How to Build a Business Others Want to Buy

Chapter 13How to choose your first hire

For some technicians, the thought of taking on staff fills them with dread. Making payroll each week, dealing with conflict, managing under-performing players. It doesn't feel exciting, or bold. It feels terrifying.

But what if you were to look at hiring staff in another way? What if you saw the positive aspects, rather than the negative? For example, what would it feel like to wake up each day and only do the work you truly enjoy? What if you could spend your time doing the work that inspired you to start the business in the first place? What if you could give away or delegate all the tasks that drain, deplete and exhaust you? Would that create more energy, enthusiasm and excitement about taking on a team member?

If you want to build a business others want to buy, you need to build a team.

To make this next step a reality for you, you need to let go of the prescriptive notion of who and what your first hire should be. For example, if you have ever said, ‘I should hire a CFO’, or ‘I should hire a sales rep’ or ‘I should hire an SEO person’, you're coming at it from the wrong angle.

This ‘I should hire … ’ attitude compresses your imagination and makes you feel that there is a one-size-fits-all ‘first hire’ for every business. There isn't.

Doing more of what you love and less of what you hate

There's a much better way to go about hiring your first person. Here's what you should do.

Make a list of everything you don't like doing

It could ...