When you started your business, you might have thought that one day, if things went to plan, you’d be in a position to hire someone. Now, you’re a bit further down the line and things have come on leaps and bounds. Work is coming in thick and fast.
Therein lies the problem.
It’s becoming more than you can handle.
“I’ll be able to employ someone someday” has fast become “I need to hire someone NOW!”
Let’s look at the signs that you are ready to hire someone.
1. You aren’t responding to enquiries and you’re having to turn work down
This is a definite sign that you’re ready to hire someone. If you try to do everything on your own, it’s going to prevent your business from growing. After all, you’re limited by the hours in a day that you can physically work.
Hiring someone will take some of the load off you and it will also mean that you won’t have to turn down those dream contracts that might just up-level your business.
You’ve lost the passion for your business
2. The second sign that you’re ready to hire someone is feeling burned out or starting to resent your business or your clients.
Think back to how things were at the beginning. You probably didn’t mind working the long hours, sacrificing family and leisure time, and giving all of your emotional and physical resources to the business. You probably told yourself ‘it’s not going to be forever.’
But now it feels like it’s been forever.
You spend far too much time sweating the small stuff every day instead of the things that are going to help you grow your business.
Your family never sees you, and any rare downtime you do get, you’re usually still working, in one form or another.
You feel drained and things can’t go on as they are. If your passion has gone, it’s so important that you get it back because it’s your passion that will set you apart and keep you going in the challenging times.
If you feel like you’ve seriously lost your mojo, consider it an alarm bell. Hiring someone to help you with the day to day things you get bogged down in will free up your time to do the things that really matter.
3. You’re getting complaints from clients
Remember what I said at the beginning about having more work than you can handle? Well if you’re constantly spinning plates and spreading yourself too thin, it will show.
It could be that you’re failing to meet deadlines more often, or you’re making mistakes because you don’t have the time to give projects the attention they need. Either way, it’s a sign you need a helping hand.
The last thing you want is word getting around that you are unreliable or that your work is not up to scratch. Hiring someone will help keep your clients happy as well as giving you some much-needed breathing space.
Speaking of breathing space, are you spending far too much time on tasks that keep you ‘busy’ but stop you from doing the things that are actually going to take your business forward?
4. You don’t have time to plan growing your business
This is the fourth sign that you are ready to hire someone.
Even if you believe that you are the only person on earth who can do the jobs exactly how you want them done, I promise you, it’s not true.
If more of your day is eaten up by ‘busy’ tasks that you could easily train someone else to do, you need to hire someone.
‘But training someone takes time’ I hear you say, and that’s true. But for a small investment of time, you could get a huge return, the main one being that you get your time back.
You can then spend your time on doing those things that will help you grow the business and light that fire in you again.
If you’re still on the fence about hiring someone, it is understandable. You might think about the extra work and obligations you’ll have once you become an employer and yes, these can feel overwhelming and confusing to navigate. Not to mention the financial cost of hiring someone, which can be a real concern, particularly for small employers.
But if you want to grow your business and achieve your goals, can you afford not to hire someone?
So I want to ask:
Are you ready to hire your first employee?
Are you confused about where to start and how to make sure you’ve got the basics in place?
Success with Employees membership makes becoming an employer easy. It provides you with a blueprint to becoming the best employer you can be and getting the best out of your people.
Each unit will take you step by step through everything you need to know to become an employer, growing and developing your team and taking your time back.
‘Success with Employees’ is your roadmap to building a successful business and a team who are ready and willing to get behind you to help you achieve your goals.
Find out how being a ‘Success with Employees’ member could transform your business.
