S2 E82: Not hiring a team comes at a great cost

Comic strips and funny stories abound with humorous anecdotes about clogged sinks and how homeowners make things worse before calling in a professional to fix the problem. 

There’s a reason they are funny. 

Because it’s a universal experience. 

We have a problem. We think we can fix it. Only to discover that the fix we tried made the problem worse.

After several experiences like this, most people will call a plumber before they attempt anything other than running the garbage disposal or trying drain cleaner.

Because the truth is, for most of us, plumbing isn’t something that we’re good at or that we enjoy.

You can probably think of a variety of tasks within your business like that. Things that need to be done but that you don’t like or aren’t good at doing.

 Just like most people end up realizing that hiring a plumber saves them time and money, hiring team members will save you time and money in your business. 

In this episode, you’ll get:

• Why you should hire your first team member before you think you’re ready
• How to calculate the actual cost of NOT hiring
• 5 Multiplier Max questions every CEO needs to ask before making a hiring decision
• The vision that turns you from anxious to confident when hiring 
• The exact strategy successful businesses use to test a new hire’s skills (while treating them as a valuable team member)

And you’ll hear why hiring a single team member will change your business forever.  

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Transcript

Winston Faircloth: 0:00

The value that I put on the project, that's what the determinant is. And if I'm clear about the what and the why, especially what success looks like, then I know what that value is to me, because they're better than me. And they love this work, they should be able to do it much faster. And that's not a concern of mine. I'm getting the value that I'm paying. Hey, there multipliers. It's Winston Faircloth, and this is for love of team, the podcast where leaders simplify teamwork, helping you surround yourself with teammates doing the work, they love, simplifying business processes, so that you can serve more focused on the work you love. So not hiring a team comes at a great cost. If you think that hiring a team is expensive, this is costing your business money, and more importantly, time back. And I understand why you might think this, especially if you're starting out or if you're a solopreneur. But your return on investment isn't just the cost to hire, what's the cost of doing something you hate, or something that you're not good at, there's a real cost of these things, think that you're good enough at it so that you can do it yourself is like changing the oil on your car. Now I could tell you a story. They actually keep power tools away from me, because last time I used a power stapler actually put the staple in my thumb. So doing things that you're not good at is not a great use of your time and energy. Now changing the oil on your card seems like a pretty simple task. And it would be probably cheaper to do it yourself. But does it make sense to do this yourself or to take it up to a professional, the professional has the tools, the resources, the setup, they have the aptitude, the skill, the experience. And if you're like most people, you probably agree, it's totally worth the investment when it comes to your time, money and expertise. So what's more expensive than hiring somebody new use the leader, you're doing something you don't like or you're not good at. And this, my friend is the single biggest expense in your company, bar none, you are a valuable founder. And every moment that you're doing a task that's not in your gifting is a moment that is costing you tremendously. These types of things take you away from the types of activities that actually grow the business and generate money is not just costing you the time, when you're doing something you don't like it actually, I feel like it takes 10 times more energy and time before taking that action that dread time, the spending time dreading the things that you don't like every minute, dreading this action is 10 minutes not being effective in the areas where you do have gifting. And that's costing you time, money, energy, and yes, income. And when you create the team, and especially a team that you love, the benefits are also tenfold. First, you get freed up from the activity itself, which is immensely valuable. But here's the thing that gets me fired up. Second, more importantly, you will also have and create the confidence and capability that for the rest of your entrepreneurial life, you will never again have to do this task, man. Think about that for a moment. The capability that you get for taking this action will take this task that's draining you, causing you dread time causing you to procrastinate, you never have to touch that again for the rest of your entrepreneur or life. Well, this means not only do you get that benefit, but you get the secondary benefit of you get to now to pursue the ideas and the areas of your gifting that only you can do and enjoy the things that co captains are skilled at doing that no one else in the business can do. So practical steps. How do you know the first hire to make How do you begin this process? My first piece of advice is start this process uncomfortably early in your journey. Because if you wait too late, once you've hit the wall of complexity on the edge of burnout, you are going to hire out of need and desperation. And this friend is a prescription for disaster. If you've held on too long dreaded this decision, you haven't pulled the trigger, it's going to cost you even more once you hire out of need and desperation and more likely you're going to end up making a bad decision and one that you might regret. Step two define success. Now within our practice, we have a tool we call multiplier max. This is a simple one page decision making tool that we use for all of our project work and more importantly, when we're facing a big decision in the business for me as a quick start on the Colby person has way more ideas and bandwidth. This is also a great tool to keep me in check helped me really decide and work through the these myriad of ideas and opportunities that I see in the business. But for here, it's a great tool in this process of deciding your first hire. It has a series of five what and why questions. We talked about that on an earlier podcast that these are the two primary questions. In your business as the leader, that you're responsible for the what and the why your team's responsible for the how. So he your co leader, here are your what and why questions. Number one? What is the desired result? When you hire this person? What will be different in your business? Number