Hiring: How To Know When and How To Bring On Your First Team Member

Welcome to Captivate and Close. I'm Kinsey Machos, business consultant and marketing strategist. And I'm going to show you how to attract and enroll high paying clients using my break through online marketing strategies, all without having to rely on complicated funnels, disingenuous clickbait, or spammy sales tactics. These are the messaging marketing and selling secrets that virtually no one is talking about. So let's dive in. Hello, my friend.

Welcome back to the show. I'm so excited to be here with you today, I am going to dive right in into today's topic as it relates to hiring your first hire, whether that be a virtual assistant executive assistant or contractor employee, we're going to talk about the process today. Regardless of the position you're hiring for, or the season of business you're in, you're going to find so much tangibility in this episode. And also what's cool is I have a resource that complements this, I have a free template for you to grab. And I will talk about how you can grab that at the end of this episode, which is going to include an example of a job description with the hiring process that we're going to talk about today, I want to make your life so much easier. And this is something that we get so many questions around when it comes to hiring. So there is no doubt that there are so many other experts out there that can really speak more clearly to the team and culture and, you know, the HR nuances and all the things but let me tell you what I have learned so much in my own business as it relates to this topic. And I feel really confident in the team that I built the culture we've created. And also just what I've learned in all the mistakes that I've made through that. Not only that, but I spent over a decade in corporate in the corporate industry, which this is something that you obviously come to learn as a leader, you have to really develop the skills to hire and grow your team within your particular unit. So I'm no, I'm not definitely not green in this regard. And I do think this is an important piece to your business. When it comes to growing and scaling. It's actually one of the most important in my opinion, outside of marketing, or even claimed success, right. Because if you think about creating a exceptional client experience or student experience, the only way that you can really grow that and amplify that is if you have help, and not just any help but help that is really embodying the mission and the vision and the values of you and your company. And so while it's not the most fun to talk about, I will say this is where people get hung up the most, when it comes to hiring their first or next, you know, employee or contractor. And it will keep you stuck, it will keep you stuck if you drag your feet here. And so I hope that through this experience, you're going to learn how simple it can be. And also, you might have been thinking I'm not ready for that. But I want you to also just challenge yourself and ask yourself, Where might I be playing small. One of the things that I find that women do is they really wait almost too long to make their first hire because of this idea of expenses. Now I'm going to get into the step by step process for hiring so that you can feel really good about this. And, again, not everybody has the experience that I have incorporated and also my own business. And so it's totally normal. If this feels like an overwhelming topic for you, you are not alone. So we're going to talk about that in a minute simplify it for you. But what I want to first touch on is the misconceptions and even mistakes that are made in this regard so that you can learn from them right away or avoid them completely. And one of them is this idea that hiring is an expense and team is an expense. And while that might be true on the most literal sense, like if you look at a p&l a profit and loss statement, your salary, your income, the labor, the contractors, those go under expenses, but I want you to really take a bigger picture view and look at this from through the lens of opportunity costs came. Because when it comes to growing and or scaling, you will spend time and or money, you'll likely spend both you're spending time to grow, you're also probably spending a little bit of money to grow. And a lot of people have more, they feel better about the idea of not necessarily spending money but spending more time but they're not really seeing it through that lens, you will spend time to grow. And while that might feel free to you, right, it might feel like you're saving money, or you are protecting your finances, because you don't have additional expenditures going out to contractors or employees, what I want you to also see as well, that you might not have that expense from the logistics of a p&l, but you are spending time. And again, this is not to say that this is going to be that first indicator of like, oh my gosh, I need to hire, but I do want you to see that through the lens of time or money you are spending something. And in my opinion, and I think you would probably agree, time is way more valuable than money, I want you to see your time as value. And I hope that even in that through that context, that helps you shifted just a little bit. And you can see that even though you may not be spending money on something you're spending time, which is actually more of an asset to you. And so if we see it through that lens, then you can start to really shift your mind around like, Okay, where do I need to start investing in my business so that I can either free up more time to do the things that I want to do or more of the things that I know are going to grow the business and or accelerate my results, right? By getting that help? Yes, I want you to be financially responsible, and I want you to be a good steward of the money coming into your business. But that doesn't always mean just white knuckling that money. And so often I see people do this, it's like they want to, they want to squeeze everything out of that penny, and save. And again, I think elements of that are important, but there might be an opportunity cost within that that you are not seeing. So I want to just even tee up this conversation through the lens of not just time or sorry, not just money, but also time. And I don't want you to wait too long to hire especially if you are feeling like you do need that help. And you aren't spending the majority of your time in those needle movers for your business. I don't want it to be because you say I can't afford it. Because it might be that you can't afford it because of the MIS allocation of your time.

