Solo to Staff: What to consider when hiring your first employee
Posted by SBOC Team in General Business on Oct 18, 2012 8:04:36 AM
SolotoStaff_Body.jpgby Susan Caminiti.
When Julie Subotky started her professional planning company, Consider It Done, in Aspen, Colorado, she delighted in doing everything herself. An executive needed to charter a private jet? She took care of it. A couple wanted to throw a lavish New Year’s Eve party but didn’t have the time to organize it? Subotky attended to every detail. But by the time she moved her thriving business to New York City in 1998, one thing was becoming abundantly clear, she recalls: “I was going in way too many directions and I needed to start hiring people if I was going to keep this business going.”
SolotoStaff_PQ.jpgThere comes a time when many small business owners realize that no matter how talented, energetic, or passionate they are about the company they’ve created, they’re going to need help running it. Hiring that first employee is a critical next step in expanding the business and allowing entrepreneurs to focus on the areas of the company in which they truly excel.
“There’s only one reason to hire an employee,” says Gene Fairbrother, president of MBA Consulting Inc., a Dallas-based firm that specializes in start-ups and small business issues. “Does that position add profitability to the bottom line?” Fairbrother is quick to point out that there are several ways to accomplish that. Ask yourself: Will the additional help add to the revenue stream, as in the case of a store owner hiring a salesperson or two? Or, if you’re a consultant or attorney, for instance, does hiring a bookkeeper or marketing person enable you to delegate those functions and therefore increase the time you have to generate more revenue for the business? “Both scenarios add to the bottom line of the business, but do so in a different way,” he explain
For info, http://smallbusinessonlinecommunity.bankofamerica.com/community/running-your-business/generalbusiness/blog/2012/10/18/solo-to-staff-what-to-consider-when-hiring-your-first-employee
