Growing Beyond a Solopreneur: Hiring a Strong Team

As your business grows, one of the hardest decisions you’ll need to make is hiring help. Bringing on the right staff to help you build your business becomes necessary when you’re losing business because you don’t have more people to do the work — essentially causing you to turn away potential clients and/or business. If this describes your situation, then your next step is figuring out how to hire employees for your LLC. This post will provide some helpful tips to aid you in hiring the right group of individuals for maximum efficiency and productivity.

Why Should a Small Business Hire Employees?

When you are a solopreneur, you can only do so much in a given day. To take some of the responsibility off your plate for certain aspects of your business, you need to figure out how to hire employees and choose the best fit for your support staff. Hiring the right staff can make your life much easier! Allowing someone to help manage your business by reminding you of important dates and keeping your business in good standing with the state can put your mind at ease and take some of the workload off your shoulders. If you're thinking of hiring your first employee, check out our payroll tax calculator to see what taxes you'd need to pay.

One thing you’ll need to realize is that you’re going to need to spend money to make money. Instead of a cost, think of hiring the right staff as an investment. You wouldn't put your money into investments that will yield little return, right? So, you need to go through the hiring process with a fine-tooth comb and be extremely selective with the people you consider hiring.

How to Hire the Right Staff for Your Small Business

Terry Starbucker, a service company executive, laid out some guidelines on his blog that I wholeheartedly agree with when it comes to hiring employees. Here is a summary of his guidelines with my take on each:

1. Hire People Who Are Smarter Than You

We all have egos — we want people to look to us for knowledge as if we know it all. News flash: we don’t. But when it comes to small business hiring, you have to realize that to grow you'll need the right people in the right positions. This might mean you'll end up relinquishing some of the control. Ideally, you'll be handing it off to someone who is capable of taking responsibility, running with it and helping you build your company.

You might not be the most knowledgeable when it comes to marketing; maybe your wheelhouse is sales. So why waste time, money and effort trying to wrap your head around marketing when you can hire someone better suited for the position? Hiring someone better at marketing than you lets you focus on your own strengths and worry about selling instead.

Taking this first step is going to be a scary and uncomfortable one. But when you see how amazing an individual is in the right position and realize how much you can now focus on other aspects of your business, you will certainly be happy! Many people worry only about the financial side of hiring the right staff. However, if you can spend more time selling and bringing extra money into the business, that revenue can be used to help pay your new hire. Essentially, hiring the right staff can eventually pay for itself.

2. Don't Hire "Yes People"

In business, not all ideas are automatically good ideas. Because of this, you need people to be brutally honest with you. If someone doesn’t think an idea will benefit the company, you need them to speak up and explain intelligently and respectfully why they believe so. The last thing you want is someone agreeing with everything you say; it's no use hiring someone who will just say “yes” to everything because they're too afraid to speak their mind.

Many employees assume disagreeing with the boss will get them fired, but in reality the opposite is generally true. If your employees can intelligently disagree about why something isn’t in the best interest of the business, it could save the company (and you) a lot of time and money. In essence, the employee who speaks up can save you from taking an expensive and time-consuming path just to reach a dead end.

3. Hire Leaders

While it’s difficult to know up front if someone is a leader or not, you can always check their resume and see if they’ve held leadership-type positions or roles with previous employers. You want someone who can set high goals and standards while being willing to hold others accountable. This person should be able to give you the truth about whether or not projects are going to be done in time, and be honest if they aren’t. At the same time, you want them to be able to explain how they're going to attempt to make it work if challenges arise, rather than just throwing their hands in the air and giving up.

This individual should be a self-regulator. You want to be able to put them in a position where they can grab the ball and run with it. Avoid hiring people you'll need to micromanage; your time will be wasted constantly looking over their shoulder asking about what they're doing or have done today. Instead, put the right staff in a leadership role and let them do their thing. Obviously, you can explain that they should let you know if they ever need help, have questions or want to bounce around ideas. Otherwise, let them get to work and stay out of their way.

As you move through different stages of your business structure, employees will be essential for continued growth. Take the tips and guidelines found in this article and apply them to your own business. When you feel you are ready to take the next step and bring on employees to handle key areas of your business, put out a notice that you are hiring including the positions you are seeking. From there, vet each applicant and interview the ones you believe are good candidates.

If you've hired great folks and are still finding yourself too busy, consider some services from Bizee. We can help you stay on top of completing your Annual Report, filing your business taxes and more. Contact us today to learn how our assistance can keep you efficiently managing your new employees instead of wrapped up in paperwork.