How to Hire people without revealing Secrets

How can you hire people without revealing your "secret processes". By "secret" I mean when you tell them they can just walk off and do it themselves and set up competition.

Is the trick to hire multiple different people all with a specific role but are in the dark about the overall process.

If you are worried about your employees stealing your business model, your competitors will eat you alive...

it depends on who you hire i guess... i had the same problem a year or so ago. I made the designer/programmer enter into an NDA, but was still worried. At the end of the day he completed the project and didnt seem to show any interest in trying to compete with me.

I guess a "good idea" is in the eye of the beholder, and many professional coders etc have seen these ideas from non-technical people come and go so often they just wouldnt be interested, or see the potential value in what you are doing.

With that being said, it is easier if you stick to hiring people from your own country i guess where an NDA could definitely be enforced without much hassle or expense.

Yep, either non compete, NDA or simply break your projects into parts. For instance I have a writer create a very general article, I spin and format the article like I want it, send it to someone else to do web 2.0's, pay another to back link the web 2.0 tier etc... and so on....

Also remember, most people out there do not think like us! We're driven, entrepreneurial minded people, whereas I like to refer to most people out there as "sheep." They're just following the herd, doing what everyone else is doing (j.o.b.) and happy driving a civic and playing Angry Birds! ..............and that's my lesson for today folks!

DaShow22 said:

Also remember, most people out there do not think like us! We're driven, entrepreneurial minded people, whereas I like to refer to most people out there as "sheep." They're just following the herd, doing what everyone else is doing (j.o.b.) and happy driving a civic and playing Angry Birds! ..............and that's my lesson for today folks!

Click to expand...

Hilarious but so true!! LOL

An nda is only effective if the country they're working in will honor it. Most big software companies split projects into sections so nobody has the full source.

If the people are not smart enough, you can give them work without telling the secret.

I don't think you can completely eliminate the risk when hiring people if you want to run a professional business. The longer people are with you, the more responsibility they will have, the more you trust them and frankly, the more they should know since you don't want to be spending your time constantly "covering your tracks".

I have a number of real employees. Having people "steal your ideas" and become a competitor is simply part of this business... and just about every other business. I'm not particularly concerned about it too much anymore, although I used to be. Have I had people go off on their own after learning parts of the business from me? Absolutely. But, I already have lots of competitors, I'm really not very upset by it.

I've also learned that there is a big difference between being "able" to do something, and actually "doing" it. Most people won't actually "do it"... even though they have the same knowledge, and in many cases, more knowledge.

I've learned most of what I know about SEO right here on this forum. Its not a "secret". Lots of people join and have access to the same information.

I look for people who have an "employee" mindset. I interview people as if it were any other job they were applying for with any other company. I treat my few employees very well... hopefully giving them no particular reason to want to leave or "screw with my business". I want people who are used to having a "job" and I try to give them one!

I also give them email accounts on my system that I have complete access to, and they have a phone line and voice mail on my system as well... so I don't make it easy for them "steal customers".

Some of the data entry job could be done by overseas folks.. that way it's harder to connect the dots.

And I 100% agree that most of the ppl are sheeps, they are OK to be told what to do and get paid.

My opinion is that business is more about execution than about secrets. In certain areas this may not be true, but in the majority of businesses, it is just that you do it better than the guy next to you.

There's some great points given above, but personally I think you can't. It applies to every industry. Contract or not, an entrpreneur will find a way to do it.

The bottom line is that you've got to be the best. Business is business after all.

It's the comfort zone that defined a businessmen to employee....