Episode #91 Take care of your people 

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Welcome to this week’s episode! If this is your first time listening welcome! 

If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together

Don’t click off of this episode because you think you’re not big enough or ready yet for a team.

One of the biggest mistakes entrepreneurs make is they think they need to be at a certain revenue number before they can hire their first team member. 

There is no magic number. You also donMt need to work yourself to the bone and reach burnout before you do either.

I have been a solo entrepreneur and I have had a team of six to a team of more than 20 people as part of my entrepreneurial journey. And depending on your business type and your business model you might eventually need a larger team. In my case for where I am in my business I can go quite far with a kean team of two rockstars. 

There are many aspects of being an entrepreneur that are challenging. For most of us, the skills of being an entrepreneur isn’t something that we are just naturally good at straight out of the gate. Especially if you’ve been in corporate or you worked in a job, if you didn’t have any entrepreneur role models in your family or around you growing up. 

There is a steep learning curve when we step into owning our own business and becoming proficient in the different skill set required to make a business work can often feel extremely overwhelming. 

In the beginning it’s usually just us. We are the ones wearing all the hats. We first have the idea for the business and then we start packaging together the service or product that we are going to offer, and then we start looking for someone who is willing to pay us for that value. As we gain momentum and we start filling our book with clients we realize that we cannot do it all alone. If you are wise you know you need help. Many entrepreneurs wait far too long to hire their first team member. 

The term self-made millionaire has deceived us. It takes people to get big. It’s also more fun. Anyone who has been in the entrepreneurial game for a minute knows that it gets lonely very quickly and having a team you can rely on is a saving grace.

Hiring does feel like a big responsibility, and it is. But it doesn’t need to be as daunting as it might seek right now. 

If you're already at the level where you are managing a team of people and it feels like pulling teeth…I am here to acknowledge that and tell you that going from entrepreneur to manager (leading people) is a very hard shift to make.

It’s an inevitable part of the growing pains of owning and growing a business.

You as the entrepreneur have the responsibility to take care of your team.

I believe that there isn’t a right time to hire someone. In the beginning (unless you have an investor or lots of start up capital) you will be trading your own time because you don’t have the funds to pay someone. As soon as you can you should look at getting someone who can take any task that isnt directly contributing to making money off your shoulders.

As the entrepreneur, it is your responsibility to stay focused on the activities in your business that keep the doors open. Marketing and sales. Until you can affort to pay someone to help you with that but marketing and sales are high value activities (when done right) and it will be an expensive skill to replace. Also, learning how to be really good at marketing and mastering is never a waste of time. 

If you’re in business and you’re like I don’t like selling…we need to have a serious talk. Facebook groups women are like - I want to make money but please…no selling. I don’t want to sell stuff. This is literally what business is! You create something of value and you sell it! Maybe they are referring to MLM type businesses because they don’t want to sell to family…which you don’t need to do by the way. You can build a very successful network marketing business and never ever sell to sell to your favorite aunt or anyone in your family for that matter.

End of rant.

I am going to share my thoughts on hiring and whether you don’t have any team members yet or you are in the thick of it and the idea of talking about managing people makes your stomach turn. I also want to add that it is impossible to add every consideration into one episode. Yes, you are working woth people. Don’t be an asshole. You don’t need to treat people like machines or like a number. This is not the message I want to send today. I believe in taking care of our people because they are more likely to take care of you when you do. If does not mean I don’t have high standards or that it will be easy working for me. High performing team.

When do I hire?

Who do I hire first?

I have a team! Now what?

My lessons that wills ace you time and lots of headache:

1. You don’t need to hire full time employees right out the gate. Highly suggest starting with outsourcing or paying a freelancer for a couple of hours a week. This is one of the few positives that came from the covid pandemic. People are set up to work remotely.

2. Not having your team in your office actually saves a ton of time. Makes everyone more efficient.

3. Employees are expensive, lots of hidden costs. It’s important that you only do this when you can really afford it. Crunch the numbers.

4. It’s important that your enployees fit the culture you want. It is your job to protect that culture.

5. It’s not your job to make your employees happy

6. You are running a business and the top priority for your business will always be to turn a profit. You should always protect the profit. So when you hire you want to pay as little as possible for as much value as possible. (I AM NOT SAYING THAT YOU SHOULD UNDERPAY PEOPLE!) 

7. Always pay proportional to the value they provide (pay them according to the value they provide YOUR business…it’s okay if this is more than the industry standard for that job).

8. Let people GO if they do not fit. If you knew then what you know now, would you have hired them? Of the answer is no, let them go.

9. Have high standards. You want to attract people who have hogh standards as well.
   

Who to hire first:

There is no right or wrong. It depends on your specific type of business. But the rule of thumb is that in the beginning you hire for the low value tasks first. 

1. It costs less

2. It will free up valuable time so you can focus where you need to.

3. First five hires - admin, customer service, sales, personal assistant (prospecting etc for you), bookkeeper and tech..

You hire so that you can buy back your time. So that you can level up and focus on the higher value adding activities in your business. 

Whether you have one person helping you out a couple of hours a week or a team of people. 

We need to take care of our people:

• know where you are going

• Have the systems and processes in place for them to thrive in their job.

• You don’t manage people you manage systems

People don't fail; systems do."

In this context, Gerber is emphasising the importance of creating and managing systems in a business, rather than focusing on managing people. He suggests that many small businesses struggle because they're overly reliant on individual people (including the owner) and their skills. When a business is systematised, however, it can operate consistently and effectively, regardless of the people involved.

This doesn't mean that people are not important. Rather, it means that the systems in which people work are crucial. Good systems allow people to work to their full potential and enable the business to run smoothly even when key people are absent. So, in essence, Gerber suggests focusing on building robust and efficient business systems to ensure success.

• Be willing to not be the smartest person in the room. Part of building a team is getting people who are very good at what they do. As you grow and you add more of the high value skills to your business, it’s great if you hire experts.

• Know where your zone of genius is (stay the technician and hire the ceo etc)

• Everyone should know exactly how they are contributing to the whole.

• Don’t spoon feed them. If you teach them that you will always be there to bail them out or just give them the answer you’re not building a tram that can truly support you!

Building the right team for your business will be the hardest and most important thing you’ll do as an entrepreneur. 

"I'd rather interview 50 people and not hire anyone than hire the wrong person." - Jeff Bezos,founder and CEO of Amazon.

Resources mentioned in this episode.

The first 5 hires EVERY entrepreneur should make...or go broke...

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