Episode 16: Getting Rid of Toxic Relationships

In this episode of "Bella In Your Business", Bella discusses getting rid of “bad apples” otherwise known as bad relationships.  At some point in your personal or professional life you have had that person who is a vampire of your time or energy.  And they can be very influential in your life. You need to constantly take inventory because it is said you are the sum of the 5 closest people in your life. Bella says she sees a lot of pet business owners not “trimming the fat”  of these toxic relationships when it is really necessary and they end up with “tummy aches”. Bella Has Dealt With Bad Apples... Bella confesses that she has had to deal with "bad apples" over the years.  She reminds us that some "bad apples" may not have started that way.  Life can change people.  And sometimes it is even harder to get rid of someone if your relationship with them started out great. Consequences To Keeping Neg There are many negative things that can result from keeping "bad apples" in your company.  For one, it could put you in a bad mood and that might spill out in the next conversation you have with a client or another employee.  You may be disappointed in yourself because you know that you are being walked all over.  Or you might feel stressed or scared over what retaliation might happen if you do dissolve or walk away from that relationship. These types of toxic relationships are like a disease.  They can continue to grow and take over more and more of your life and spoil a lot of things.  We need to protect ourselves, our business, and our employees. Are YOU The Bad Apple? Of course, it doesn’t always have to be a bad worker.  Sometimes YOU can be the “bad apple” as sometimes it is a bad boss.  Are you the one creating bad relationships? For instance, if  instead of helping and building up employees who seem to ask the same questions all the time, you lose your patience and yell at them.  Bella references a recent article that points to bad bosses as being among the chief reason people leave their jobs. But whether you or one of your employees is the bad apple, not addressing it can have consequences on your business.  It can affect morale if employees see you treating another employee badly or if you accept bad behavior from another.  If you allow a “bad apple” to stick around it takes the power away from you for running your business.  For instance,  if someone has a lot of job responsibilities and they develop a chip on their shoulder it could bring about a negative attitude that will multiply when you bring in others to start taking on some of that person’s responsibilities. So when people have a “bad apple”, why don’t they take care of it right away? Fear.  They might be afraid that by getting rid of that person there is some service or benefit that person still supplies that they will lose. Don't Fear The Break Up Of The Bad Relationships: It could be fear of retaliation or of getting sued.  For that fear Bella suggests that you have a good team of legal and HR professionals you use who can help guide you through the correct process.  She points out that fear is just not understanding information.  Bella says that if you have more information and knowledge you are more able to make better decisions in life.  Do not let fear hold you back! There is also a fear of who you will get to replace the “bad apple”.  To that, Bella says always be hiring.  Even when you think you don’t really have the business to support a new hire, still consider it.  Because, if you find the right candidate and you have the right pricing structure and strategies in place, you can be instantly boosting business and getting the new person some work. Another fear is that  of the unemployment rate going up.  Many business owners are afraid that the terminated employee will file for unemployment potentially causing their unemployment rate to go up.  Bella says, once again,  the best way to overcome that fear is to educate yourself.  Call up your state’s Department of Labor and find out what it would mean if the terminated employee filed. But, don’t be afraid to fire them even if your unemployment is going up.  Just compare that increase to what it may cost you by  maybe ticking off some of your best clients or missing out on opportunities or not having your sanity day to day. Is It Really Them, Or You? One final important point that Bella stresses is that once you realize that an employee is a “Bad Apple”, and you choose to keep them on staff, they are no longer the problem. You are!  You are the problem.  Holding on to "bad apples", in addition to giving you headaches, will hold your business back from becoming everything you dreamed it would be.  You have every right to build the team you want, with great relationships, and people that work well with you! Just remember, you are going to get back what you give.  If you show people that you appreciate them and that you care, they will give that back to you tenfold.   But if you are constantly struggling with hiring and finding the right people for you business, or you are having trouble with people respecting your business, or there is a constant struggle with your team, you might just want to take a deep look inside yourself.  It’s just possible that you might just be the “bad apple”! Transcript: This is episode 16 of Bella in Your Business. Welcome to Bella in Your Business, where Bella will discuss anything and everything about your pet sitting business to help you land on target. So get ready—Bella’s got your chute. Let’s jump. Welcome to Bella in Your Business. This is a podcast for all pet business professionals, highlighting your questions and giving you resources to make the most of your business. I invite you to leave me some feedback on iTunes or Stitcher, and if you're listening on one of those platforms, I encourage you to subscribe so that you can always know when there's a new episode. The show format is simple: one topic, about 20 minutes, chock full of ideas and motivation for you to use and think about in your business. I am Bella Vasta, the founder of Jump Consulting. Why Jump? Well, starting or expanding a business is much like jumping out of an airplane, and I have your chute. So let's get into today's topic—the bad apple. I know that in your personal or professional life, at some point you have had that person that is just a vampire of your time and energy. Those kinds of people can be very influential in our lives. I want you to constantly be taking inventory of the people that are closest to you. As many people say, you are the sum of the closest five people in your life. This is so true for business as well. We have staff, most of us, and those staff members can either be great for us as the business owners or a big amount of our time. Twenty percent of the staff could take up eighty percent of our time, right? I see a lot of pet sitters or pet business owners, myself included, not trimming the fat, so to speak, when it's really necessary. And if they don't do that, they end up with tummy aches. Today I want to talk about that tummy ache and I want to help avoid that for you. I myself have gone through this in the many years that I've had a company. Recently, I sold my pet sitting company, but before I actually sold it, I did have a couple of bad apples. The toughest part about everything is that they're not always bad apples. They actually could be, or start off, pretty darn amazing—amazing workers, amazing attitudes, coming from a place of yes. But the thing that happens is life, and sometimes life changes us. Because our relationship may have started off so well with an individual, it's very hard for us to pull the trigger to actually leave this individual. This is very similar to life as well. I'm sure many of us could even think back to a romantic relationship that we stayed in when we probably shouldn't have or stayed in longer than what we really needed to. But oftentimes we do need to bang our head against the wall more than once to make sure that it still bleeds. Keeping people like this around in your life or your business might put you in a bad mood, and that might spill out to the next conversation with a client or another pet sitter of yours. You might feel very disappointed in yourself because you know that you're being walked all over. You might feel very stressed and scared. You're not sure what kind of retaliation might happen if you dissolve that relationship or walk away from it. There's a lot of fear-based reasons that keep us in bad relationships for a long time. From personal experience, it's kind of like a disease or a bacteria. It grows and takes over more and more of your life—to the point that it could honestly spoil a lot. So we want to protect ourselves, our business, the ones that we love, and the ones that we've hired to work for us. While I'm saying this, it isn't always just a bad worker. It could also be you at the top of the pyramid, right? It could be a bad boss. I recently posted an article from Entrepreneur Magazine on my Jump Consulting Facebook page, and it talked about how workers don't necessarily leave because of the job; they leave because of their boss. So what kind of boss are you? Do you build people up—even if they're asking you the same question for the tenth time? Do you know that it's worth the investment and the deep breath to answer it again? Or are you just yelling at them and saying, "I already told you this! Why aren't you listening to me?" I also experienced another thing where someone else took over a company, and the people underneath them were once happy with the former leader, but the new leader just didn't do it right. Slowly but surely, everyone kind of left. So as we talk about that bad egg, I want you all to think about: is it me? Because sometimes it could be you—either long-term or temporary. It's really important to be aware of these kinds of things.