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As a 3X founder, I’m no stranger to hiring. My first company grew from zero to 5M in just a few short years, which meant we were hiring new staff every few weeks just to keep up with the growth. There was a constant pressure to stay ahead of the curve, but not too far ahead.
I learned some important lessons during this time, particularly about when to hire and when not to hire. It’s not an easy decision. If you hire too slowly, you may overwork your staff and lose your edge in finding new customers or supporting the customers you already have. If you hire too quickly, you can get ahead of yourself in terms of profitability and cash flow. It’s always a tightrope walk, and there are no easy answers.
When founders ask for my advice in this area, I recommend they take a thoughtful approach and avoid making emotional decisions. While a new hire is not necessarily a permanent decision, it can have permanent consequences if you’ve made the wrong choice. Before you begin to recruit, interview and hire more staff, I suggest you consider these five things.
Related: Avoid Costly Hiring Mistakes With These Five Essential Tips
1. Protect your bottom line
Entrepreneurs are typically not risk-averse. We go out on a limb every morning when we walk out the door. Ask yourself this simple question: Will the new hire immediately put you in a negative cash flow position? If so, you’re probably better off waiting. Without enough cash flow cushion to cover the additional expense, you might be over your head in short order. Consider waiting until you have at least six months’ worth of cash in the bank to cover the expense of every new hire. Otherwise, you run the risk of putting too much financial pressure on the entire organization, and especially yourself.
2. Take a good look at growth trends
You can avoid knee-jerk hiring decisions by taking a good look at your revenue growth trends — and not just in the past weeks or months but over the past year or even longer. Are you experiencing steady growth or just a temporary bump in sales? Do some discovery and try to identify where you see sales are headed in the next quarter, the quarter after that and for the next 12 months. Be brutally honest with yourself. Entrepreneurs can sometimes be too confident about the future (it’s what keeps us going!), but don’t be so confident that you’re making blind decisions. Try to make a data-driven decision, not an emotional decision.
3. Assess the real need
Sometimes it’s easy to believe that a new hire will solve all your problems. Try not to deceive yourself into thinking so. While you and your team may feel overworked, bringing on new staff also includes work. Interviewing, training and managing takes time. Creating new roles and positions takes time too — sometimes (but not always) more work if you had done the job yourself. Again, it can be a tightrope walk in terms of how and when to make the decision. Be thoughtful though, and don’t rush into it thinking your problems will all go away with a new hire. Take some time to assess where and why you need more help before hiring more help.
Related: Think You Need to Hire? Think Again.
4. Talk to your team
Before making new hiring decisions, spend some time talking to the people on your team who will be directly impacted by the new hire. Try to get their honest feedback. Sometimes you find your best answers from those on the frontlines of your business. It might be that you don’t necessarily need more staff. Maybe you need some reorganization or better deployment of a technology, or you might find that certain members of your team need more coaching. You can never assume too much, and if you make hiring decisions without consulting your team, you’re jeopardizing yourself and the team.
5. Remember you are dealing with human beings
In the hustle-bustle and daily grind of running a business, it’s easy to forget that you’re hiring human beings and not resumes. Every hiring decision you make impacts a human life. If you make the wrong decision and end up letting someone go, remember that job loss is a real hardship and affects entire families. Be thoughtful about your hiring decisions. We have responsibilities as employers to the human beings who work for us. Humans are not numbers on a spreadsheet. They are moms, dads, young adults and others who struggle to make their ends meet. If you have to hire, by all means, hire, but don’t forget to consider the lives of the people you hire.
Related: 5 Signs You’re Hiring Wrong (and How To Fix Them)
Business growth always necessitates you hire more staff, and sometimes you have to stretch things a little to reach your goals. I know I certainly did. But make your best effort to make informed, data-driven and prudent hiring decisions that will benefit both your organization and the people you hire.