So the other component here, when I think about the biggest misconceptions and mistakes that I see, before we get into really the nitty gritty of the process of hiring, is just taking on that next, the person that just happens to come along, I see this all the time, is like it's a friend or family or a referral that you might have received. And they just happen to kind of be in your ecosystem. And mentioned maybe Oh, I can help you do that, or Oh, so and so is good for this, you should talk to them. And so then it becomes something you take action on because this person all of a sudden is sort of there and offering to help you. And I think that's really great. But oftentimes what happens is you actually miss an entire portion of the work you need to do before you actually responsibly hire somebody that is going to help you grow the business. We do not want to just hire the next person that's in line or help out a friend or family because they said they're willing to help us, you do have to go through a process to make sure you have the the right role, the right activities, the right delegation. And without that what's going to happen is yes, you will be wasting money, you will be paying somebody to do something that likely maybe isn't a good fit, or they're doing things that are not going to move the needle and you're not going to get an ROI on that role, or they're really just not even buy into your overall mission and vision. And a lot of times people think that, Oh, I'm just hiring part time. So it's not really a big deal. And so we completely miss that opportunity to get those longer term employers and contractors that are going to stay with you potentially for a really, really long time and grow with you and that's what you want. And so even if again, I'm going to go over con tractors and employees because both are great. But I want you to know that regardless, there's still a vetting process you want to go through to ensure that you have the right person in the right seat, and that they are really going to help you move the business forward. And again, potentially, are ideally they're growing with you, which we absolutely want. Now, I don't necessarily think that if you know, they move on, or whatever, or you have employees for life, I think, yes, I would love like, I look at my team, now I want them to be with me for the life of the business. But you know, we've I've done a lot of research and study on this. And likely, if you've done your job as a leader, and you've grown them, they might be ready for another opportunity. But that's it for another conversation, really just helping you see that you do want longevity, whether it's a contractor, or employee, if you do this right, you will have somebody that is going to be loyal to you and committed to growing the business, which is really amazing. I think what I've done really well is I don't just hire for roles, people come in, and they're bought in to the mission of the company, they're more excited about that than anything else. And in fact, they likely in a lot of sense, they love it more than I do. And probably not, I don't know that anybody can, you know, love what we do more than we do. But I'd say it's close. And that's what we need. Because you don't want people that just are clocking in and clocking out, you want people that are excited to be there with you. You want people that are excited to serve your people, they're totally bought into the work that you're doing. And so they'll do anything they can to really, like drive that forward. And so whether it is quote unquote, just an assistant or just a contractor, when you go through this process correctly, those are the people you're going to attract, those are the people that you're going to bring in. And I'm not going to guarantee that you're going to hit it out of the park right the first time, right, one of the biggest things I hear is like, well, what if I hire this person, and it doesn't turn out to be a good fit? Right? And yeah, that does happen. I've had that happen. And the question is, Will did I waste all that money? And the answer is absolutely not. I cannot guarantee that the people you hire are going to be long term contractors or employee ease. But we can put these processes in place to increase that likelihood. But you cannot stop the growth of the business or delay the growth of your business out of fear. You're not hiring, because there's a fear that you're going to make a mistake is just going to keep you where you're at, and potentially even in regression. And so just noticing that you can't make those decisions out of fear. And you really have to be willing to move through that process, embrace it, and be willing to make the mistakes because it happens. It's a part that's how we learn the best, that's how I get to deliver this episode to you is because I have made the mistakes, and I'm learning from them. And I get to really grow from them. So that's a huge component is really assessing where your biggest fears are when it comes to hiring this next person or your first person. And really just seeing those for what it is it's fear of the unknown. And that's totally normal. The other thing is going back to that opportunity cost, what is it costing you to not bring in help? Even if you are just getting going? Or you feel like you could still do everything on your own? And this goes back to the question we hear a lot around this idea of like, well, when do I know it's a good time to hire it? And there's really no, there's no particular one big indicator of like, if you're at this certain level of revenue, or if you're in this business for a certain amount of time, it's really never about that. It's about what is your