Imagine that you are pulling weeds out of your flower garden so that your flowers don't become choked off.

Huh?

"Just go with me on this., O.K.?"

Weed out employees that are more likely to waste your water and fertilizer before you even hire them. By that, I mean that you need to stop ultimate time wasters that will kill your customer service.

How?

Before you hire anyone, there are some things that you should do to make sure that your business will help your customers better.

First, conduct telephone interviews with applicants so that you can see how applicant will sound to your customers.

While conducting phone interview, ask yourself these questions:

1. Does applicant sound courteous and helpful?

2. Does applicant sound short or slightly grouchy?

If applicant sounds short or grouchy, then don't hire them. Then do a regular interview. During interview see how potential employee's appearance is. If potential employee comes in with raggedy clothing, or poorly groomed then don't consider applicant no matter what excuse is because if applicant doesn't care now then he/she won't later.

No matter what, if potential employee has a bad attitude during interview, then that is a major red flag. No matter how good that applicant looks. If you think that his/her attitude will change for better later then you will be in for a rude shock. Trust me on this.

Perform back round checks on each potential employee. Before doing any type of back round checks make sure that you get permission for each type of check that you plan on doing.

See if you can do a reference check with someone that employee used to work with. And when checking that reference, ask how potential employee got along with others.

If person hesitates, or beats around bush, then you may have your answer.

None of above, says Annelena Lobb, in "You Think Lilke A Million Bucks."

Kathleen Gurney, Ph.D., author of "Your Money Personality" and CEO of Financialpsychology.com. studied mindset of millionaires, and here's what they found:

1. Optimism.

2. Not critical of their own mistakes, so nothing can throw them for long.

3. They take action. They don't get locked in analysis-paralysis.

4. Instead of focusing on what's wrong or why something didn't work, they fast-forward to opportunity.

5. Master plan. i.e., Yale class of 1953 -- 3% had written down their financial goals for after college. When they convened in 1973, that 3% controlled more combined net worth than other 97% combined.