195: Growth vs Scale: How to Decide When (& Who) to Hire in Your Business

Welcome to the She Thinks Big! Podcast. Get ready to level up your thinking and expand your horizons. I’m your host, Andrea Liebross, your guide on this journey of big ideas and bold moves. I am the best-selling author of She Thinks Big: The Entrepreneurial Woman's Guide to Moving Past the Messy Middle and Into the Extraordinary.

I support women like you with the insights and mindset you need to think bigger and the strategies and systems you need to turn that thinking into action and make it all a reality. Are you ready to stop thinking small and start thinking big? Let’s dive in.

Hello, my friends, welcome back to the She Thinks Big! Podcast. Is it really September? I can't believe it. It is September, it is fall, it is officially fall, but secret, I am not recording this in September. I am recording this in July because I am getting so good at batching podcasts and thinking ahead. It's amazingness, amazingness.

Part of that has to do with having the right people on my team, which is something that we have been talking about in the past couple of episodes and relates to today's topic inspired by my coaching clients. When is the time to hire? When's the right time to hire? How do I know if I can hire, if I should hire? Why should I hire? Who should I hire?

Today we are talking about deciding when to hire. Because when a small business hires additional staff, it is truly a pivotal moment in their business. You've got to balance your finances, make sure you can pay them, you've got to figure out your workload, do you have work for them, and you have to think, does this align with my strategic growth goals? Are you hiring a person that is going to take you towards your goals or just keep you stuck in the same spot?

So I have come up with some key, I'll call it, considerations that you might have or take, and as you take into consideration these considerations, you'll realize, is it time for my business to bring in new contractors or employees?

All right, so here are eight things that you need to consider. Number one, has your workload, has your work demands, has there been an increase beyond what you are currently capable of?

If you and your team are consistently feeling overworked, burnt out, hustling, your quality of work is declining, you're not having fun anymore, it might be time to hire. I just got an inquiry from a prospective client in Australia. If you're listening, I hope we actually get to work together. By the time this episode comes out, we will have probably decided, but she is telling me that she's overworked and she is burnt out.

One of the things I'm going to tell her when we get on our call is that overextension or hustling also can result in missed opportunities. Are you not being able to take on the clients that you really want to work with because you're too overworked? If you're overworked or there's an increased workload that's beyond your capacity, it might be time to hire.

Number two, as your business has grown, have you realized that you may need people who have specialized skills that are not currently present in you or in your team such as bookkeeping, digital marketing, web development? Something technical, like I have a lot of interior designers and they have to do renderings, CAD-type things. They don't love doing it or that's not their thing. That might be a time to hire individuals who have these specific specialized skills.

You don't need to learn how to do everything. I have another client who actually hired someone to do sales and business development and she thought that she needed to learn more about sales and business development so that she could teach him what to do. No, she should just hire the person that already knows, which she's now realizing. Number two is need for specialized skills.

Here's the third thing. If you see that there are opportunities for you to expand into different markets or different offerings, then it might be necessary to hire someone to manage these types of initiatives effectively.

These expansion opportunities need to be supported. This isn't workload. This isn't like the workload is increased beyond your capacity. This is that there are opportunities that you're not taking because you don't have the capacity or the right people or enough people. That's number three, opportunities for expansion.

Number four, inefficiencies in operations. I saw this in my own business. There are certain tasks that were creating bottlenecks due to lack of manpower, mainly mine. This inefficiency really justified me hiring some people, bringing in new contractors to streamline operations, to increase our productivity, to enhance how I serve my clients.

Ultimately, it's down to the clients. I want to serve you better. I want to be more effective in my service, so I need to be more efficient in my operations, and that means I need some different people on my team. Number four is inefficiencies in operations.

Number five, so I'm going to take a pause here. This is one where everybody is waiting for this to be the deciding factor and they are ignoring all of the other seven things I'm talking about. Number five is revenue supports additional staff.

Hiring definitely should be considered when you have some steady revenue. But you also have to be able to forecast the expected return on the investment from hiring the new employees.

Because you want to think about will the value that they will generate be greater than their cost? Hopefully, the answer to that is yes. As long as your business is financially stable, when you ask this can I afford question, you totally have to take into consideration how by having these people, you're going to generate greater value.