mission? What is your vision? What's your lifestyle? What are your desires, how much time you have, what are you willing to invest? How fast do you want to grow? I think about when I just started my business, I was still working full time. And so I actually got help right away. It wasn't about a wait until it was that I knew I had less time and I wanted to pay for that I wanted to pay to get me those results faster. So I got help and doing the things that a I didn't have time to do or be it was just not the best use of my time. And so it was the Canva design. It was the tech setup. I knew enough to be dangerous. I think this is important. I never want you to blindly delegate things out without you knowing how to do it yourself. Now you don't have to be an expert in everything I think about email marketing been right? I know how to, I want I mean, it's been a while, but we have a video and training of it. But I knew how to get into ConvertKit and send an email, send a broadcast or set up a sequence, right. But as far as the very, very nuanced details and things like that, we have an expert that helps us do that. And I don't need to be the expert at that I just have to know enough to be dangerous. And then we have processes and videos to support that in case something does happen to that team member. So going back to this idea of like, what do you have time for what do you not have time for and where do you want to optimize for if you want to grow faster, and you have less time, right, it would be a great time to bring on somebody. And again, it doesn't have to be full time, it can be a very part time person at the time. For me, it was Tech email setup, Canva design, and just having somebody there that actually knew a little bit more than me, in regards to funnels and things like that, again, the connection, how to connect my Click Funnels, to my email software, and like I could have sat there and done it all myself. But I didn't have the time, I literally only had a few hours a day to put towards growing my business. And my goal was to get out of corporate as soon as possible. So if I did all of that myself, there is no way I would have been able to grow to 100k in less than a year, I got help right away. So I never want you to think it's too early to hire, or you have to be at a certain place to get that help. The one thing though, that is important is that you do it in a way that is going to support you versus not and this is where people get hung up is they do start to do this, the hiring process out of sequence. And so they aren't getting the results they want through that hire. And then it is chalked up to well, it's just easier to do it myself. So I want you to get out of that thinking that it's too early or too soon. And it really just depends on what do you want to optimize for? How fast do you want to grow, and also your energy capacity? What do you like have, if you are somebody that doesn't have a lot to give in a full day or you have you know, it's it's less about time and more energetically, if you are spending a lot of time doing things that frustrates you, that's not going to keep you in that high level state. In which is the vibrancy, right that you want to be in to grow the business to write your best content to do your best sales calls to serve your best clients. And so if you're spending a lot of time doing things that actually deplete you, again, another indicator, and we're gonna talk about an exercise you can walk through, that is going to help you figure out what to delegate first. So wanting to overcome that biggest misconception about there being a perfect time to hire, it's kind of like there's no perfect time to have a baby, nobody can actually prepare you for that. Right. And the longer you wait thinking there is a perfect time, the more opportunity costs it is that is there. So let's talk about the process around hiring. And again, I don't want to get into details of like employee versus contractor and from a business perspective, or like a bookkeeper or CPA perspective of like, what's better, I, I will speak from my personal experience, and also what I see a lot of my clients doing that is working, and also sort of the journey to work towards that. But as far as like, the benefits and the write offs and things like that, that's definitely something you're gonna want to talk to your CPA. That's something that they help us walk through at first. But typically, what we see is hiring for that first virtual assistant or executive assistant as a contractor position came. And again, what I want to emphasize here is just because it's a contractor position, even if they have a business of their own, and they work with a lot of different clients, I still want you to treat it as if they were coming into your business as a true employee, you don't want to treat it differently came and I see this a lot. And it goes back to this idea of like just hiring a friend or a family or a contractor coming up and saying I can help you and then but not really doing the due diligence behind that. So executive assistant or virtual assistant is one of the best hires to make first because they can be sort of the jack of all trades. And when you do this exercise of like what tasks you're going to delegate first is likely going to be things that this virtual or executive assistant can do. Now the difference between virtual and executive assistant is a lot of times executive assistant is going to be a higher level assistant helping with a little bit higher level activities in regards to potentially decision making or perhaps even there's more things to organize in the personal life that if you look at sort of the differences in how different organizations