You must fire, train, or tolerate your people– those are your only 3 choices.

And the HUGE mistake I’ve made is that I’ve tolerated poor performance.

Many of us want to be “kind” to the under-performers– hoping they will improve over time, wanting to avoid conflict.

Often they have extenuating circumstances, so we make exceptions– over and over again.

We may like them and care for them– and they may have so much potential we see in them.

But the result of letting people continue to deliver low quality, ignore (or even openly flaunt) the rules, is that they get used to it.

They become overconfident, aggressive, and entitled– then infecting other people to be the dame. Brad Lea taught me this lesson about people management– because he doesn’t “tolerate”, the only options left are to train or fire. Hire slow and fire fast.

Put 80% of your effort on your high performers and only 20% on the low performers.

Most of us get this wrong, including me– by putting 80% of our attention on the squeaky wheels– the problem causers, understandably. But that means you’re not taking care of the people doing great work– you’re penalizing them and hurting your business, too.

What do you think about this– to fire, train, or tolerate?

Dennis Yu

Dennis Yu is a former search engine engineer who has spent a billion dollars on Google and Facebook ads for Nike, Quiznos, Ashley Furniture, Red Bull, State Farm, and other organizations that have many locations. He has achieved 25% of his goal of creating a million digital marketing jobs because of his partnership with universities, professional organizations, and agencies. Companies like GoDaddy, Fiverr, onlinejobs.ph, 7 Figure Agency, and Vendasta partner with him to create training and certifications. Dennis created the Dollar a Day Strategy for local service businesses to enhance their existing local reputation and make the phone ring. He's coaching young adult agency owners who serve plumbers, AC technicians, landscapers, roofers, electricians in conjunction with leaders in these industries. Mr. Yu believes that there should be a standard in measuring local marketing efforts, much like doctors and plumbers need to be certified and licensed. His Content Factory training and dashboards are used by thousands of practitioners.

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