fbpx

How to decide what role you need to hire for

It’s a burning question that many entrepreneurs will want to know. They know they need to hire someone to continue to grow and expand their business, but they don’t know who or what. There are many varied scenarios & roles in which could you argue a case for. For example, an operations manager would reduce your time consumed in operations which allows you to spend more time in marketing. Alternatively, a marketing manager could scale your business quicker through more focused marketing efforts. This is a real struggle that I’ve experienced over the last 6-12 months. I know that I need to add team members in order to enable growth, but what positions do I actually need to hire for?

I’ve always been told to ‘know my numbers’ and it’s something that I really preach to other entrepreneurs. But in the last 6 months I’ve analysed my business data more than I’ve ever done before and in greater depth than I could ever imagine. Everything from profit per order, how many orders an average customer places, how much I need to spend on advertising to which websites my target audience visit on a daily basis. Through a really in-depth review of my business, I discovered a couple of really key opportunities.

Before I tell you about those opportunities, I’ll tell you about a conversation that I had with a successful entrepreneur that operates from the same building as myself. I reached out to him to ask – how do you know what role you need to hire for? It was one of the most profound discussions I’d had about entrepreneurship, probably ever. The basis of his response was this;

You hire for a return on investment. You need to be purposeful when adding someone new to your team. To know exactly what their role is, how they will add value to the business and ultimately produce a return on investment for the business.

Simple.

I knew the opportunities that were available to grow the business from my recent in-depth review of the business numbers. Here’s what they were;

  1. Based on our revenue & number of website visitors, I know that by increasing the website visitors by X amount, it will increase the revenue by X amount.
  2. Conversions – I know that if we can increase our website conversion rate from 2.8% to 3.5%, we can add an additional X amount of revenue.

SO, where to from there?

  1. Hire a digital marketing person with expertise in content strategies, social marketing & search marketing to increase traffic.
  2. Engage a conversion agency to develop strategies which increase the conversion rate.

The process is simple, but it’s a matter of working backwards to define where you want to be and understand how you will get there. Sure, it would be nice to have an accountant, operations manager, warehouse manager and PR manager, but how will they add value to my business at this time? Specific roles that yield a return on investment will enable the growth of the business.

Share this article

Leave a comment