Upsize is a magazine with a single mission: to help Minnesota's small-business owners build bigger and more profitable companies, and to connect CEOs with the people, products and ideas they need to grow.
Issue link: http://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/66695
Q&A Best of Upsize growing with the company are adaptable, flexible, ready to change, self-improving. If somebody wants to come here and work and think they will do the same thing every day, that's not a good fit with our culture. Upsize: Do you make an effort to find that right kind of person? Bollin: Absolutely. Right now we're inter- viewing for a warehouse manager. We have interviewed 38 applications to 11 to seven to two. It's going to come down to personal- ity, being able to fit into our culture. I don't want anyone to come in here and change us; they need to be adaptable to how we are. Character and personality are what it comes down to if you're going to get a job here. You've got to be able to be a team- mate. You can't be an "it's always about me" person. Upsize: So how do you find those things out about someone, when everybody's on their best behavior during interviewing? Bollin: We're using a personality test. It's an in-depth personality test working with a consultant. She will tell me, "this is the personality of this candidate." We hired her to do a leadership retreat with us. As we're growing so fast, we don't have time to bring in the wrong person; that's too big of a hic- cup. We don't want to lose our momentum. Competing: Bollin on the barrel circuit Bollin: It didn't take long. The first summer we had jeans we took them to Winstock, which is a country music festival in Win- sted, Minnesota, and women were trying them on and they would buy two or three pairs. I was like, Thank God, because it was a huge adventure. Upsize: It must have been a big investment, to design and order many pairs of jeans. Upsize: Have you always done this? It's unusual to hear about a detailed hiring pro- cess at a small business. Bollin: We've learned the hard way, getting strong personalities in here that clashed that have a different vision of what they want out of a job. It's really getting everybody involved that needs to work with this person. I'm sure that the person interviewing—they have to feel quite grilled when they get out of here. Upsize: How long after starting to sell jeans did you know you were on the right track? COMMERCIAL REAL ESTATE Using a tenant rep for space search "Very few small businesses hire a tenant repre- sentative to help them find the right office, retail or industrial space. Often a small-business owner doesn't want to delegate the job. Or, they may feel the modest scale of their needs precludes them from representation. But the truth is tenant reps are equipped and eager to help vir- tually all businesses — often free of charge. And by handing off the process to a pro, small-business owners in particular end up saving many hours on a search process that can last anywhere from two weeks to six months. Those are oppor- tunity costs that can quickly add up, and keep owners from daily duties related to their core business and competencies." Barb Ankrum Cave & Associates 651.482.9668; bankrum@officehere.com This expert's advice was taken from an article that ap- peared in Upsize. To see the entire article: CLICK HERE 8 UPSIZE ONLINE THE GROWTH GUIDE 2012 Bollin: Actually I got kind of lucky, because this actual factory had a minimum of only 500, and that's much lower than many oth- ers. You have to put 20 percent down when you place an order. Within two weeks from submitting a design to this factory, I get a sample and then I decide if I want to put it in a line. Then the sample sales people go out and get as many pre-orders for these jeans as they can. We have those pre-orders in hand before we decide to produce. Upsize: Our Upsize Business Builder of the Year contest judges, especially the banker and the accounting firm executive, were impressed with your focus on profit mar- gins. How did you develop that? LAW You can reduce fraud risk in any business 'marriage' "Trust begins to erode in a business relation- ship when one partner has sole control of the finances and limits the other partners' access to information. Even if nothing dishonest is taking place, suspicion and conflict frequently ensue when an owner has reason to believe information is withheld or manipulated. Each partner should have ready access to all business and financial information, including bank account and payroll records, vendor contracts, accounts receivable and payable, customer lists and employee data." Molly Hamilton & Mark Larson Messerli & Kramer, Attorneys at Law mhamilton@messerlikramer.com; 612.672.3672 mlarson@messerlikramer.com; 612.672.3634 This expert advice was taken from an article that appeared in Upsize. To see the entire article: CLICK HERE www.upsizemag.com