Rai Cornell 0:01
Welcome to the SOAR Podcast the place for creative entrepreneurs with limitless dreams and unconventional stories. I’m your host, Rai Hyde Cornell, founder and business mentor at Chiron consulting and CEO and senior copywriter at Cornell content marketing. My goal is to bring you stories of what’s possible. So you can never tell yourself that your dreams are impossible.

All right, welcome to the SOAR podcast, season 1, episode 25. Today, it’s just you and me. And we’re talking about when and how to hire in your business. So let’s get right to it.

Oftentimes, when solopreneurs start getting consistent work, they start feeling good about things, they start to feel overwhelmed with the fact that they are juggling everything in their business, from the accounting to the lead gen to the sales calls to the proposals, the contracts, the invoicing, all the things, the service delivery, the calls with the clients, the calls with the prospects, all of it. And at the same time, you’re having to do your own marketing, your own content, all the things that you actually care about, and really enjoy on top of everything that you’re doing for your clients. That is when you want to start thinking about hiring, when you start to feel like, hey, things are going in the direction I want them to. And if they continue down this road, I’m going to run out of me.

And that’s the first thing that I want you to ask yourself is why do you actually want to hire? Why do you want to hire if you’re thinking about bringing on a VA, or a social media manager or an Ads person or whatever it might be? Why do you want to hire? Oftentimes, especially in our Instagram everything, Facebook bombardment world, we see these messages, these read between the lines messages, that you’re only successful as an entrepreneur once you have a team. And that’s not the case. We don’t want you to succumb to the you’re only successful if you have a team mentality. That’s not at all true. You’ve got to read the book. What is it called? The business of one, or a business of one, company of one – there we are. A company of one. In this book, the author talks about how healthy and sustainable businesses can be when they stay small. And when you grow for the wrong reasons. When you build a team, when you take on all of this responsibility of paying people having to manage higher expenses, higher overhead, all the things. And then of course, you know, there’s the human factor of what if the person you hire drops out of the project? What if they bail, what if they fail, then you as the business owner, as the one that your client has hired, you are responsible for delivering on what that client paid for. There’s a lot that goes into it. So don’t hire unless you’re hiring for the right reasons. And the right reasons are not ego driven. They are not external. They are not due to social pressure. The right reasons are I like the way my business is going. I like the direction I’m headed in. I wish I had more time. Okay, I think I need to hire some help.

So the next step is are you ready to hire? Sometimes we might feel like okay, starting to think about hiring a VA starting to think about hiring a subcontractor. But when do you know it’s actually time? This gets a little bit tricky, because oftentimes, you have to hire someone in your business before you’re really ready financially. We often look at our business finances, and we go, oh, man, if I could just hit you know, if I could bring in one to $2,000 more a month. If I could just hit this next mark, if I could hit that 5000 6000 8000 10,000 a month mark, then I’d be ready to hire. But ultimately, whatever your goal is, whether your goal is to hit 5000 a month or 10,000 a month or 20,000 a month, and you should be able to hit 5000 a month, just by yourself. That should be doable. If it’s not doable. We need to look at your numbers because there’s something wrong there. You should easily be able to hit 5000 a month as a solopreneur without any sort of team or support. If you want to get to the 10,000 mark you might need to start thinking about outsourcing some of your lower price tag tasks, 20,000 30,000, and so on, if you’re going for those goals, those five figure per month goals, you’re gonna have to, likely hire before you are financially ready.

So let’s say hypothetical, just using some random numbers here, let’s say you were pulling in $10,000 a month in your copywriting business. And you’re thinking, Okay, I would really love to hire a VA who can handle my invoicing, help me process emails, help set up documents and things like that for me, answer some easy client requests and customer service type things. And you’re like, if I can get to 12,000 a month, I’ll be able to hire that person. The problem is, you probably can’t get to 12,000 a month, until you hire that person. So that’s what I mean when I say you have to hire someone in your business before you’re really ready financially. The question is, can you invest in this person for three months before you start to see the financial gains in your business? That’s the question you have to ask, Would you be able and willing to foot the bill for having help for three months, knowing that at that three month mark, that’s when you’ll likely start to see that jump up to 12,000. If you can stomach that, if you can handle that, it’s a risk. But if you’ve built a little bit of a buffer into your business, or if you have a big project coming up, and you’re like, I just really want to take this on, but I need the help.