We forget that part and we think that this is the one in only factor, but there are all of these other factors. Which brings me to number six. If you've got clients that are complaining or aren't being served because you're slow to respond to them, they're waiting too long, it's time to hire. That's going to increase customer service and satisfaction.

It's going to help you retain clients, get referrals from them. It's going to enhance your business's reputation. You need people to do that. That's number six, customer service and satisfaction.

Number seven, seasonal demands. Some of the businesses that I work with do have seasonal workloads, and they have busy times. Thinking about that, like, should you hire a temporary person or an intern to help manage those busy periods effectively without you burning out? Do you have seasonal demands?

Then number eight, if you need some strategic expertise and leadership, you need a visionary. As small businesses grow, you need more strategic thinking. You need bigger thinking. You might need someone who is a leader in a certain category even, like a CFO or a CMO, a Chief Marketing Manager.

You also might need a coach to help you be more future-focused, to help you see the possibilities, the handwriting on the wall. You need someone to bring their expertise and strategic thinking to the table. It is totally going to enhance your business.

Those are the eight things. All right, let me review. Increased workload beyond current capacity. Number two, need for specialized skills. Number three, opportunities for expansion.

Number four, inefficiencies in operations. Number five, revenue to support additional staff. Number six, customer service and satisfaction. Number seven, seasonal demands. Number eight, strategic expertise and leadership needs.

Now, you also need to consider short-term and long-term, like is this really just a temporary thing or is this a long-term need? When I hired Nikki, she might just be short-term. I still haven't really decided. Is this a short-term need of mine or a long-term need of mine?

Do you want a freelancer, a contractor, or an employee? Again, I'm going to go back to that cost versus benefit analysis. They're going to cost you something, but is the benefit that they're going to bring to the table in terms of dollars greater than their cost? Hopefully, yes. Or if not, then you still have the revenue to support them.

Then the third thing, cultural fit. Are they a cultural fit? I interviewed, I don't know, 20 people for these three roles that I just hired for. I wanted to find the person that was right culturally, that I felt like had my energy that would really be part of a great team and increase overall productivity.

So deciding to hire in your business is a strategic, big-thinking type of decision. It needs to be aligned with where the business is going. If you don't really know where the business is going, if you don't have that long-term growth trajectory, three years, five years, ten years, you need to do a Vision To Action Intensive to get that going and you have to assess if we move in that direction, what are our operational needs going to be.

Then it's crucial to ensure that we've got the right timing and the right hire so that they can also help us serve our immediate needs but also long-term goals. When I create that three-year picture for you, where do you want your business to be in three years, are the people you're going to hire going to be part of it?

You at least have to be able to envision them being part of it. We don't know for sure, but could you envision them being part of it? Okay, my friends, hiring, it's all part of big thinking. It's just part of the business. This is the kind of thing we talk about in coaching. This is the stuff that needs to be talked about.

These are the kinds of decisions that are hard to make on your own. You need someone helping you read the label. You're stuck in your own peanut butter jar. You need someone to read the label. You need a visionary to be on your team.

Go back, listen to the last three episodes if you haven't, because I think you're going to see how it relates to this one and how it relates to this whole mini-series here that I'm doing on growing and scaling.

For now, this is your time to level up. This is the last week, if you're listening to this live, that you can be part of our in-person retreat, which is part of the mastermind package. We're doing an in-person retreat in November.

I would love for you to be there if you're even considering coaching, being part of a community, getting some visionary assistance, feeling like you're not alone, book a call. Book a call for this week.

If you can't find an appointment on my calendar for this week, message me. We'll find one because I want to make sure if you want to be at our November retreat, you are there. Okay, my friends, until next time. Think big, this is it. This is your time to level up. See you soon.

Thanks for tuning into the She Thinks Big! Podcast. If you're ready to learn the secret to unleashing your full potential, don't forget to grab a copy of my book, She Thinks Big: The Entrepreneurial Woman's Guide to Moving Past the Messy Middle and Into the Extraordinary. It's available on Amazon and at your favorite bookstore.

And while you're there, grab a copy for a friend. Inside, you'll both find actionable strategies and empowering insights to help you navigate the complexities of entrepreneurship and life, and step confidently into your extraordinary future.

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