two, why will this make a difference? I think this is the most important and hardest question sometimes to answer. Why will this make a difference if we move and get this desired result? Number three, what are the consequences for not taking action? That's a hard one, you know, are we going to hit the wall of complexity? Are we going to have those moments I talked about last time we're multitasking and missing out on life? Because we're so mired in the details of our business, etc? Number four, what are the benefits of taking action? And then number five, what does success look like and list out maybe five or 10 different success criteria? Here's the key on this one, make sure that these are observable, that someone on the outside could see the success criteria, observe it and see that it was accomplished and just check yes, that this was done. That's multiplier max tool has saved me so many hours, and so many fits and starts in my business. And it's one that our clients love, and I love so much. So once you've done that, on one piece of paper you've described, what's the desired result of hiring a person? Why will it make a difference? What's the consequences of not taking action? What are the benefits of taking action? And what does success look like for this role? Now, three, now that you've done that kind of exercise, this is another journaling process. I want you to imagine a person who could fill this role, picture them in your mind, what skills, complimentary attributes, cultural adds, what's their energy level? What's their commitment to your mission and vision, just be as descriptive and as elaborate as you can just have fun, sketch it out. If you're one of these visual people, sketch it out for yourself, do a mind map, whatever role, whatever really helps support you in your decision making process. Step four, let's get down to business. What's the value of this role? Now our last discussion, we talked about how you value yourself at x and another position are very capable position might be valued at y. And it's this delta between X and Y that really puts the onus on you to take action? But more importantly, what time will this free up for you? And how will you grow your business with the newfound time, once this comes off your plate and own to somebody else's put $1 value on this per month, and this will help you begin to decide what you're going to do Step five, this is where you're going to combine all of these different things. And you're going to develop a single page overview of the role. Looking at the work you've done to this point, capture it on a single page and put it into a narrative form that you can share with others. If you already have a company, mission, vision and values, add those to this because this is a recruitment tool that you're going to use here in a moment if you have those already. And if not take some time to describe your ideal client and how you help them. Step six. Now you're going to take this tool, and you're going to share this role with your friends, your team members, your colleagues, you're going to ask everyone you know, for recommendations and referrals, I think it's really important to say this now that these early hires in your team help set the stage for the culture that you're going to eventually build. And so I think it's important to find people with character and potential more than certain qualifications. And that leads me to step seven, you're going to interview these folks with curiosity, and not for necessity, you have time to make a really informed good gut level decision. And in the interview process, I always ask character base third person questions to get them to share their thinking processes, things like Tell me about a person you admire? And why how would your last supervisor describe your greatest strengths? What are the biggest challenges that people have in the work that we do? Always ask? I'm not asking a direct question of them. I'm more asking a question that gets them to think and to share their thought process. And finally, step eight, pay these folks this person that you're considering pay them for a small time bound project. This is where I give folks a real world tangible product to do that I would like help with and I compensate them thoroughly for this project. I provide one of these one pagers, the multiplier max one pager, ask them to complete this task in a reasonable amount of time. I give them the one pager because that's what they will get when they're working with me. They'll get projects in this format. And I want to see this is a test this is a really part of the interview process for me see how they interact with me see how they deliver on the project. And I keep this as a time bound very small project, maybe one week to do maybe two weeks at the most, but I set them up in an environment where they're doing The tasks that I'm going to be needing I want to see their initiative, I want to see how they follow the format that we're going to use for collaboration in the team. And from here, we just really begin to build trust and expand that role. And so if it works, well, we just keep on going with another project, keep on going with another project. And over time, you can get into a monthly routine where you're making a commitment, I tend to hire on a retainer basis versus an hourly basis, because it's the value that I put on the project. That's what the determine it is. And if I'm clear about the what and the wire, especially what success looks like, then I know what that value is to me, because they're better than me, and they love this work, they should be able to do it much faster. And that's not a concern of mine, I'm getting the value that I'm paying for. So those are the steps again, let me just recap those one more time. Start uncomfortably early. define success. Imagine the person filling the role. put a value on this role, develop a single page overview, share this role with friends and family interview with curiosity and not for necessity and pay them for a small time down project. Here's the opportunity you can continue capping your business growth or you can step into the captain role in your company and learn how to start hiring your first team members so that you can grow and thrive a business that you love, supported by a team that you love what could be better if you want to get started on this journey. Reach out to me via email when at wind sites calm that's wi n si gh Tz comm with the subject line for love of team tracker or better FL o t tracker or you can text me with the words FL o t tracker 21754 894 61. That's my personal tax number. Again, that's 1-754-800-9461. And finally, remember, leaders simplify teamwork, multiplying your impact your income and freedom and business. He bless friends I'll catch you on the next episode.