Surround Yourself with the Right Mix of Finders, Minders AND Grinders

One of our most popular posts last fall was: Are You a Finder, Minder or Grinder? C’mon Be Honest. As expected, the vast majority of you considered yourself Finders (82%), according to our unscientific InstaPoll. Finders are the rainmakers at professional service firms. They bring in the business and cultivate relationships that turn into new business or strategic partnerships.

Of the remainder, we expected most of you to say you were Minders (i.e. project managers and supervisors). You’re the experts that focus on process and keeping the trains running on time. But, that only describes 3 percent of you. Surprisingly, one out of every seven of you (15%) described yourself as Grinders. You’re the worker bees who put your nose to the grindstone to deliver all the promises that your firm’s finders make—no matter how aggressive and far-reaching.

This imbalance also tells us that many of you are trying to fill too many roles—burning the midnight oil every night to deliver all the promises that you and your fellow partners have made to clients and high level prospects. And supervising the work. That’s not a sustainable business model or organizational structure.

Balanced talent portfolio

As Forbes contributor, Keenan Beasley explained recently, you need a balance of finders, minders and grinders. If you’re top-heavy with minders, then Beasley says nothing will get done. Your costs will go up and you won’t be able to scale. If you have a disproportionate number of grinders, very few see the big picture and too much strategy and execution falls on the founders and you won’t be able to expand profitable. If you have too many finders, Beasley says you’ll win a lot of business, but retention of both your clients and over-worked staff will suffer.

Our Take: Be especially cognizant of that last one, folks.

By moving closer to an equal balance of finders, minders and grinder, your business will grow from both a topline and bottom line perspective. The efficiency will boost your profits and free up founders/finders to do what they do best--bringing in more (and larger) clients that enable you to scale.

Generally, employees fall into just one of these classifications above, said our client Blake Christian, CPA a partner at HCVT and author of the new book: Becoming a CPA-Preneur. Make sure you have the right person with the right mindset in the right role. “Occasionally an employee will have more than one of these groups of skills. When you find them make sure you retain those gems,” said Christian.

Conclusion

But, if you’re trying to be one of those organizational triathletes yourself, you’ll eventually run out of gas before you reach the finish line. Be brutally honest about what you can and cannot do, and bring in the help you need to fill those gaps ASAP.

TAGS: Finders, Minders and Grinders, Keenan Beasley, Blake Christian

*** Take our Insta-Poll and see how you stack up to your peers.