Your First 5 Hires (And What to Avoid)

Speaker A00:00:44

Let's start with some statistics. Today, 66% of small business owners say hiring is difficult.Almost 2/3, 43% of small business owners report few or no qualified applicants for their open roles. 17% of small business owners cite a lack of skilled applicants as their biggest obstacle. Listen to this one.11 to 13% they say they can't match wages or benefits offered by larger employers. 41% face increasing competition for those top candidates.And the biggest struggle, up to 55% of those small business owners who were asked worry about retention. They worry about keeping good people once they're hired. And see these staffing shortages we've been through the last few years have forced cutbacks.We've seen reduced hours, we've seen reduced services. And, and what it's doing is it's stunting growth plans because businesses can't find help.And as I thought about preparing for today, one of the biggest struggles I've seen in my own practice, I've been doing this for 30 years. Probably one of the hardest decisions for most small business people is how to hire that first person or maybe the first several people.Which leads me to this question we got today. And I'm going to tell you right now, this is a bit of a compound question.The person who sent us in had a lot of questions all in one, but I'm going to tackle all these today. Well, let's get right to that question. I feel like I'm doing everything myself. When is the right time to hire? Great question.But then they continued on to more. Who should be my very first hire? Should it be an admin person? Marketing, maybe Sales? Ralph, another good question. Then they went on to this.How do I avoid hiring the wrong person and wasting money I don't have? Yes, we're going to talk about that today. Then they said this. How do I know if I should hire an employee versus a contractor or freelancer?Another great question. And then finally this one. What if I can't afford a full time salary? Am I stuck?And when I got this question, I thought this person is right in where we're going to talk about that. Because these are some of the most common questions I've asked myself many times. And here's the truth.Your first hires are either going to free you up to grow or they're going to box you into some expensive mistakes in the future. See, hiring is exciting. It truly is. It's that opportunity to really grow your business. But get it wrong.And it's like strapping a weight to your ankle before you run that marathon.Let me tell you right now, I've never run a marathon, but if I'm going to run a marathon, I don't think I want to have any weight strapped to my ankles. I did run a 5k and I can imagine that would have been tough.And see, every small business owner dreams of that team, that people that can take away some of that day to day operational work for them. And five hires can actually multiply your efforts. Or here's the other problem. I got a little bit of headache today as I record this.If you make the wrong hires, it can lead to huge headaches.So today on the show, I want to talk about what roles to prioritize, what mistakes to avoid because listen, I've made them and how to make your hires pay for themselves. We've got a lot to cover, but that's exactly what we're going to talk about on today's show.

Speaker B00:03:55

Running a business isn't easy. It's long hours, tough calls and relentless pressure. No shortcuts, no handouts. Just grit, grind and the will to keep going when most would quit.Welcome to Grit and Growth Business, the show for entrepreneurs who know success is built the hard way. Hosted by Ralph Estep Jr. A seasoned business coach, accountant and fellow fighter in the trenches.Each episode brings you real talk, proven strategies and the unfiltered truth about what it really takes to build something that lasts. Because if you've got persistence, perseverance and determination, this is the place for you. This is Grit and Growth Business.