Whatever the case may be, if you’re willing to do that, the next step is to figure out what are you hiring them for. And this is where I want you to get out a piece of paper, and list out the things that you hate doing in your business. The things that are the absolute worst, the bane of your existence as a solopreneur. List them all out. Then list out the things that are minor inconveniences, medium inconveniences. You don’t mind doing it, but you don’t like doing it. List out the things that just don’t bring you joy. List all the things, even when you think you’re done, ask what else? What else? What else? What else? What do I do on Mondays? What do I do on Sundays? What are we doing on Wednesdays? What are we doing Fridays? What do we do with these types of clients, these types of clients, these types of clients? What is the start to finish process of working with that client look like? Make a list of all the things that you don’t like doing in your business, then rank them from worst to not so bad. Then I want you to categorize them, you can just put a little notation next to them. Or you can make a whole separate list whatever you want, whatever makes your organizational brain happy. Are these tasks, bookkeeping tasks, admin tasks, email inbox tasks, document management tasks, marketing tasks, what types of tasks are the things that are on your “I do not enjoy this” list and start to see if there’s a pattern? Is there a pattern of things that you really hate doing? And do they all fall into a similar category? Are there some things that you really don’t like doing and things that you just kind of dislike doing, but you’ll do it just because that fall into two categories. Are those categories similar?

Where you can possibly hire the same person like bookkeeping and admin, you might be able to hire the same person for that role. But if they’re bookkeeping and marketing, you probably need to hire two different people for those. So then you look at okay, which of these categories has more of the things that a, I really don’t like doing, I absolutely hate doing these things, or b, take up the most time. Cos the more time that we can free up in your schedule to do the things that you really do enjoy, which are the things that make you the most money in your business, like writing, design, social media management, whatever it is that your services that you’re providing, personal training, photography, massage, whatever it is. That’s where you make your money. That is the billable work. So if we can get you doing more of that, then you can make that money you need to pay this person and then some and even more than that, so which category of items takes up the most time?

And this is where I find that time tracking really comes in handy. I like to use a tool called timeular and it’s got this little dice that you put on your desk. And it actually has like a physical presence on your desk. So it makes it damn near impossible to forget changing the little, you know, time tracking thing, which, when I’ve used things like toggle and harvest, and all of that, I always forget. My timer runs for four hours. And then I realize, oh, shit, I’ve done like 12 things in that time. So get time ruler, or some other time tracking tool that you will actually use, and figure out how much time these things are actually taking you. Because if you look at your invoicing, and you go think that only takes me 15 minutes a week, and then you time track it, you’re probably going to find that actually, it takes you an hour and 15 minutes a week, you just didn’t realize it because you’re kind of minimizing how much time these things actually take. But it takes time to chase down those emails to see where the status of that payment is. See if it’s hit your bank account yet, see, if you need to check on your PayPal account and transfer it over to your bank account. There are all these things that just add up. All right.

Now, once you know what you’re hiring for, that’s when I want you to create a job description. A job description should not simply be a description of the job. But actually, your job description should describe what it’s like to work in that job, in that role. And I’m going to use the term job throughout this. But I’m not talking about hiring an employee, I’m talking about hiring an independent contractor. Because unless you are pulling in close to seven figures, even somewhere like half a million a year, unless you’re pulling in that amount, you’re likely not going to want to go the employee route, you’re gonna want to have independent contractors who work part time, have flexible hours, work remotely. And fill these roles as needed. So when you’re creating a job description, again, keep in mind job meaning role. First, start by describing yourself, describe your company and describe the culture that you want to create. Are you very spontaneous and whimsical? Do you like the creative energy? Do you want a place where people are free to throw out ideas, brainstorm and collaborate and come together? Or are you very orderly? Are you very regimented? Do you have specific systems and processes, neither is right or wrong? Just describe yourself in your company and the culture you want to create within your company as honestly as you can. And don’t worry about, oh, well, someone’s going to see this. And they’re not going to like that it’s super regimented, or that I have really, you know, specific systems and processes and templates in place.

