2 Quick Tips for Hiring Your Dream Team
So You Want to talk about hiring a team!
I put a question box in my Instagram stories and asked if there is anything business or branding related that YOU would be interested in learning a bit more about. Somebody asked about hiring, so: let’s talk hiring! I am certainly not an expert on hiring. However, I am a business owner, just like you, and I have had to figure some of these things out as my needs have shifted and grown.
The first thing I looked at when I was feeling like “oooh it might be time for me to hire” was my hourly rate. I rarely charge projects at an hourly rate, but I am familiar with what my hourly rate is. We can dive into the details of this another day, but knowing this highly simplified, un-nuanced number is helpful.
I cross-referenced that hourly rate to what I could pay somebody to do some of the tasks that I was having a hard time with and ask myself:
“Can I pay someone less per-hour than what I charge per hour?”
It’s a time/money exchange exercise and it works for me every time. When I pay someone money to buy myself time, I can focus on business growth activities (networking, sales calls, outreach, speaking, etc.) instead of task work. This, in turn, makes me more money, because I spend that time where I’m a genius, efficient, and the work I love to do.
For me, those tasks I needed to offload were things like administrative work: keeping up on emails, managing my calendar really well, getting ideas out of my head and putting together an action plan to make them happen, and helping figure out systems and processes so that I was as efficient as possible.
All of these things I knew I needed to optimize, but I didn’t have the time or capacity to do that. Because my magic is being client facing I had a hard time prioritizing anything business back-end even though I knew it was critical for business health.
How this money/time exchange works is simple:
If I can pay somebody less per hour than what I am hypothetically charging for my services per hour, I could use that time and serve more clients, making money, getting more work done, and being smarter with my time investment to focus on growth activities instead of work I’m not only bad at, I hate doing.
So I brought in someone that helped with just that. A contractor to help with processes, working through packages and pricing and helping with some of the admin tasks.
And then when our contracted time was up, I brought on someone else. This started as more of a proper virtual assistant (VA) type role, but it was BETTER than that.
Tiff came on board and just revamped everything on the backend. She made sure we were efficient and helped us understand our processes. And that alleviated a lot of my time so that I could work in the space that I am a genius; which is creating. It is not in some of these other spaces. She is!
And even though it felt a little scary, that helped remove a lot of pressure on my creative plate.
Now that I was creating more, I was able to put out more work, which brought in more clients because more people were talking about me. And more people were seeing my work because I was able to share it… which turned into more work coming in.
Eventually, I was feeling strapped again. And there are some tasks of my design job that I don’t love.
I knew I needed to offload some of the creative tasks that Tiff couldn’t do anf that I didn’t love doing, so we sought out somebody for that.
And then my first designer came on the team. She started out doing some of those tasks that were time consuming and/or I didn’t like to do. Again, this allowed more time for me to focus on the magic I make and elevated my role to be more of a creative director, set the tone, and lead. And then together we did a lot of the actual creating in tandem.
This pattern of “I need more time” and “hire out what I’m not loving” truly helped elevate me into a leader role, working ON my business and not IN my business. As a CEO, I don’t need to DO all of the tasks myself for my business to be successful.
Eventually, I hired and hired and hired to get the right people in the right place. I have multiple designers, a developer, brand strategist and copy writer, content manager, admin/project coordinator, and operations director. Each is a very specific role that needs a level of expertise I don’t hold. I play in my arena. They play in theirs. By elevating my role and partnering with others to protect my time for business growth tasks, work is still getting done, I get to stick to my zone of genius (as Tiff calls it), keep pushing my A+ work out there, and lead a team who owns the other things that are important to keep a business running.
So my first recommendation for hiring is a simple question: what can you offload from your plate that you don’t love?
Because you should love what you are doing as often as you can. Every minute of the day might not be logical, but let’s shoot for it. Love what you are doing every minute of the day.
So what are the tasks that you don’t love doing? Is that something you can offload?
My second tip for hiring: even though it’s scary, don’t be afraid.
Be logical. Make sure that this is something you can afford financially. And trust that this will bring more greatness. Don’t be afraid. Fear is not a good thing to leverage when making a decision.
Trust that goodness is coming. Learn to listen to yourself; if you’re feeling like NOW I THE TIME, do it. Even though I was afraid to bring Tiff on, and then I was afraid to bring my next hire on, and I still fee afraid to bring the next folks on, I remind myself:
The fear can be real and I can take the step.
Business ownership is scary! It’s hard! And you can do it.
A last little bonus tip: these new hires do not have to be full-time team members as you get started. You can contract with somebody that has other clients and start slowly, like 5 hours/week. There are people out there that want that work! It’s a great way to test the waters.
Get creative. Remote work is okay. Know your local regulations. And test what works for you.
It doesn’t have to be hard or scary. If you have any questions, message me! I would love to hear and help support you!