Speaker A00:04:42

Well, thank you for joining me on Grit and Growth Business. I really appreciate you joining me every week as I try to help you, the small business owner, grow your business.And I know hiring is difficult, especially in these times. I don't know about you, but the last several years have been have been a struggle. Has it been a struggle for you?Well, I'll tell you what, I've been doing this for 30 years. I've been advising small business clients just like you. And I've seen those hiring patterns.And like I said a few minutes ago, I've experienced myself many times how to make the wrong hiring decision. Jess, I've hired the wrong people, did all kinds of interviewing, thought I had the right person, and I made some bad hiring decisions.But I've also coached clients through their first hires and those reorganizations when things went terribly wrong. But then also things do go well. And I'm gonna tell you right now, before we get too deep into this, don't beat yourself up. Things do go wrong.At times.And I'm gonna tell you right now, from my personal experiences, I've built businesses from scratch and I've learned both the right and the wrong hire things. And that's what I'm gonna talk about today. Because you really have to understand how hiring connects your cash flow.It connects your profit, your margins and scalability. And it's all interconnected. And, and the thing is, as a small business owner, it's crucial for small business success.So let's start off with a story from my past. I thought about this one because this is one I see all the time.I had this contractor client, contractor was growing, he was really getting a lot more business. And he said, Ralph, I really need to hire somebody, but I don't want to just hire anybody.So he said, you know, I got this brother in law, my sister is constantly getting on my case wrap her, her husband needs a job. And I said, okay, well I'm going to tell you right now, my opinion is don't hire family. He says, no, no, you don't understand.My brother in law is a good guy, he's a hard worker, he'll be there every morning. I don't have to worry about him taking clients from me or stealing from the business.And I said, let me just tell you right now, I've seen that play out in one of two ways. Sometimes it plays out great. Yeah, it builds a long term relationship. But in other times it's a disaster.And let me just tell you right now, this particular situation was a disaster. It ruined their relationship, it nearly destroyed the business. He thought he was a good guy. But sometimes family and business don't mix.So that was my first story. Let me tell you about another story. I had this client that was a retail boutique owner.She had a beautiful Main street shop, all kinds of beautiful stuff. But she worked all the time and she never took a break. Her husband used to say, I don't think I'm ever going to see you again.She was in her shop every day, 10, 12, 16 hours. The problem is she took too long to hire. And see, that's the other side of this. It's easy to say, well Ralph, I'm scared to hire.I don't want to make that hiring decision because I'm afraid it might get it wrong. But here's the problem. If you don't hire, your business can flatline, you're not going to grow.And and so she came in, we sat down, we did some coaching together. She hired just a part time person and she was amazed her sales soared. We tell you about one more story, then we'll get into the meat and potatoes.Today I had this friend who launched this tech business. This guy was brilliant with tech. I mean, he knew how to make computers just dance. But here's the problem. He tried to grow too fast.My grandfather used to say, don't get too big for your britches. And this guy didn't hear that warning. And he hadn't even completely built his infrastructure for his business, but yet he started hiring salespeople.The systems weren't ready, so he had these salespeople that were eager to go sell stuff, but the systems just weren't in place right away. And unfortunately what that did was it led to high turnover. People were frustrated. The people who he hired to be salespeople were great salespeople.He shared this with me later. He said, ralph, they were great salespeople.But because the business wasn't set up, it wasn't scaled enough, he wasted energy and he had a higher turnover. So those are just three stories. We talked about hiring a family member, how it broke the business.We talked about delayed hiring, which led to no growth in the business. And then we talked about getting those systems set first. We talked about that client with the tech issues.And one of the things that I hear all the time when it comes to hiring decisions, and I want you to kind of want to dwell here for a second because this one is crucial and I love what this says and I don't have a person to attribute this to, but it said this hire slow and fire fast. The hiring process needs to be methodical. It needs to be well thought out. But you also have to be ready to change it if it doesn't work out.And I love what Jim Collins. Jim Collins wrote this book called Good to Greet and he had this quote that I wanted to use in today's show because I think it just nails it.People are not your most important asset. The right people are. And see, if you think about that, I've heard so many business. So I'll call them so called business gurus.Oh, people are your most important asset. Well, of course they are. But what does Jim Collins say here? And I think we really need to dwell on this for a second.It's not