utilize them, there's definitely a varies. But in both cases, we will use them a little bit more interchangeably. And a lot of times what I find is hiring that virtual assistant is best. But I have hired an executive assistant, which was, again, just a more qualified individual that could potentially grow into more of that leadership position. Because I think about even the executive assistants that I worked with in corporate, they were really moving the needle in regards to the operations for the leaders, they weren't just necessarily organizing, there was a lot of decision making within that. So again, they're a little bit more qualified in the experience they have, and where you want them to grow with you. So I wouldn't get too caught up there, in a lot of cases, a virtual assistant will be great. But there might be a nuance there that you will want to consider if you're leaning more towards an executive assistant. So that's the first role that we recommend hiring for, and making sure that you have a really good structure to put them into. Now, a lot of times we see people hiring actually for social media. And so I want to help you actually do that better. And get an ROI out of that. And so this is where it comes to really knowing where you're spending your time and where you shouldn't be spending your time. And the first step in this hiring process, is to really get clear on that on your time. And one of the exercises I love is actually calculating the value of your time, which is actually prices priceless, right. But if you think about even putting an hourly rate around your time, this gives you some really great context to work off of, I learned this equation from a mentor, and I've seen different formulas out there. But what you can do is actually take the annual revenue that you ideally want to be at. So and I wouldn't go to like to like jump too high. Like if you are at 50k a year and you want to grow to 200k, you could use the 200k revenue marker, or you could even go down a little bit 150k revenue. But obviously, if you're at 50k, and you want to go 2 million next year, that's a little bit, I mean, it can happen. But as far as how this formula will work for you maybe not make that huge jump, but let's say you want to hit 200k This year, and that feels at least a little bit within reason. So we would take 200,000. And we would divide that by the number of hours that you would be working a week. And so if we took even, let's say you work 30 hours a week, that would be

you know, give or take a few that would be 1600 hours, so we 1680 hours. So if we take 200,000 in annual revenue, and then we divide that by 1680 hours, that means that the value of your time is $119 an hour, that's how much you are

paying yourself, basically. So if you were to think about even each hour that moves goes by, you just paid yourself $120. Now, if you think about the tasks associated with that, you can start to really see where this can be helpful to you. Because it goes back to this idea of like that compare and contrast. So do you think you should be spending $120 An hour designing a social media posting? Canva? It's like is that $120 task, right? Or if there's somebody who could pay $10 An hour would that be better or even $20 an hour, this is where the if you pull back a little bit and stop looking at your next hire as that like quote unquote, expense, and you start to see that time is money, and also your time, there's certain, like hourly around that. And so it makes it it helps you really make sense or justify, like what you should or should not be spending your time on. So do that exercise just to give yourself that reminder of like is this if I know my hourly and then you compare the tasks that you're doing for that hourly? Could I find somebody to do it cheaper, especially if you do not like it? Okay, so the first step in this hiring process is to get a sense of what your hourly rate is. And then get us So how you're spending your time. So I strongly recommend doing a two week time audit, I make my clients do this periodically. And it is fascinating because you even if you are really good at time blocking, and you have these time markers on your calendar, it is likely that you are not following that to a tee. And you will start to spot so many holes in your schedule and time, whether it's even just pivoting for 20 minutes a day here and there like to check slack. Or you decided to take a phone call while creating content, and you didn't actually spend that time creating content, or you had a team member reach out and they were like I need help with this certain tasks. So you have to pivot, they're really, really doing a time audit to see where is your time actually going. Not what is the calendar telling you. And when you get that time audit, you're gonna get this list of all the different ways you're spending your time, and it is going to be very eye opening to you. And you might be like, holy crap, right. And you'll also get a sense of like how much time you actually have to do the things that are going to grow your business. Now from there, I love this exercise, buy back your time by Dan Martell, I talked about this book several times. But this is something that you have to buy, this is like life changing. And I love the way that he gives you so much tangibility around these things that he talks about, and processes and ways to think about your time and your business in the activities that you do. And there's a lot of different activities you could do in regards to the different areas where you should or should not be spending your time, but I really love his, he calls it the drip matrix. And he talks about these four quadrants. And it's in relation to