Whether you’ve been in business for a while or this is your first business, there’s always going to come a time when you’ll need to start hiring people like sales people, marketing people, copywriters or those who can do user testing to help you – especially if you actually want to grow and scale the business properly without working yourself into the ground.
However, there’s simply no right time to know when you should hire a team and only you can know when the right time is right based on your own schedule and the things you want to do in order to scale the business properly.
In this post, we’re going to help you identify if now is the right time to start building your team by giving you some things to consider.
Don’t be tempted to hire family or friends:
When you’re first starting to hire people, it can be tempting to hire family and friends so that you can save some money, but this is something you should think very carefully about before going ahead and hiring people you know.
No matter how well you get along with your friends and family, mixing business with personal just never seems to end well, and it’s not worth sacrificing good relationships for the sake of trying to save some money and not being able to say the things you need to actually get done for fear of upsetting or offending people.
Be clear on what you want:
One of the first things you should do before you even start posting job ads or looking for people to hire is to get really clear on what it is you actually want and need. Take the time to do this in advance so that you can attract the right type of people and so that you’ll actually be happy with the work.
When it comes time to start posting your ad, you should be very clear on what you’re looking for and what the job entails so that there’s no confusion when it comes time to start interviewing people.
Be honest on whether it’s in the budget:
A lot of business owners love the idea of outsourcing everything they can and building a team as quickly as possible, but the fact is, you have to remember that hiring people – especially if it’s going to be full-time is a big financial commitment, so you really need to make sure that it’s in the budget and that you’ll be able to pay yourself a salary as well.
Although it’s tempting to just dive straight in and start hiring a big team, but sometimes it’s better to be patient and just start off by hiring a few freelancers and then working up to hiring more people as you go.
Consider if you’re the best person for hiring:
Although you may be great at running a company, you may not actually be the best person for hiring people to work for you, since interview skills are something that usually have to be learned, so when looking to build your team it’s worth considering if you truly are the best person to be in charge of the hiring process or if you should bring someone in who can do this for you instead.
Although this is technically hiring someone, you could also bring someone in on a contract or freelance basis each time you want to hire a new person so it’s not someone you need to constantly have on staff.
Don’t just hire the first person:
Especially if you’ve never hired anyone before, it can be tempting to get excited and overly enthusiastic when you interview someone who seems perfect – if they’re the first or one of the first people you interview then this can cloud your judgement and prevent you from hiring someone who may be more suited to the job instead and although it’s always great to like and get on with your employees, you also have to think strategically and long-term so that you can bring people in who will actually do the work and help you grow and scale your company the way you’ve planned.
Hopefully these tips have helped you see that, although hiring a team is something you should be considering if you want to grow and scale your company, it’s not as easy as simply posting a job and hiring the first person you meet – there are definitely a lot of steps that go into it and things that should be considered so that you can make the best hiring decisions and grow your company the best way.