just people, it's the right people. Which leads me to something I want to take a little bit of a tangent, a little Ralph rant this morning as we're recording this.So many people in business have said to me over the last six months to a Year, Ralph, I just need warm bodies. I need people who are going to show up for work. Well, that sounds good, but the problem is those people are a reflection of your business.When someone walks into your business, they are going to sum up your business. And I'm not over exaggerating this in the first 10 seconds. That employee is critical to the mission of your business.And if it's just a warm body, if just somebody there to take up space, it's not going to work out for your business. And that's what I see right now.We're seeing all these situations with bad service because so many small business people, hey, you might be one of them, Ralph. I just need people to be here because I can't work 80 hours a week.So that's why it's so important to make these hiring decisions and make them smart. I'll give you another example. I had a bakery owner. Now this lady could bake cakes. I'm going to tell you right now, I'm a type 2 diabetic.I shouldn't be eating this stuff. But man, the stuff she made was amazing. But she realized she was spending so much time on administrative stuff.She was handling the bookkeeping, she was handling the ordering. She was doing all those things. So she finally broke down and hired just an administrative support person. And think about this.I'm going to tell you some real numbers here, because this stuff is real. By freeing up her time, she doubled her sales in just six months. You might be saying, ralph, that's amazing. Why? Because she was a good baker.She understood how to bake beautiful stuff. People loved her stuff. But she wasn't a good administrative person, so she was able to focus on what she does best.So now you're left with, okay, Ralph, I totally get it. How do we change this dynamic? So I want to just give you a quick overview of what I'm going to cover today. And.And then we're going to get into nitty gritty details because this show is all about grit and growth. I want to give you the gritty details, and then we'll talk about how to grow your business. So here's what we're going to cover today.I'm going to talk about those first hires. I'm going to talk about how they can solve those bottlenecks. But we have to be careful that we're not just copying or strengths.We really want to cast these people and make sure we're making the right decisions. And then I want to talk about some of those hiring mishaps we talked about that a little bit already.Hiring your friends, hiring your family, or hiring because you feel like you've got this pressure on you. This is not a time to feel like you've got pressure. You really have to think these things through.Another thing we're going to talk about is how to prioritize roles to save money or free up time. I'm going to really dwell on that for a second because I want you to understand what my motivation is on this and how to do it effectively.I'm going to tell you about over hiring. So many small business people I've worked with before have overhired. It's a hugely common problem.Another thing we're going to cover today is the documentation process. We're going to talk about that tech guy and how we need to build our systems first. And last but not least, we're going to cover two other things.I know, yes, we got a lot to cover today, but there's a lot that goes into this. We're going to set expectations early. We're going to develop those clear plans and we're going to think about the culture.We talked a little bit about those warm bodies. But one of the things we really need to dwell on here today is the culture and the fit because that matters more than a perfect resume.Because each hire, and I want you to hear this right now, this is so very important as I record this right now. Each hire is key to the growth of your business if you want to grow your business or you want to hit those revenue goals.Now, while I'm here, I want to remind you every week when I do the show, I prepare an action sheet. It's a way to recap what we've talked about today so you don't have to sit there and take notes. I mean, you're welcome to take notes. It's fantastic.But I also wanted to let you know we have this action sheet for you. You can get those action sheets every week by going to gritandgrowthbusiness.com action. Again, that's gritandgrowthbusiness.com action.You'll get to a page, you enter your email address and then I'll send you a link to every action. Here's a little secret. Once you subscribe, you'll get all the past actions and all the ones for the future.So again, go there to gritandgrowthbusiness.com action and download the action sheet. Well, let's get into the nitty gritty details today. The first thing I really want to talk about is casting.If you're a coach of a team, when you're building your team, one of the things you want to do is build a team that focuses on the different pieces of the puzzle that you need to have. You want to fill the gaps. You're not looking for people that mirror you.One of the biggest struggles I see in small business people is they'll say to me, ralph, I want to go hire somebody just like me. The problem with that is that's not a good way to grow your business. You need to hire people that accentuate your business. Like that baker.She didn't need to hire another baker. She was very good at that. Now, in the long run, she ended up hiring some assistant baker, some