what's lighting you up, and what makes you money. And the things obviously that are not making you money, and that do not let you up, obviously, would be the first things that you delegate. And so once you get a sense of like where your time is going, and even seen where you should what like what you should be doing or what you know, you should be doing what you're not getting time to do. That's something you want to really identify also. And you start to put this time in relation to what's making you money and what lights you up, he has these four quadrants is replacement, production, investment and delegation. And so I strongly recommend getting a sense or dividing your activities in relation to what you really love to do, and what's making you money, all the way down to what you hate to do, and what might not be making you money. And though, that gives you a really, really good starting point for where you can make your first hire. And again, it's likely that this can be a job, it's it's things that can fit this jack of all trades type of role for a virtual or executive assistant. But you have to first know, and this is something that a lot of people skip, they bring on their first hire as that virtual assistant and they basically just start delegating out. But you have to have a really good picture of the time that's going into your business and start to shift that, okay, this doesn't belong here on my plate, right? This is something that I need delegated, or I need to start doing this. So I need to bring this in, like you have to be the master of the puzzle, you need to be putting the pieces in play, right. And part of that is obviously the person that's going to help that puzzle come together. But you have to be that visionary, you have to be the leader, and you have to have a good sense of that time. And a lot of people just don't, and it's totally normal. I'm even going through that exercise. Right now I'm working with a mentor. And same thing he's like, let's do another time audit. Because I haven't done one in a while I've gotten better at time blocking, and I've gotten so disciplined, but he was picking up on the fact that there might still be some holes. And it is it's so normal, right? You get into a rhythm and then you get a little bit out of that rhythm. And just making sure specially lately because I feel like I have less time as we grow. And as my personal life grows, I really want to squeeze most out of those hours that I'm working in the day. So that's really the first step is like I have clarity on all the things that I'm doing. And then I'm starting to really see what I don't want to be doing. That does not need to be me doing it. Okay, so you're gonna time audit yourself. And you're going to start looking at those time, those activities within that time and start identifying the things that are not making you money and or again, they might be like leading to the overall business objectives, but they're not necessarily something that you have to be doing. And if especially if you hate to do it right now we start to grab these activities, these tasks and we can put them in a job just option. Okay, this is step two. Now, as part of this episode, we have a template for you that you can use, we have an example of one, because again, a lot of people get stuck on this, but I'm telling you, it's easier than it sounds. And part of this is taking those tasks and plugging them into the responsibilities of your job description, we have our job description, broken out into the four hours, which I think I learned from Alec scharffen. Its role responsibilities, results and requirements. And when you look at those tasks that you've identified as things you don't want to be doing, you will start to put them into a really structured format for the responsibilities for this new hire. And it's okay that they're little things here and there. Now, some things that I would really encourage you hiring out are some of the things that I've already mentioned, like designing Canva, some of you are spending way too much time. Now, this is something that even if you like to do it, unless it's sort of your craft, like design, or artistry or branding, I still would get help. And even in that sense, still getting help with at least creating formats or templates or something like that. But that is not necessarily something that is going to drive it forward for you as the the moneymaker. I want you spending your time really in marketing, right. So writing your best content, creating new content for free or paid experiences, updating your current curriculum for your paid programs, those like if I think about those things, you know, podcasts, pitching, doing your own podcasts, getting on stages, like you are the face of the brand. And so those are going to be where you're going to drive the business forward. Now, circling back to this idea of social media, a lot of people are prematurely delegating out their social media. Now, here's where I strongly recommend, you can get the support. Again, it's like Canva. So creating design for certain posts, you can get their help in posting it. And also you can get help in the organization of it. So I have my VA helped me organize my content after the fact. So we have a place where all of our content is stored by month by year by topic, so that I have a bank and history of all of our content. And I can use it to repurpose, or I can use it to really see what worked well. And it's all in one place versus like scattered all in different Google Docs or whatever. And so the organization pieces is really huge. But I would not delegate the voice or the content for your social media. That is a big no, no. And I do think I still don't even