The right person for that job is going to see that and be thrilled. So don’t censor yourself, don’t edit yourself. Be very honest about what it’s like to work with you. Because that is the only way that you are going to find the right person to fill that role. And I will tell you, and I’ll probably tell you this multiple times throughout this episode, one of the most difficult things about hiring in your business is hiring the wrong person, investing time and money into them. And then finding out a few months in this is not going to work. And we have all been there. And it is frustrating. It is devastating. It is exhausting. And so the more specificity and clarity that you can put in at the front end of the hiring process to get very clear about who you’re looking for, the less likelihood that that is going to happen to you. So first, your job description should have a brief section on you, your company and the culture you want to create. It can be three sentences, it can be three paragraphs, whatever you want, as long as you communicate clearly.

Next, in your job description, you should have a description of the type of person that you’re looking for. And this is not necessarily where you’re going to put the role and the responsibilities. This is what type of person are you looking for. For instance, I recently interviewed someone, a wonderful girl for a role as an executive assistant within my marketing agency. And I am looking for someone who is detail oriented. I am looking for someone who loves the nitty gritty, loves organizing things, gets a ton of like mental brain pleasure out of seeing things organized and color coded and all formatted correctly. And that’s the kind of person that I want. I want someone who’s a little neurotic about organization. There’s nothing wrong with that right there. That’s what I need in this role. Be clear about that. For example, in one of our job descriptions, when we’re hiring writers within the agency, I have a section at the beginning of the role description that says, if you’ve been told by friends or family that you have a way with words, this may be the job for you. If you have always loved the written word, and if you never miss placing an apostrophe appropriately, this may be the role for you. That’s the kind of person I’m looking for. And the right person for that role is going to resonate with that, they’re gonna identify with that, and they’re gonna be thrilled to read that because they go, Whoa, I’m such a nerd about apostrophes. Yes, I can do this, this is for me. Okay.

Next in your job description, I want you to describe the role and responsibilities, knowing that you can likely train the right person to do anything. I highly, highly, highly recommend hiring. And again, using that term loosely, you’re not actually hiring an employee, you are bringing an independent contractor on, you are contracting out work. Knowing that you are going to be working closely with this person, that this person is coming into your world, this is your bubble. So far, this has just been you. This has been your little corner of the world. And now you’re bringing someone into it, that person has to really jive with you. And that doesn’t mean that they have to be an exact duplicate of you. For example, if I’m hiring someone, for, let’s say, a marketing role or publicity role within my agency, I’m a total introvert. I don’t want someone who’s an introvert because this PR and marketing work that we need to do for our business in order to get more clients, that requires extraversion. And that’s not me. So I actually want someone who’s opposite of me in that way to fill where I am weak. So look for the qualities, the personality traits, the natural inclinations, the things that really excite the person and light them up and, and get them really passionate. Even if it’s something like Oh my god, I totally nerd out over SEO data. If that’s the kind of passion and focus that you need for the role, then that’s a good candidate.

Now, the skills, let’s say, if I’m hiring for an executive assistant role, and I need someone who can manage my inbox and get documents set up and set up our Asana tasks and keep airtable organized, I don’t really care if they have any experience with air table or Asana, I like to ask just cause. But it’s not a deal breaker, it doesn’t matter, ultimately, because what I actually want is someone who is detail oriented, who is process focused, who is organized, and who’s eager to learn. And if I find that person, I can teach that person anything, I can train them in my way, in my systems, and often sometimes it’s even better if they don’t have experience, because then you don’t have to worry about untraining habits are methods that you don’t want in your business. And instead, you can just focus on training on the things that you really do want in your business. Okay. Now, the last section of your job description, is the pay and application process. So know, before you go seeking out someone for this role, know roughly what you’re willing to pay someone. But don’t put that in the job description. When you let people set their own rates, when you ask them, Hey, this is the role this is the job. These are the responsibilities. This is what’s going to be expected of you. We’re estimating that it’s going to be 5 to 15 hours a week, or 10 to 20 hours a week or 30 to 35 hours a week. What would you charge? When you ask them that you accomplish multiple things?

