You need to hire to facilitate growth. But you need to grow in order to have the money to hire. So what do you do? Should you gamble by increasing your overheads before you’ve made enough money to afford it? Or wait until you’re certain you can cover those overheads?
To avoid becoming a small business failure statistic, you will have to roll up your sleeves and do everything yourself. You will have to wear all the hats: Setting up appointments, doing client work, handling customer queries, marketing, bookkeeping, and social media, among a plethora of other tasks that never seemed to end.
Start Small
It sounds obvious, but starting small is underrated. And thinking big is fine—but you still need to start small. Do not try to run before you know how to crawl.
Narrow your focus to one key thing that you know you’re good at—and become known for that.
Here’s why that was important when it came to hiring:
Specializing helps better assess the quality of applicants’ work. You know the job well, so you know exactly what to look for.
Starting small will allow you to experiment with what worked and what didn’t. After having tested your idea on a small scale where the stakes weren’t as high and you got immediate feedback from customers. That meant you wouldn’t overhire only to find out you had hired wrong (like the first time).
With Fewer Processes, It Is Easier To Train New Hires.
Do not hire again until your retention rate is high enough and you have enough revenue to warrant the further increase in overheads.
Focus On Projects
Try to increase awareness of the newly branded business. But goals can be squishy, so instead, break them down into projects—which will help you figure out if you would need help.
For example, you may have projects aimed at increasing awareness like handing out flyers at government buildings, private offices, and schools before proms; sponsoring vouchers at leading events in exchange for publicity; posting more on social media, and optimizing your Google My Business site.
Separate Operational Tasks From Strategic Tasks
Think about what’s filling up your plate in a day. How many of those tasks are operational, focused on the everyday running and management of the business? How many are strategic, focused on growing the business and taking advantage of market opportunities?
Of course, you have to do both. Bookkeeping is an important operational task, but it won’t help to keep books when there are no sales. Working on a giveaway to increase awareness is also important, but not having up-to-date books could land you in hot water when it’s time to file taxes.
So What You Should Do?
You should spend 20% of your time (one day a week) on strategic tasks and give yourself 80% of your time for operational tasks. According to the 80/20 rule, that 20% will actually have 80% of the impact, and that’s a good thing. Then you still have 80% of your week left to run the business—which has to be done.
If 80% of your time isn’t enough to run the business, then it’s time to hire.
Document Processes
Once you’ve mapped out your processes, it will be easier to identify which ones you’ll handle, which ones you can automate, and which ones need a new hire (not to mention which ones you really don’t need to be doing at all).
Having processes in place also will make you more confident that you could leave your hires to do their job while you focus on yours.
Consider A Contractor
Hiring an employee is expensive. Make sure you’ve properly evaluated the costs before taking the plunge. You don’t only need to account for their salary but also the cost of training, taxes, and benefits.
But remember, you don’t need to commit to a full-time hire right off the bat. You can get a virtual assistant or freelancer who will come in on a contract or project basis. You can assign them an entire project, or you can test the waters by delegating specific tasks within a project. This allows you to see if someone’s a good fit—and if the role is even necessary—before making a permanent hire.
If you decide to go the permanent route, most labor laws allow you to have a 90-day period where you can hire someone on probation. This way, if things aren’t working out, you can find someone else. The small business hiring guide takes you through the process step-by-step, but here are some things I found helpful when hiring:
Only hire when all the tasks you need done fall under one particular skill set. It doesn’t make sense to hire someone to create content and serve clients and do bookkeeping. Those skills are too divergent, and chances are you won’t be able to find someone who’ll excel at all three.
Make sure that your hire will be performing tasks that help you generate income. Any new business should be concerned with making money. Your first hires should be helping you generate income—look for apps and automation to fill in the cracks.
Find someone who is resourceful. Your first hire is going to be your most important hire: choose someone who will take the initiative to help you solve problems and find better ways to do things.
Have a proper onboarding process. Make sure your first hire sees the big picture and the details. They need to understand your vision, and you need to train them on the details.
There’s no one answer to the tough question of when (or if!) to hire. But by starting small, understanding your tasks, and auditing your processes, you’ll be in a better position to know if you actually need the help.
