Only one of every 5 businesses makes it to its 5th year, and fewer still make it to 10 years. What do successful businesses have in common?

1.The experience and skills of top managers. Over half of business failures are directly related to managerial incompetence.

2.The energy, persistence and resourcefulness (the will to make business succeed) of top managers. Many business owners have failed or come close several times before their “instant” success. Don’t give up.

3.A product that is at least a cut above competition and service that doesn’t get in way of people buying. There must be a compelling reason to buy; product is great, people love to provide service, and buying experience is easy and fun.

4.The ability to create a “buzz” around product with aggressive and strategic marketing. Make scarce marketing resources count. Do as much homework about your customers and their choices as you can before investing your marketing dollars.

Recruiting and hiring are often done in haste, leaving company to repent in long run. Today, there’s a reason to be concerned about negligent hiring. Negligent hiring means you and your company can be sued if one of your hires injures other employees, especially if you could have foreseen a problem but did not do a thorough check of new employee before hiring.

The following list of five essential hiring practices establishes minimum you should follow:

1. Require outside testing. Allow a competent, impartial professional interviewer to administer both paper and pencil and verbal tests. Professional testing firms can administer valid psychological tests for intelligence, stability, even determinations of addictive or dishonest personalities, as well as skills tests of important technical abilities in your workforce. I find testing often validates a suspicion I already had but wasn’t yet ready to come to terms with.