One, you are basically letting them set their own rate. Two, if their rate comes in way high above what you’re willing to pay, you know, it’s likely not going to be worth time to negotiate them down. And I honestly never like to negotiate anybody down. I hate negotiating people down. I like to negotiate people up, which is why I do it this way. People’s rates are their rates. I respect that. You want to respect that. Because when you go to a client, and you want them to pay for your photography, your graphic design, your writing work, whatever it is that you do, you expect them to respect your rights. And so when you ask people, okay, what would you charge, here’s the scope of the work, let me know what you would charge. If they come in way high, I am not going to ask them to lower their rates, I just want to respect the rates and let them know, Hey, I appreciate you applying for the position. But I don’t think it’s going to work out we just don’t have the budget to support you right now. And there’s nothing wrong with that, then nobody has wasted any time other than them filling out a simple airtable form. And I’ll get more into that later. If their rates come back lower than what you expected to pay, then you have a few options. You can either increase their pay right there on the spot, which I love to do this when I’m hiring new writers on the team. So I’ve been writing copy content for 15 years. And when I first started out, I was writing $25 blog posts for car dealerships. And they would take me 45 minutes. So I was making about $40 an hour, sometimes those articles would get a bit out of hand, and they would take me two hours, in which case I was making 1250 an hour, that’s miserable. I didn’t really start to earn what I needed to earn until I bumped my rates up to about 60 or $75 per blog post. And at that time, I was doing a ton of content. And I still was not earning enough. But I was learning. That’s why I like to start people. For agencies in particular, there’s a bit of a market standard. And of course, most businesses are struggling to try and get people to charge as little as possible.

But in my experience, the fairest rates, the fairest ranges, start around the 75 to $100 per blog post mark, depending on experience and complexity of the blog, and I’m talking about for newbie writers. So if I have someone applying, and they say, Hey, I charge $30 per blog post, I say not anymore, you don’t. Now you charge 60 or 75, depending on what the project is that we’re hiring for. Automatically. They go, Whoa, this person is looking out for me, then this could be a great opportunity. And not only am I holding true to what I believe in, but also in just doing that I am creating a relationship built on transparency, mutual support, and what was the word, advocacy, that’s the word that flew out of my head, I’m advocating for them, I’m looking out for them. And they then we have this loyalty between us. So you have more opportunities, when you let people set their own rates. Also, if they come in low, you have the opportunity to increase their pay over time, and still stay in budget. And that’s great for morale, it gives you flexibility in case you do need to give them a raise or you need to increase their hours, maybe the project ends up taking longer than we thought whatever the case might be. But when you put on a job description, hey, this pays $15 an hour or this pays $30 an hour or this pays $200 per blog post, whatever the case may be. You are instantly limiting yourself and you’re locking in, potentially the people who are just looking for the right numbers and not looking for the right opportunity.

Okay. Next, where are you going to post your job description? I highly recommend Facebook groups, LinkedIn and even places like hiremymom.com. If that feels right for you, if you’re looking for someone who may be a stay at home mom, who is looking to do some part time work on the side. Stay away from places like Upwork and Fiverr. Those are frankly disgusting platforms that encourage bid to the bottom pricing culture so that writers, designers, voiceover artists, talented creatives, are having to constantly undercut one another just to get work. We wouldn’t want that for ourselves. So don’t hire from that platform. Those platforms. Vote with your dollar. The other aspect there is if you go Upwork, if you go to Fiverr, you’re going to get candidates who let’s say, you end up agreeing to $50 for a blog post, which is terribly low, that writer is only going to get $40 for that blog post. 20% of their pay is going to go to the platform. That is just breeding this culture of dog eat dog and unhealthy competition. Stay away from those platforms and go to places where people are looking to collaborate, who are looking to help each other, who are looking to tag their friends, and say, Hey, so and so I think this gig looks like something you might be interested in. Go to Facebook, go to LinkedIn, go to hiremymom.com.

When you have people apply for your position, I highly recommend doing either a Google form, an air table form or type form. I love using air table. It’s where we house everything from my podcast editorial calendar, social editorial calendars, client editorial calendars, application processes, feedback forms, all the things live in air table, because it’s just wonderfully organized and robust. If you don’t want something so versatile, just go to Google Forms, do a free type form. Whatever will get the information that you need, in order to find the right candidate and expect that you are going to receive dozens of applications. And you need to have a quick way of filtering out the people who are not a good fit versus people who may be a good candidate. And that’s why I like to ask one, quote unquote, vetting question. Now my vetting question is, if you were to apply for a role within Cornell content marketing, you would see on the application where it says at the bottom, what is the final cherry on top? And then in parentheses, it says hint, look on our website.

