Social Question

rexpresso's avatar

How shall I approach people I want to interview to become my assistants?

Asked by rexpresso (922points) May 11th, 2010

They say “visionary” is not something you call yourself, it’s something that others call you. Anyway, I believe I am a visionary. Still, I am one without a proper track record of visions brought to fruition.

My inventiveness is too fast for me to seem to be able to get a grip on myself. I am constantly taking notes and tagging my Evernote.com database of 3200+ notes (not all of them are ideas by far, but anyway)

I feel unable to do the big things I have on my mind without help. I need to team up with enthusiastic people. I am sure that partnering with the right people, I will have many interesting plans laid on paper and then they will be given a try.

I am not thinking of business partners per se. I am more thinking of people that would like to give it a try/trial and see how it goes. Perhaps even offering them a percentage of my potential personal profits (not company profits — this is not my original idea anyway, allotting shares of one’s salary)

Okay so the thing is, how to I approach these people I have been shortlisting, and say something like “hey I’m this guy with many ideas, I want to expand on each of them, I want to draw the map, I want to guarantee the follow through, I want help with the details, I want complementarity and a willingness to let me inspire and give guidelines and accept delegation, I want intelligence, I want enthusiasm, etc. etc…

With such a vague description of what I want to do, can you give me a hand? I asked a few friends to give me references of friends they think could be good assistants for me. I am considering going with a handful of people simultaneously and distributing workload. Not everyone will be available full-time, actually I doubt any will. So, how do I value partial availability… and how do I make my proposition look stimulating without looking like an uninteresting madman’s never-to-become-real vision?

Please let me know of anything else you would like to know, as long as you don’t want to ask about my concrete ideas… just let me tell you that I am sure that many of these ideas are seriously profitable. Some are kind of a question mark, but others clearly have a market, as some are even refined reimplementations of foreign concepts.

Just to finalize… I am a guy of a broad range of knowledge and even skills, but my ADD prevents me from being perserverant and focused, so I dream of surrounding myself with people with whom I can share my knowledge and technique, share tools that I know of, etc. that I can even teach them about, and once they know how to use them, they don’t even need to be specialized managers or whatever to get the necessary work done… they just need willingness to be firm while working with me, accept responsibility for being autonomous enough while working with me to get all the creativity rolling for real.

So it’s about finding a certain personality type that will fit well with this “madness” of mine, working with me to come up with a “method” that gets stuff done.

Even if I have already shortlisted some people, feel free to suggest on types of people / specific education that you feel could be a good match.

Thanks for reading up to now — much appreciated! I hope this is not excessively complex and that someone will be able to help me ; )

P.S.: I’m the kind of controversial/polemic person, that supports controversial causes, speaks up about them, etc.. I need people with open minds that are not lazy. I realize many people with open minds are lazy..

P.P.S.: in addition to doing commercial ideas, I also have ideas for social projects, stuff that has an impact on the world without necessarily being for money. I guess the ideal assistants will be enthusiastic about helping me with this mix.. or shall I keep it separated, some people for business and others for non-profit?

P.P.P.S.: I didn’t mention secretarial etc. work concretely, but I would really like someone to help me / coach me / keep up with my schedule / make sure I make it to appointments / debriefs with me to extract and follow up on what’s important / helps extract value / etc..

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11 Answers

DrBill's avatar

Just get the word out that your looking for a research assistant.

Try pitching your idea to groups to see who might be interested.

evandad's avatar

Offer them money

Jeruba's avatar

Can you say that you are putting together a team for the purpose of developing some ideas with a view to marketing them? and that you are looking for capable people to focus on aspects of the task that aren’t your strengths? This might sound a lot more appealing than the idea of “assistants.”

The big question is whether you propose to hire them—meaning pay them—or you’re looking for people who will make a major commitment of time and effort and creativity to bring your ideas to fruition for no money. I wouldn’t predict a great deal of success for the latter unless you were also offering them a “ground floor” opportunity to share in real profits.

partyparty's avatar

I think your idea of getting a secretary is absolutely vital. You seem to be very absorbed in what you are doing, and therefore need someone to organise you. He/she could keep you in the ‘real world’ with appointments etc.
Regarding the assistants. Check out local groups or organisations, post notices or even telephone them stating exactly what you are looking for. Good luck

Cruiser's avatar

You sound sincere enough and my suggestion, if you haven’t done so already, would be to put together a business plan and a short list of some of your better “visions” with short descriptions of how and why these are worthy of their time and commitment to your other ideas and future visions. Include if you can their roles and responsibilities and how the potential for financial reward will play out. Without this you may be perceived as a bit of a loose cannon with no real vision of what you feel the need to do.

rexpresso's avatar

Thanks for all the feedbacks.

As for money, I have no money at all… will need to motivate perhaps with the perspective of a share of my personal profits in the future.

I have some work done in terms of outlining my ideas, but nothing too complex… I really can’t seem to focus long enough.

So, a proper business plan (or many) will only happen when I am working with people that can help me get beyond my shortcomings.

There are some elements from your feedbacks that I will use to compose an approach email. I will then share it with you, to see what you think.

In the meantime, let me know if you have any further ideas.

Thanks and all the best!

CMaz's avatar

“Perhaps even offering them a percentage of my potential personal profits”

Sorry, you sound like a used car salesman. @evandad is right. You have to offer them something more then being in the presence of a great “visionary.”
If what you say is true. The proof will be in the podding.

anartist's avatar

You are looking for a dogsbody without having any money. However good your ideas might be, you seem to have attracted neither backers not believers. Since you are male, if you are at all attractive, I suspect your next step will be to become involved with some woman willing to be a slave to a great-man-in-waiting.

rexpresso's avatar

@anartist Well I would not say dogsbody because I am sure that many people actually love to do the things that I don’t like at all. Anyway, I will then become involved with a few women at the same time then (with their consent..) — sexy team.

anartist's avatar

You disturb me. You seem to have all the makings of a cult leader.

rexpresso's avatar

@anartist I hope you didn’t take me seriously… although anyway I am a polyamorist, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyamory but I don’t like the idea of having intimate relationships mix with mission purposes. Anyway I’ll take your fear of me as a cult leader as a compliment as I believe it’ll be a great thing when I have such potential of positive influence on people. At the same time I am already very publicly against cult of personality and pseudoscience, so whatever entrepreneurial structure I end up devising will be shielded from marching to the dark side..

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