people to help her in the kitchen.But what she realized is she needed somebody to handle that administrative work. She needed somebody to take that away from her so she could focus on what she does well.See, that's another thing a lot of small business people think. Well, I do everything well, Ralph. That's not true. We all have strengths. We all have areas for growth.So as you're thinking about hiring, thinking, think about that person that's going to grow your business, that's going to accentuate your business. Maybe for you, it's somebody in delivery. Maybe you've got a great business, but you need somebody to get out there and sell your business.Or maybe you need a bookkeeper. That's the kind of thing that will help you grow your business. But you don't want to just find mirrors. You don't want to find clones.As a funny character or cartoon out there, I'm going to go clone myself. It sounds good, but it's not going to make your business grow. So it all starts with casting.Well, let's get into priority, because that's another thing a lot of small business people don't think about. You got to prioritize your hires. Every hire needs to do one of two things. It either needs to generate revenue or protect cash.I'm going to say that again because it's so very important. You got to prioritize this, especially at the front end when you're just starting to build your business. It's all about revenue or protection.And is this person going to bring more revenue in? Or at the same time, is this person going to allow me to do more of what I'm really good at?When I was first starting my business, I'm really good at accounting work. I'm really good at tax. I'm really good at consulting work. But I was not. I didn't have enough time to do the scheduling.I didn't have enough time to do the filing. I didn't have enough time to do all of those things. I really didn't have the skillset to do marketing.So as I started to think about who I'm going to hire, I start thinking, okay, who can I hire that's going to protect the cash? Who can I hire that's going to give me more time to bill hours? Because in my particular line of work, it's all about billable hours.The more time that I can spend with clients, the more profitable the business can be.But if I'm spending time doing filing, if I'm spending time making appointments, those are all valuable things, but they take me away from what I need to do. So that's the second thing. Priority revenue protection of cash. And then we really need to get strategic.And a lot of small business owners miss this part because they feel pressured. They feel pressured because, Ralph, my wife keeps telling me that I'm working too many hours. I gotta find somebody else to do this.Or here's another thing. I hear this all the time with small business clients. My phone's ringing off the hook, Ralph. I got people calling. They need me.They need my services, man. But I can't get to them. So you've got to ask yourself that this very important question. What role, if filled, would have the biggest impact? Really?That's what you have to ask yourself. You think about it right now. You think around. Okay, I think I understand where you're going with this. What would be the most impactful thing?Because here's a truism with small business people, you don't have the cash flow. You don't have the ability to go hire 10 people.If you did fantastic, go hire your full sales staff, Go hire a marketing team, Go hire an administrative team. But you have to think about it for a second. Wait a minute. What is going to be the most impactful? Because it's all about impact.So again, ask yourself that question. What role, if filled, would have the biggest impact? So you got to be strategic. Here's the thing a lot of business gurus won't tell you.You can try these things. It's kind of like going to the mall to buy some clothes.You go into the shop, you're looking around, you're like, I need to get a new shirt and I need to get some pants. Maybe you got a wedding to go to. Well, here's the cool thing. You don't Just buy it. You go try it on. How does it look? Stand in front of the mirror.Does it look good? Well, here's the thing. A lot of people won't tell you this. You can do that with people that you're going to hire.Now, I'm not saying to you go hire somebody with the idea that, well, let's see how they work out. No, that's not what I'm saying at all. But you can take baby steps. For example, maybe you hire a part time person. Let's see how this works out.Bring them on for a couple hours a week. Maybe you hire a virtual assistant. I'm blessed to have a virtual assistant that's helping me right now.As we record this, it's a great way to bring somebody in to help you on your business. Because here's the thing, as I record this, I recognize that I have strengths and I also have an area where I need somebody to help me.So that's why I did that. You can also bring in contractors. You can see what works best for your business. You don't have to just go by, I'm going to go hire 10 people.You don't have to do that at all. You, you can be strategic about it. You can try it before you buy. Take those baby steps because baby steps are great.The other thing we need to really focus in on is systemization. A lot of people rush to hire somebody, but they don't have any systems in place. I was working with a client just a couple of months ago.He said, ralph, I just hired this new person, but the person is driving me crazy. And I said, why? Well, she keeps asking me what she can do for me. I said, well, that's your