The answer is actually on our about page. And it says that the final cherry on top is that you will get quantifiable results that men are, I can’t remember what it says I wrote it so long ago, something something something in the form of new leads revenue and followers, something to that effect. I need people to show me that they are willing to do some research that they are willing to be proactive, that they are willing to go out and find answers on their own. Because that is the type of person I want on my team. I want people on my team who before coming to me with every little question, they will check our SOPs, they will check our previous slack conversations, they will check the company overview document to see things like what is the standard project deadline, time of day, and what is the invoicing procedure and things like that. And all of these things have a search feature because I want to make it easy on them. But I also want them to do the work to find the answers.

So I only want to bring people into my company who are willing to find information on their own. And of course, I’m gonna give them a nudge, I’m gonna give them a hint. It’s on my website, go to my website, do Ctrl F look for the word cherry, look for the word top, look for an answer to what I’m asking. I’m telling you exactly where it is. Go find it. And 70% of the time, people put in the right answer. And I know that those 30% of applicants are not right for us. They either didn’t answer the question at all, or they didn’t read the question closely enough to understand what I was asking. They didn’t see the hint. They weren’t observant enough. They weren’t detail oriented enough, whatever it might be. But they didn’t get that vetting question right. This will help you weed out people who aren’t really trying. And we’ve all been there. I’ve done this too. Back in the day when I was scouring job boards and I was applying for jobs left and right. I would just get to a point where I was so tired that I was just plugging things in copy pasting, copy pasting, copy pasting. I didn’t really care. I just wanted a job. And that’s not what you want.

You want people who want the job that you’re offering us that vetting question and it will help you weed out those people who are just filling in applications filling in forms on autopilot. Then to save yourself time, have a templated email that you send out out of respect and courtesy to the people who don’t fit the bill but who took the time to read your job description, follow directions, fill out the application form but who may not be the right fit either because their rates are too high, you don’t really like their work samples, or they didn’t get the vetting question right, have an email that you send out that says, hey, thank you so much for taking the time to fill out our application. We appreciate it. At this time, we don’t feel like you’re a right fit for the role. But we wish you all the best. That’s it, that’s all you have to say, give them the courtesy of closing that loop, they put some energy, maybe a lot, maybe a little, but they put some energy your way. Give them the courtesy of closing that loop. So they know that they are not out on the limb waiting for response. And I’m sure all of us have been in that place before where we’re just like, Man, I applied to this thing. I don’t know if they even got it. I don’t know, if they’ve seen it, I don’t know what’s going to happen. I don’t know if they need me tomorrow, next week, next month, I don’t know. Give them that courtesy of closing that loop for them.

For the ones who you do think are a good fit for the role. Invite them to do an interview with you. And remember, you’re looking for personality and energy fit. Not exactly a perfect fit in terms of skills. You need someone with a willingness to do the tasks and learn your way, learn the skills, but they don’t necessarily already have to have the knowledge, especially if this is the first person that you’re hiring with in your business. Likely that’s going to be some kind of admin, some kind of, you know, supportive role, maybe bookkeeping, maybe something to that effect, where it’s not rocket science, you just need to show them what you have been doing in your business all along.

And now you’re ready to hand that role off to them, if they can learn if they’re open to learning. And one of the questions I like to ask on an interview is, tell me about a time when you got negative feedback from a client or an employer? How did you handle that? I love to ask that question. Because I know the ones who say, actually, I don’t think I’ve ever received negative feedback from a client or an employer. I know they’re just bullshitting me. Everyone has. I have. Zillions of times, especially when I was an employee, I was a terrible employee. Ask them that question and see how they respond. And what you’re looking for is someone who a, owns up to their mistakes. And b, has a healthy way of responding to those mistakes. Like, you know what, the client was totally right. I had typos all over that thing. I guess I thought my autocorrect was on or my auto spellcheck was on and it wasn’t. And I learned that I need to do that extra step at the end to audit, like manually run the spell checker before submitting content for review. And now I have a little sticky note on my desk, or it’s just something that has become a habit for me, that’s what you want to hear. You want to hear that they recognize where they messed up, if they messed up, and how they fixed that. Either with the client relationship? Or if it was unsalvageable, which sometimes that happens, life happens, it’s not going to, you know, throw them out of the running of the role that you’re hiring for. But how did they learn from that?

