How am I supposed to know when to hire someone for my business?
Every business owner struggles with this question at some point. Whether you are just starting out or you have some years under your belt, it can be challenging to know when it makes sense to hire someone to help you.
When you first start out, you are your copywriter, marketing director, sales manager and social media person (among many other hat-wearing positions). But that can quickly begin to interfere with you actually running your business. After all, it’s hard to provide your service to clients when your schedule is full of those other tasks.
The decision includes financial considerations (“Do I have the money to hire someone right now?”), questions about the amount of help needed (“Do I need someone part-time, full-time, or just on an as-needed basis?”), and also the question of whom to hire (“Should I hire a student from a co-op, a professional, someone from a temp agency or a virtual assistant?”).
So how do you know that it might be time to hire someone? Here are three situations that are good indicators that it’s time to bring in some help.
You have to turn down work because you don’t have the time.
YOUR main job is to serve your clients, but there are things you are also doing that someone else can do. Identify those things that are taking up the time you now need. What can be done by someone else; accounts receivable/payable, scheduling, answering the phones/taking messages, social media posting, marketing/advertising?
Once you have that list, consider what you can automate. Are there things that you can spend less time on, setting it up once and then letting it automatically run for you in the background? Are there things that you need an actual person to do? Get clear on the different ways you can get some of your time back by delegating tasks to either a machine or a person.
Remember, you have a set amount of time available to you each day. Do a time audit to make sure you are using the time you have to do the things that no one else but you can do. In this situation, consider the cost of not hiring. At some point, continuing to try and do it all yourself may be detrimental to your business.
If you need some time back to do the things only you can do for your business, it’s time to hire someone.
You need or want to do something that’s beneficial to your business, but you don’t have that knowledge or expertise.
Every single day there are new things to learn, new tools to market your business, and more ways to generate revenue. First, know that you don’t have to do everything! As a matter of fact, please do not do everything - that is a sure way to burn out, spread yourself too thin, and never really connect fully to the people you want to serve. Want some great advice? Focus and Commit, whether that’s on a single product or service you offer, a specific social media channel you’re using to connect and build an audience, or a routine you’ve put into place because it will help you reach your goal.
In this situation, you have a choice. Once you decide where you want to put your focus and commitment, you can either educate yourself or hire someone who already has that knowledge to help you. If you truly have an interest in learning more about what you are diving into, then do that! However, if you see the value but don’t need to be the one actually ‘pushing the buttons,’ hire someone else to do that part.
A good example of this is Facebook ads. If that is something you want to use for your business, you can certainly learn how to put ads together and how to run them effectively. However, if you are not interested in keeping up with the ever-changing pace and policies, it will quickly become a frustration that will steal your time and ramp up your stress levels.
Do you need someone with a specific skill set? If the answer is yes, and that person is not you, it's time to hire someone.
Administrative work is falling through the cracks.
It’s great to think about actually providing our services and selling the products we believe in, but with business comes paperwork (even if that paperwork is paperless!).
You have bills, invoices, and contracts among other things that need to be done in a timely manner. If you regularly forget to pay some bills because you were “too busy working with clients,” you may lose access to future resources and cost yourself a lot of unnecessary money in late fees. If you fall behind on invoicing, you won’t have revenue coming in to pay those bills, invest in additional resources, or pay anyone who needs to be paid (including yourself!).
The great news about paperwork is that it’s something you can hire someone to do for you that doesn’t need a lot of training about your business. It’s a task, and an important one at that, but it’s often not industry-specific.
If time-sensitive paperwork starts falling through the cracks, it’s time to hire someone.
As your business grows, you will at some point need to hire someone to help with some aspect of it. When that time comes, get clear on what you want or need that person to do. Get really clear on that! What exactly are their tasks, responsibilities, how are they helping you and your business? Knowing that will not only help you to find the right person for the job, but also save you the time and money that you are looking for by bringing them on. This will allow you to take your business to the next level.