fault, not her fault.Before you hire somebody, you need to understand what your processes are. Because here's the truth. If you can't explain it. And that's what I said to this guy.I said, if you can't explain your business, how in the world do you expect somebody to be successful in doing it? I've seen that so many times with small business people. Yes, they're busy.They're like they say to me all the time, ralph, I don't have time to draw a process out. I don't have time to systemize it. Then guess what? Don't hire somebody because that is going to be a failure. Because you're setting them up to fail.And listen, my heart says never set somebody up to fail. When I hire a new employee, I want to be in a place where they're going to be successful. Because here's the deal, it's a win win situation.If your employee wins, you win. You want to build that team of people who can be successful. Well, the only way they can be successful is if you have systems in place.Which leads me to the next big, big hairy, audacious goal thing. I use that on the show all the time. When I did the Dale Carnegie training a while ago, I had this guy said, you know what we need to do?We need to focus on big goals. And I said, yeah, big hairy, audacious goals. Well, you have to set goals. You got to set expectations too.See, a lot of people set up these job descriptions of well, you're going to do this and you're going to do this and you're going to do this. That's great, that's part of the system.But as I just, I just hired a new employee in my office and, and one of the things I said to her is, I said, listen, I'm not one of those formal guys that's going to do these annual reviews. I'm going to give you a review every day. We're going to check in, we're going to see how things are going. And that's a two way street.That's a two way level of communication. Because if you don't do that, like that client had said to me, this lady's driving me crazy, Ralph. She was building resentment.She didn't understand the business, she didn't understand what she was expected to do because there were no expectations set. Her job description was two lines. Show up for work and leave at five. That's not a job description.I'll talk a little bit later about some actual functional things that we can do because I got a great idea for that. But you really need to think about that at the front end. Build in those expectations. Do those check ins prevent that early resentment confusion?Because we talked a little bit about retention, that's a sure way to lose employees. There are people that I know who have worked in toxic environments. The environment was toxic to them. Guess what they did? They left.People invested money in them, people invested training in them. But because the environment was, let me just use a blunt term, it sucked. It was a toxic environment. They were out of there.You got to understand that because that's going to trickle down into your culture as well. If I walk into your business and the environment is toxic, I'll be able to see it in your employees. It's not a successful way to do business.So as My grandfather always told me what gets measured gets done well. Set those expectations and measure them. And I alluded to a big accounting term, roi. Return on investment.But every single hire, I'm talking about every single hire. Hear me on this. I'm speaking your language. Every single hire needs to either increase money or reduce cost or time. These can't be these vanity hires.You might be saying, Ralph, what's a vanity hire? I'll tell you what a vanity hire is. I was working with this contractor client about two years ago.He said, ralph, I've always wanted to have my own business. I said, that's fantastic, let me help you do that. And he says, but I also have another thing I really want to have.I want to have 20 employees, Ralph. And I said, okay, I'll say his name was Carl. I don't like to use real people's names. Let's say his name is Carl.And I said, Carl, why are 20 employees important to you? Oh, well, you know what, Ralph? That means you're successful. If you've got 20 employees, man, you're successful. I've heard that so many times.But that's just dumb. The number of employees is based on your business. It's based on the status of your business. It's based on where your business is.To just say, Well, I need 20 employees, that means I've succeeded. That's silly. I know businesses that have one or two employees that are making multi millions of dollars a year. It's not about that.That is just a stupid vanity thing that just doesn't make any sense. Every single hire needs to either increase money or, or reduce costs.Because I've had clients who have said so many employees just for the sake of having them. And you just look at their financial.They come in and sit down with me and I look at their financial statement, I look at their profit and loss and I said, wow, your payroll cost is twice what my other clients are. Why is that? Well, Ralph, I've got a lot of staff. It's a big business. I said, your big business is losing money. That's not a good choice.So those are the things we really need to talk about. Well, let's get into the action steps because it's one thing to, to talk about what to do, it's another thing to say how do you do it?So here's some things that you can do right away. Listen, I'm always want to bring the receipts. I always want to tell you, here's what you can do to make an impact.So here's what I'm going to encourage you to do. And you can do this starting today. First thing to do, write down 10 