Then set up a test period or a test project. If you’re hiring for a project based role, do one or two test projects like blogging. So anytime we bring a new writer onto the team, I always have them do two test projects. I always, always, always, always pay for these test projects, I would never ask someone to do free test projects. One, because I’m going to give them real world projects that I’m going to build a buffer into our calendar where if they fail, I have someone who is ready and has the time to cover whatever it is that needed to be created. And also, I want to show them that I respect their time, I respect their creativity. I respect the skill that they have. I respect their energy and their effort. And so of course, I’m going to pay for that project. And if they do a great job, awesome. That client’s blog is done within our agency. And I raised you too, as well, because and I like to do two on two separate this is I have an agency model.

So this may not be entirely applicable to your business, but try to find two test projects they can do that are a bit different. Because if I am hiring a new blogger, and I want them to show me that they can write, I’m not going to assign them two blogs for our nutrition client. I’m going to assign them one blog for our nutrition client and one blog for our SAS training client. I want to see where they’re strong. I want to see how they handle two completely different situations. And if one article is great, and the other one is not, I know likely they’re a great writer, bad writers cannot write great accidentally, it just doesn’t happen. But sometimes great writers have an off day or they get nervous in the test project process. And they really want to wow, this new client, which happens to be you. And they get nervous, and they mess up a bit. And that’s human, that’s okay. So give them two, if the role that you’re hiring for is more task based, like a VA or a bookkeeper, ask them to do two or three things like hey, can you set up this document, or this project based on this process that I’m giving you? Or, hey, I need you to go find 10 posts in Facebook groups that we can engage on to help with our social media marketing. Give them a few different tests, tasks, and see how they do on the whole. And individually, where are they strong? Where are they weak? Ask them what happened, Hey, did you get nervous? It’s totally okay, I know this is a new working relationship. Tell me what happened here.

If they pass the test project process, then you want to set up a duration of two, four or six. Well, actually, this is part of the test project process. When you’re hiring for a task based role, you want to set up a duration of two, four or six weeks, for them to have that independent contractor service agreement, come to an agreement with your candidate that after that test period, you will both decide if you want to continue working together, it has to be a good fit on both sides. And by acknowledging that, by telling them that you’ll both decide if you want to continue working together, it gives them the opportunity and the autonomy, the sovereignty over their own lives, to say, You know what, I really appreciate the opportunity. But this just doesn’t feel like a good fit. When you say or when you imply, hey, after this test period, I’m going to decide if we’re going to continue working together, well, that might actually make them not want to work with you. Because you’re not respecting them as the individual. It has to be a good fit on both sides. And you both have to decide, Hey, I like this. I like this. I like the way we’re working together. I like the outcome of our work together. I like the price at which we’re working together.

And lastly, can you imagine being with this person, working with this person, long term? Consider how you’re going to be working with them? How often are you gonna be communicating with them? Is this a VA or an executive assistant who you’re going to have weekly meetings with? Maybe you’re going to be you know, like my assistant we vox almost every day, we’re on Voxer all the time. We have to really click and enjoy each other’s company and get along in order for it to be a good working relationship? Or is this someone who you really just need them to respond to emails or respond to your messages in Slack? Maybe you need to have them attend a monthly meeting with you just to get you on the same page or it depends on the role, but think about how you actually want to work with this person. And can you imagine allowing them into your world in that way, long term.

Alright, that is my complete process for figuring out when and how to hire in your business. I hope this episode has been helpful for you. I hope that as you get to this level where you’re ready to start bringing people into the business that you’ve created to support the life that you love. I want you to keep focused on why you’re doing this. What you’re doing it for, what has you motivated, why are you growing your business and make sure that the people that you bring into your little bubble are ones that you really want to be there. Now go back to the beginning. Figure out why you’re hiring. Figure out who you need. Then find your person and soar.

Hey, it’s Rai again. Thanks for listening. If you liked this episode, please subscribe and rate us on your favorite podcasting platform. We’re on iTunes. stitcher Podcast Addict, YouTube and more or want to be a guest on the show or know someone who has an amazing story of entrepreneurship apply on our website at www.Chironconsulting.us/podcast.