Expanding your business
As a small business owner or startup founder, you may have gotten used to running things on your own. It takes a sense of entrepreneurialism to get a business up and running, and often times, the initial effort is done solo or by a small group of people. But there may come a time when you can no longer manage all aspects of the business and continue to grow. With administrative tasks, marketing needs and performance strategies to consider, it may be time to enlist some additional help. And in order to know if this is the right time to hire another employee, your finances have to be in order.
Hiring an employee doesn’t just cost the salary that the two of you agree upon in the hiring process. If the person is working full-time, you may decide to offer benefits in order to remain competitive with what other companies are offering. You will also have to pay payroll taxes and be mindful of state and federal employment laws, which can be costly. On top of that, you will also invest a considerable amount of time training this person and getting them up to speed on your business mission, goals and practices.
Calculate the benefit
Therefore, in order to decide if this is a decision that will provide a sizable return on investment, calculate the benefit of having an additional staff member. Will hiring this person give you more time to focus on growing your business? Will it increase your efficiency in completing projects that have been put on the back burner for an extended period of time? Will the additional staff potentially increase sales? If so, then hiring another employee will be of great value to your business.
However, if finances are tight and there’s nowhere in your budget that you can cut back in order to provide for additional staff, you may need to do a better job of managing your time in order to increase efficiency during the work day until you can afford to add someone else. Just because you feel like you don’t have enough time in the day doesn’t necessarily mean you need another employee; but if you’re doing everything you can and still can’t get around to the things that matter most to your business, an additional staff member could boost business greatly.
Take a look at your budget, determine if you need someone full-time, part-time or on a contractor basis, work it into your financial plan and start drafting a job description.
