on January 24, 2017
HOW TO BUY YOURSELF TIME WHEN YOU NEED TO HIRE THE RIGHT PERSON
You wrote a job description. You know what skills are needed to get the job done. You have assessment tools to gauge strengths and weaknesses. Your training process is mapped out. You’ve budgeted for the growth.
You’re all set to add that new employee.
You’re also panicked because you know if you don’t find someone soon, you’re in trouble.
Perhaps you’re replacing someone, so there’s a giant pile of stuff that’s now painfully behind. Maybe your workload has you burning the candle at both ends and, until you get help, you can’t take on any new business. (Or, worse, you may lose business while you scramble to keep up.)
It’s tempting to hire the next warm body so something gets done. But, that’s a mistake. A big, costly, ugly, painful mistake.
Experts mean it when they say, “Hire slow, fire fast.” If you don’t take the time to search for the right person to add to your team, everything suffers. The long-term implications of the wrong hire are much more costly than the short-term gain of getting a few papers off your desk.
The hard part is that it’s not always easy to find the right fit. It could take months of searching, vetting and interviewing.
So, how can you buy yourself time while you’re searching, and still keep your business moving forward?
Outsource.
When you freak out about the work that isn’t getting done, don’t worry. The odds are exceptionally good there is an experienced vendor, freelancer, or service provider who can step in and buy you time while you search for a permanent member of your team.
There are obvious providers who can execute some of your tactical needs – accountants, bookkeepers, and attorneys, just to name a few.
But, I’d bet dollars to donuts you can easily find experienced service providers for marketing coordination, sales support, virtual executive assistance, receptionist services, outbound sales, HR services, and more.
Temporary and Flexible
This is one of the biggest benefits of finding a service provider to fill the gap while you’re searching for the right person to hire. You can often negotiate short-term contracts, get help with some high priority projects, and nail down some useful business processes. And the best part is, it’ll probably cost you the same (if not considerably less) than hiring an employee.
Budget friendly
Outsourcing tasks and projects is an investment, no doubt about it. But, so is bringing on an employee. So, what’s the difference if you are planning to hire someone anyway?
If you work with experts who are highly specialized in certain areas to get some the “big rocks” off your list – bookkeeping, marketing, sales, administrative processes – a high percentage of every dollar spent results in productive work being completed. You’re investing in expertise and for actual work to be done.
Specialized expertise
If you outsource to an outside expert, they are already skilled at the service they provide, so the learning curve is limited to learning about you and your goals, not how to do the task at hand.
Say you need a marketing coordinator to execute your marketing tasks or a cross-functional office manager with accounting skills. In the interim, work with a high-level virtual assistant firm to handle the steps in your marketing lifecycle, or contract an outside bookkeeper to keep your financials up-to-date, or hire a receptionist service to answer phone calls.
Not only will they already know how to do these tasks, they can develop streamlined processes and more efficient ways to get the work completed.
Plug-and-play the training
Another benefit to relying on outside vendors for the short term is they already have processes, procedures and systems to get the work done. After all, you probably aren’t their only client, so they have developed frameworks and tools for efficiency, accuracy and achieving outcomes.
In addition to investing in the service and their expertise, you’re also investing in someone else developing systems and procedures to get the work done. There’s no reason to reinvent the wheel; some of the tools and processes that are used by your service provider could be rolled into the training of your new hire.
For a lot of us, hiring employees is a required step in the growth of our companies. But, it’s a time-intensive process. Instead of drowning in your own workload while you look for the right people, short-term outside help will buy you the time you need.
Pull out the key areas where you need the most help, then turn your network, skim membership lists of business groups, or do a little Googling and see what’s out there. If you invest a little time in reaching out and asking questions, the return on that investment will buy you all the time you need as you search for the right permanent employee to add to your team.