tasks in your day that drain your energy.And then where you're spending your time as you're going through your day for the next couple days, write down the top 10 tasks that are draining your energy. You need to start there because if you don't know what's draining your energy, you're not going to be able to figure out. How do I delegate that?How do I find a person or people to help grow into that? So write down those top 10 tasks that drain your energy. Track where you spend your time.I'm going to tell you right now, it's going to be eye opening for you. I've done this many times. You don't realize how much time you spend. That's a whole nother show.We could talk about time wasters and I may do a show on that in the future. But start there. Write down 10.Then what I want you to do, once you've got those 10 things written down, I want you to circle three that only you can do. You might be saying, wait a second, Ralph, you told me to write down 10. Now you said circle only three that you can do. Correct?The three that you can do, you're going to keep. Guess what? They're yours. You're not going to delegate those. But here's the beauty of this. The other seven, those are potential delegation points.Those are things that you might be able to give to somebody else because there are things you don't have to handle yourself. Now you're probably saying, ralph, I'm a small business owner, I gotta be in control. And trust me, I get it.My wife says to me all the time, ralph, you're a control freak. Most small business owners are controlling people. That's why we're successful.But if you really want to take it up a notch and really get to that success level we're talking about, you got to start thinking about delegation.And in order to figure out what those things are, write down those 10 things and then narrow it down to the things you can actually delegate once you do that, like I said, this is how you can do it. Start small. We talked about this a little while ago. You don't have to go hire a team of 20 people. That's just silly. Consider part time contractors.Consider virtual assistants. Consider somebody that you can kind of take those baby steps with.You don't have to go do it all tomorrow, but think about ways to make those things better. One of the things that we do for our small business clients in my accounting practice is we do outsourcing.A lot of my clients will come in and sit with me and they'll say, ralph, I have no time to do the bookkeeping, I have no time to do the payroll, but I need to do these things. I'm like, fantastic, here's what we can do. We'll put together a program for you. You go run your business because that's what you're good at.And let us run the books on the backside. We'll work together as a team. There's synergy in that. But look, before you leap, you got to ease into this. My grandfather used to have.You probably hear talk about my grandfather all the time. My grandfather had some great sayings and he used to say this all the time. He's sort of a carpenter as well.He's an electrician by trade, but he liked to fool with wood down in his basement. I'll never forget, we were working down there one day and he had this big piece of mahogany. Now, mahogany is a heavy wood and it's an expensive wood.And he says, so I want to make something. And I said, what are you going to make? And he explained to me he was making a birdhouse.And he wanted to make this beautiful birdhouse, but he wanted to use his mahogany wood. And he was going to stain it and he was going to put polyurethane. It was going to look beautiful. And he said, but here's the thing I learned.When I cut a piece of wood, I always want to measure twice and just cut once. We got to do the same thing in your business as you're thinking about these hiring decisions. Measure twice, build the systems.Understand the tasks that you can handle and the tasks that you can delegate and think through that process. What are the skills that these people need? What are the things that are going to be important for them? How am I going to measure that?How am I going to give them that feedback? Which leads me to this thing. And a lot of people lose sight on this one. I'm going to give you a little tip of the trade here.Most people develop these one page job descriptions. You will do this. You will do this, you will do this. Let me tell you right now, you want to stifle your employees.Give them something stupid like that, because that's going to stifle them. They're not going to feel empowered. You want to empower your employees. You want to grow your business. Empower Your employees?I used to run a credit union. I had 30 employees when I first started there. We used to have these one page job descriptions. You're a teller, you do this, this and this.You're a customer service representative, you do this, this and this. You're a collector. You get the idea. One page job description wasn't working because all they did was have tasks. How could I measure that?So I came up with this idea. And it wasn't just my idea, it was something that I learned with some other people. I used something called a position results description.So I'm going to change your world right now because that's what you really need to focus in on. Stop doing the job descriptions. They're old, they don't work. What are the results you're expecting from this person?Start there, list out the results. I want you to achieve this. See, it's a mindset shift. But then you're empowering them.You're saying to them, listen, I don't really care how you do it. Now in