do this. And again, I think a lot of people want to bypass this, because it's something that doesn't come naturally. But it is part of that exploration process is you exploring your voice, I think if you try to skip this, a lot of times you bring in people that don't know your audience, like you should. And if you don't know what's working with your audience, they will not unless you hire a really, really high end, you know, consultant like copywriter or company or agency that has a lot of experience in this that might fit. But again, you're going to pay way more money for that a lot of social media managers are going to be better fit for the more organization of it, you know, the visual pieces, and perhaps even making recommendations on what's working right now, or trends or little things like that, that they can recommend to you. But I would not hire out the voice or the content of you. And you have to be willing to go on that journey of learning your audience learning what's resonating the messaging, connecting with them, right, I want you to love that process. Because that is the most important piece is that connection and the messaging and really learning them. It is an evolution. It's an Infinite Journey. And so often I find people really want to skip that step. But all always, almost always I see them come back to square one have to figure it out themselves. And now they've just spent a lot of time and money in trying to get somebody else to do that. So when it comes to the types of responsibilities and activities that I recommend hiring out first, it's quite it could be the support of social media, the tech right email, setting up emails in your email software system, you know, setting up funnels, I still create the copy for our funnels, right, but our VA helps us design them set up the tech, the upsells the otiose or whatever. And then like the confirmation emails, like all the behind the scenes techie stuff, a lot of you I know are so overwhelmed with that tech, and that a lot of the things that you're doing is that and so absolutely these are things that a virtual assistant can help with. And when you have clarity Have what it is you need help with, it's going to drive the results of who you hire so much better. Because a lot of times people, again, we'll just kind of like softly know what they might need help with start to delegate, but don't really get a good assessment of like, what those strong suits are of these people based on where they need help the most. And so you're gonna want somebody, if you have a lot of tech, heavy activities, obviously, you're gonna want somebody that is well versed in those tech platforms. So now you know what to look for. And you're going to attract higher quality talent when it comes to your contractors or your employees. So that's step two is writing out that job description based on again, the time and activities that you've identified in step one, and putting together a really great job description that's going to clear like, clearly identify what is the role in the company? What are the responsibilities? Now the results are what you expect of them. And again, this is going to vary, and I don't want to get too much into this. And you'll see in the in the example, that it's really about what at the end of the day, what are they responsible for? And how do you measure if they're being successful or not. And it could just be like, getting things done on a in a, in a timely manner, or completing certain tasks, right? It's, it can be very simple, but it's good, right? Knowing what people are expected to do, or people want to know what to do. They want to know what the expectations are. And to be able to say, like, how I know you've been successful in this role is if you do XYZ gives people so much clarity, and so much room to succeed for you. And then of course, the requirements, what do you want this person to have? Again, the responsibilities are likely going to feed into that. And so right, you might want somebody that has specific knowledge around ConvertKit. If you have ConvertKit, for your email software system, somebody that has if you want more support in funnels, somebody that has some of that experience, maybe you want some editing for your videos, somebody that has that experience, and you can clearly spelled that out, what I want you to do is not limit yourself by thinking, There's nobody like this, you can put this out there in the like with this ideal vision and you would be you'll be so surprised of what you will get in return. When you even just put that intention out there of like, this is the perfect role. It is amazing, I blow my mind every time in when we do this, because in my mind, sometimes it feels like there's nobody out here that can do this. And it's just never been the case. So we have that job description. And it's given you clarity going through this process is gonna give you so much clarity of what it is you're actually hiring for and what you want. This is why like these, these little steps alone are going to give you more excitement, and confidence because you're just getting more and more clear, where before it was just sort of ambiguous. So don't skip these steps. And I want to circle back to this idea. Because on the template, you will see that we put our mission on our job description. This is really important because again, I alluded to this earlier, even if you're just hiring a contractor, you want somebody that is going to be excited to support the overall mission. Now if you haven't gone through the work to figure out what your mission statement is, what your vision is, what your purpose is, that's okay. But I would absolutely use this as an opportunity to do that.

