Friday June 5th, 9:16 am

I'm can't fire people. Well, let's just say I've had to do it but I'm not good at it. The worst part is a tend to avoid it until something really triggers "I have a no other choice" type of moment. Somebody I know outside of work always would tell me that I must learn to separate business and personal. I know what that person means and if I was able to do that more often, I'd probably have a different business all together.

Maybe larger. Maybe more anonymous. Less of a family and more corporate perhaps. But instead I have a small boutique where we all work in such close quarters, we either love or hate each other. Luckily, the staff I have now, we seem to all get along. I see that most of the girls are close. And I find that I am close to most of them each in a different way.

So instead of letting someone go when something isn't right, I tend to try to change the situation first. Ask for improvement. Explain why I'm asking. Share what is bothering me. But what do you do when you've done all that and something is still off. It's tough. I always say if I had all the money in the world, I would keep good hearted people employed just as my way of giving back to the world. That's one of the benefits of having your own business. You can help people. But what do you do when the bottom line still counts? And it's a recession? and worst of all when you know the person deep down is probably not doing their best. For personal reasons perhaps. Or just needing a change from this business. Who knows.

Whatever it is, it makes things tough on me. The good news is, although these decisions are tough, I always find that once the decision has been made and the hard part is over, it always turns out to have been the right decision for both parties involved. When my instincts say something is wrong..there usually is.

That being said, it doesn't make the moments leading up to the final decision any easier. I sometimes ask myself what makes agent #1 perform better than agent #4. I only have 4 agents currently. It's easy to track.

They have the same resources, similar listings to work with, same potential for working with our referrals, same advertising, same web site, etc. Then I remember, it's them. It's their energy, motivation, their sales style, the vibe they give off. When I remember it's not me, it makes things a little bit easier. But not really. I am not good at firing people. And maybe if I was, I wouldn't be who I am deep down anyways, I'd be a different person with no heart. So I guess I'm Ok with that.

To be continued.