You’ve realized you can’t keep doing everrrrything yourself and decided it’s time to hire. First of all – congrats! This is a sign of growth and it’s a good thing. The only problem is, it doesn’t feel so great right now because you don’t know which role you need to hire for.
You have lots of ideas or at least a general direction to go in, but how do you decide on the best role to move your business forward? Here are 6 questions you need to answer to help you decide.
1 – What’s the future look like for you & your business?
Before you decide who to hire next, it’s important that you’re clear on your vision for life & business. If you’re not clear on the big picture of where you’re headed, then it will be tough to figure out who will help you get there.
2 – What are your short-term goals?
Once you know your vision, let’s work backwards to a milestone goal you’ll set in the short term. Whether 90 days or 1 year out – what are your goals for your business? You may have a few goals in mind, but ensure that at least one is a revenue-based goal.
3 – How many sales do you need to hit your revenue goal?
By understanding the number of clients/customers required to achieve your goals you can get a better understanding of the capacity you need on your team to serve those clients.
4 – What’s your strategy for acquiring those clients/customers?
What’s your game plan for how to attract & convert that many sales? A clear growth strategy will help you determine the roles required to execute on your plan.
5 – What level of ownership do you need?
By now, you should be getting a sense of the types of roles you may need to hire for soon in your business. As you consider those roles, you should also consider whether you need someone to simply implement the direction provided, someone to manage the work or team, someone to develop strategy to achieve the vision or someone to create the vision for each project, department, etc.
6 – What’s the ROI on each role?
Compensation is always a big question when hiring, but before you decide on compensation you need to understand what the ROI on each team member will be. What results will you expect and hold them accountable for? When you hire and manage well, your team is an investment NOT an expense. So understand the outcome first, then decide on the compensation.
Who is your next right hire?
With the answers to the 6 questions above, you’ll be ready to evaluate and decide on your next right hire. List out all of the new hires you think you’ll need in order to reach your short-term goal and consider the timing to execute on your strategy. Think about the chain of events from where you are now to where you want to be at that short-term milestone. Map out the trigger or timing for each hire and prioritize the order accordingly.