Recruiting and Retaining Great Employees

As Charles Dreher of Commonwealth Capital Advisors looks back on the last five months, he sees advances, setbacks, and a few hard lessons. He also understands just how difficult it can be to hire the best and brightest.

In February, Dreher, the company's executive vice president, applied to AllBusiness.com's 6 for '06 project for advice on human resources. Commonwealth needed a nationwide salesforce to sell its flagship product, the Financial Architect System, which enables entrepreneurs to seek private-equity funding at a fraction of the typical fund-raising costs.

Together with founder and Chief Executive Tim Hogan, Dreher decided to hire independent, commissioned-based "managing directors" from the very pool of professionals (lawyers, accountants, and bankers) who were buying Commonwealth's product.

But as Dreher quickly discovered, hiring is a skill that takes years to hone. In less than three short months, his first three hires -- the vice presidents of marketing and business development and the CFO -- were no longer with the company.