your business there might be some things you have to do it a certain way.Like your business might open at 9:00am well, guess what part of the job description is you need to be there by nine, you need to be ready to work by nine. But how they do the job during the day, because listen, they might have a better way to do it. I'll give you an example of that.I was walking down the teller line one day at the credit union and a teller come up to me, she goes, Ralph, she goes, I've got a great idea how we can save money for the credit union. And she explained, I'm not going to get into the details. She explained to me. I was like, that's brilliant.I would have never thought about that on my own. But she was empowered. She understood that the goal was to be in efficient, the goal was to be accurate.The, the position results description for a teller in the credit union was, at the end of the day, we want your, your balance of your drawer to make sense. I don't really care how you get there, but so many people get stuck on that job description. But change the dynamic.Think of the results you want from them. Now here's my last piece of advice for today.As you're thinking about those roles, you're thinking about what are these people going to bring to the table? And this is going to be a little dramatic, but it's going to be effective. Put a dollar figure next to the role.Ask yourself this question, how will this hire? How Will this role. How will this person that I'm casting save money or make money and put a number on the paper? Think that through.When I did that myself, I said, okay, if I hire an administrative person, what is this going to save me? And here's what I did. I'm going to give you the background of how I did it. I said, okay, rap.I want to work 40 hours a week, which is a joke for small business people. You're working more than 40 hours a week. What's this, you know, benefit me for today? 40 hours a week.But I was spending about 10 hours a week doing administrative work. Okay, so 10 hours a week, I was billing at a billable rate. Let's just say $150 an hour at that point. 150. Let's $100 an hour.It's easier to do the math. So 10 hours a week, $100 an hour, that's $1,000 a week that I was losing. So if I hired somebody, what's the number? I could put next to it $1,000.Because if I was able to free my time and those people could handle those things, that meant money for me. That meant how I save money. Well, let's say you're hiring a salesperson. Do it the same way.If you look at a salesperson, how much money, how much revenue can this person bring into my business? Write that down. Not now. This isn't easy to do. It's going to take some work. But make it measurable.Because as we're thinking about this, we're trying to figure out, how do I measure results? We're going to try to make those results measurable. Again, it's not about vanity. It's not about how many employees can I have in my business.It's about the right employees, the ones that make an impact on the bottom line. So now I want to walk you through some key questions.As I was finalizing the episode today, I thought here was some really some key questions because there was a lot we covered today. I'm going to ask you some key questions. Just want you to think these through in your mind right now. Here's the first one.If you stop doing everything today, just absolutely stop doing everything, what task would cause the biggest problems? That's a tough question, isn't it? Just stop doing everything. I'm not going to do anything.What tasks that aren't being done would cause the biggest problems? Do an inventory of that, because you're going to be surprised at the results.Those are the kind of Things you need to think about, those are the places you're going to be looking to hire somebody, the tasks that would cause the biggest problems. Because guess what, those are the pressure points in your business.You want to make a dynamic improvement in your business, look at those pressure points. So do that inventory. You're going to be surprised at the results. Second question.Do you want your first hire to free you up or to directly produce revenue? You got to think through this. In my particular case, I didn't need somebody to produce revenue.I could have went and hired a salesperson, but that wouldn't have been effective for my business. And that's the thing. Everybody's business is different. I'm going to talk to you in a little bit about how to get some coaching services from me.One of the things I do in my coaching practice is I look at your business individually, because everybody's business is different. But think through that. Do you want that first hire to free you up? That's what my goal was. I needed to find those 10 hours in my schedule so.So I could do more work, so I could build more clients, so I could build more relationships. But you have to think about that. As I said, my decision was to get more billable hours. But maybe you need that salesperson.So your decision is you want to produce revenue, but understand it's got to be one of those two things. Those are the only true reasons to hire somebody. Let's move on to the next question.How would you measure success for that hire for the first 90 days? See, a lot of people don't think about that. They think, oh, they get so stuck in the details of hiring that person.Well, Ralph, you told me I needed to build a position results description. Check. You told me I need to find the right person. Check. You told me all these things, Ralph, but yes, but what would be success?How do