Serial entrepreneur, celebrated advisor to millions of small business and mid-sized company owners, and author of the NO B.S. GUIDE TO RUTHLESS MANAGEMENT OF PEOPLE AND PROFITS, Dan Kennedy says:
People who can't be ruthless when needed, as soon as is needed, should not be running businesses.
There is a single mandated, overriding responsibility that must govern the business owner's every decision: maximizing profits. Everything and everyone must be viewed through that lens; does this product, service, activity, investment, employee, vendor, client contribute sufficiently to this business' profit? If not, gotta go.
In Chapter 5 of this book, I simply describe your primary business essential, what I call 'The Program.' This lays out "how things are supposed to be done around here." Then it is up to you to insist on adherence to and implementation of YOUR Program – which should be designed to facilitate maximum profits in your business. People who refuse to "get with The Program" must be decisively, ruthlessly sent packing. Chapter 6 gets to a crucial decision: what kind of employee do you want? When asked that, most business owners bumble, fumble and stumble....use words like "good" (hopelessly vague), "loyal" (unrealistic and unreasonable – it's your business, not theirs)...etc., when the only sane answer is: a profitable employee. And the first step to assembling a team of profitable employees is to ruthlessly eliminate the unprofitable ones.
If you cannot bring yourself to (a) define your Program, (b) measure profits and the profitability of each employee, in part by their adherence to your Program, and (c) ruthlessly toss aside unprofitable employees sooner not later, you will never optimize profits in your business.