How to Know When it’s Time to Hire Help for Your Business (Even if You Think You Can’t Afford it)

There comes a time in every small business when it makes sense to hire staff to help with the workload. Hiring allows you to let go of tasks that you don’t enjoy and gives you time to focus on what you do best. It can be essential for growing your business to the next level.

Signs That it’s Time to Hire Help

You’re managing tasks you dread (such as bookkeeping or administrative work).
There are never enough hours in a day.
Your time could be better spent on revenue-generating tasks.
If you took a few days off, your business would fall apart or cease to exist.
You haven’t taken a vacation in a year or more.
You’re too busy to accept all new clients and sometimes have to turn them away.
You have a waiting list for new clients.
Customer service is suffering because you’re not able to meet all expectations.
You know that your business could grow if you had more help with operations.
You are leaving money on the table because you simply can’t keep up with demand.
Types of Tasks to Outsource

Bookkeeping/Accounting/Payroll
Administrative
Graphic design
Website design
Marketing support
Sales
Research
Hiring Options

Intern – Look to your local schools to find interns with a variety of skill sets. Interns work for free or minimum wage and often earn credit toward degree programs. Though there will be some paperwork involved, interns can lighten your work load and become an important part of your team.

Contractor – Hiring an independent contractor allows you to expand your team without dealing with payroll and other legal issues that come with employees. Contractors typically work on individual projects or a set number of hours per week/month. You can use contractors for accounting, administrative work (virtual assistants), graphic design, and just about any business-related tasks. Be careful when hiring contractors as you cannot set their hours or otherwise treat them like employees. You will also need to issue a 1099 at the end of the year.

Employee – When you hire an employee, you set their hours and put them on payroll, which involves withholding taxes and dealing with the other legalities of hiring staff. You will need to purchase worker’s compensation insurance and offer your employees other benefits such as health insurance, sick days, paid vacation, etc. For more hiring guidelines, visit the United States Department of Labor: http://dol.gov.

Budgeting for Staff

If you think you can’t afford to hire help, start by looking at how much you currently earn. If you charge $50 per hour for your services and could hire someone for $10 to $20 to handle tasks that weigh you down, you could come out ahead in the long run. Once you hand off tasks that you don’t like or don’t do well, you give yourself more time to focus on what you do best. More importantly, you have more time to focus on revenue-generating tasks, which can lead to greater business growth in the long run.

Also consider starting with an intern or contractor. As those roles expand within your business, it may eventually make good financial sense to shift to hiring an employee. The key is to strike the right balance between workload, costs, and return on investment. A good accountant can also help you reach these important decisions.

Resources for Hiring Contractors

These directories include a wide variety of contractors including writers, graphic design, web development, virtual assistance, and more.

http://elance.com

http://guru.com

http://odesk.com

http://project4hire.com

http://freelancer.com

http://ifreelance.com

Computer Programming

http://rentacoder.com

http://scriptlance.com

http://getacoder.com

http://joomlancers.com

Graphic Design (Crowd-sourced)

Graphic designers participate in contest-style bidding for projects by submitting samples based on the price you set for the project.

http://99designs.com

http://crowdspring.com

http://designcrowd.com

http://logocontest.com

Virtual Assistants

http://ivaa.org

http://assistu.com

http://authorsassistants.com

Resources for Hiring Employees

http://craigslist.org (note that you can also find contractors here)

http://monster.com

http://simplyhired.com