you measure that?You want to empower an employee, Tell them this information, say, listen, I'm hiring you today, Abby, because I want to accomplish this or I want to accomplish that, because guess what, Abby's going to be on fire for that because she knows there's an expectation, there's empowerment in that. I'm not telling Abby, you need to do this, this and this. I'm saying to Abby, here's the results I want.And if she achieves those results, she's going to get a pat on the back. She's going to get a congratulations and she's going to be impactful and empowered in the business.It's so critical so many small business people don't understand that. Understand how to measure success and share that with your hiring, share it during the hiring process.Because one of the things you will see, and I use this all the time when I'm hiring somebody, involve them in the energy of this. If they don't respond in energy, guess what? That's not the right person to hire.And we'll talk about that on another show, how to hire the right person. Which takes me to the next question. Would you hire this person if they weren't a friend or family member?Now we talked about this at the beginning and I've unfortunately made this mistake before as well. I'll give you an example. Like I need to have my office cleaned. The person that was cleaning my office didn't do it anymore.So my wife says, you know, my brother in law, he could do that job. What a disaster. Watch out for that. Don't miss this part because you can learn this the hard way as well. Don't hire friends, don't hire family.That said, it doesn't always become a disaster. But think about that. And the final question for today. What's the real risk to your business if you don't make a hire soon?Because here's the thing, a lot of people say, well, Ralph, yeah, but I hired a wrong person. It's a problem. Yes, but choosing not to hire is a problem as well. There's a cost of standing still.The bakery person learned that she started to double her sales. She could have done that years before that. There's a cost in standing still. Well, I just want to remind you, every Tuesday night I do a live show.If you can't get enough here, you can come join the live show every Tuesday night at 8pm Eastern time. It's a great way to come get your questions answered. You can type them right into the chat. I interact with other small business owners.Hey, listen to this. I even do some live coaching. So I'm gonna encourage you to join me. You can do it every week on Tuesday nights, 8:00pm Eastern time.That's@gritandgrowthbusiness.com live. It's real simple. Just go to that website. It's gritandgrowthbusiness.com live. Well, let's recap a little bit what we talked about today.I know we covered a lot. There's a lot to cover in this. This is a big deal.If you make the wrong hires early, you're going to waste your time, you're going to waste your money and you're going to Lose trust. Those first five hires have got to fill gaps. They can't mirror your strengths.And as I said probably three times already, every role has got to be measurable.It's got to generate revenue or it's got to protect your time and make sure you're clear and make sure you build accountability to prevent those headaches that we talked about a little while ago.This can be a great way to grow your business, man, but it can also cause a migraine headache that will make you unable to stand even being in your business. And that best early hire. Think about this as we talk about closing this down for today.Your best early hire frees you up to focus on what only you can do. Remember we talked about list those 10 things and then find the three that only you can do well.This hire can help you get to the point where you are free to do the things that you do well and you'll see your business soar. You won't hate your business anymore and it'll truly grow. Now maybe saying, Ralph, you covered a lot today. There's a lot, man.I didn't realize there was so much that went into this. And maybe you're thinking right now, Ralph, I'm struggling to find my first hire. You don't have to do this alone.One of the things that you can do is I offer a free discovery call because I do coaching services. You can book that discovery call by going to gritandgrowthbusiness.com coaching again, that's gritandgrowthbusiness.com coaching. Book a call there.It's free. It's a 15 minute call. We'll talk about your business.I'll understand what you're doing and I'll help you map out the next steps with clarity because cause you don't have to do this alone. Let me guide you. And don't forget, join me every Tuesday night. You may have a question. Come right there at 8:00pm Eastern Time.Again, that's gritandgrowthbusiness.com live. Here's the thing I want to leave you with today. Intentions are great. It's great to have great intentions, but they don't really help us.It's actions that matter. Now I want to encourage you to join me again next week. Next week I am going to have a barn burner of a topic.This is one so many people have written to me about. Ralph. How do I stay in business when money is tight? Yeah, I told you it's going to be a good one.It's a common small business issue and I'VE got some real answers and some raw truth. It's going to be raw, it's going to be gritty.But make sure you join me again next week because I'm going to tell you how to do it because so many people struggle this. So here's my challenge for you today. Get to work. You've got to grit now. Get ready for the growth. I'll see you next week. God bless you. And get to it.