And we will get I'll do a separate episode that covers those pieces. But I'm telling you, when you vet the people through the lens of like, this is our mission and are you excited about it, you will get people that are so much excited, so much more excited to work for you. It'll be less about them, just getting paid and more about them being a part of something. I was just talking to a girlfriend, she just hired her first VA and this other venture that she's going through. And she called me after she got off the interview with her and she was like, Oh my gosh, like she was so she's also a contractor, this woman that she's hiring, but she went through the process of sharing the mission statement and the vision of the business. And this woman that she's hiring or she's interviewing was so excited about her mission and her vision that she was like, I'm growing with you. She's like, I'll be with you. And if all goes well like all I don't care about my other glades like I'm with you. And she didn't say like that but it was through this lens of like yeah, I don't like I don't need I'm like totally on board. I'm excited about this future together. So this is why it doesn't matter if even it's a contractor. When you go through this process you are creating more opportunities for yourself and for this person and your company by really share During that big picture vision, because they're just going to be more excited, they're going to be more bought in, and they're going to be just, they're, they're going to set you up for success. And you're setting them up for success. So you can definitely take the time use this as an opportunity to take the time to really solidify that for yourself. Okay, so step two is creating the job description, you're going to name it, you have the role, the responsibilities, the results, and the requirements, you'll see that on the example that we'll share with you. And, obviously, take your time, but don't drag your feet here, it's like, it's really straightforward. And know that you may not again, it's not going to be perfect. But going through this process is going to give you that more that much more clarity. Now step three is we share it. Now a lot of times, again, we see people like hopping on, you know, Fiverr, or Upwork, or just like talking to a friend and skipping all these things. But again, you are a CEO, you're a visionary. And I want you to treat this as a traditional hiring process, you are putting a proposal out there, you're sharing this job description, and you're taking inquiries, it's not about just taking the first you know, the the first person of interest, you are officially hiring for a position in your company. Again, I want you to think about your business as a company, even if it's just you, okay, and because this will help you just be so much more effective and efficient in your processes, thinking bigger about your business, and help you kind of stay out of that small mentality. So we post the job description, the two places I want you to post it or LinkedIn, I think you can host there for free for a certain amount of days, or pay like a very small amount. And again, don't see this as an expense. Because think about what it might save you in getting the right people versus not getting, you know, good quality leads or not getting it in front of the right people. Okay, so LinkedIn, and then sharing it with your community, your Facebook group, your you no email is shared, we are hiring, share the job description, and really the what it is you're looking for. And again, you'll see these steps in this template that we're going to share with you. But you're sharing this is what we're hiring for. This is likely for you if really describe what it is you're looking for. And let them know what next steps are. And just like anybody else that has to go through an application process, right, they have to apply. Now in this template that we will share with you I show what our application process is, they have to obviously meet the requirements of the job description. And then I had them fill out for this position that we hired for, for executive assistant or virtual assistant, even our client success manager, I had them fill out just an initial inquiry of their basic information like why they were interested in applying why they think they're a good fit. Some other things like what their ideal salary was. It's a Google form. So basically, they're submitting their their interest through this Google Form and applying in within that, obviously, they're attaching their resume, and any other things right that they they want to attach with that. And what I like about this process is it gives me a sense, they're there, I'm getting them in that that position and pitching themselves, I want them to tell me why they're a good fit, I want to really, I want them to work for it, right? It's just like I want from the gecko, you're going to see those people that are really serious about it, versus people that are just kind of like, you know, getting through their steps and, you know, applying for as many things as they can. And what I discovered through this process is a lot of people that I've hired, weren't even really actively looking for a job, they just saw this come across, then it looked the mission, again, back to the mission excited them and so they applied, and so I get a general sense of that interest, and then I'm able to get their resume and the things that we need to further triage. So I love using LinkedIn and the community because again, you you might have people in your community right now, that would be an amazing fit. But then extending that beyond just that, like when I say community, I mean, again, your online community, Pete, if you have a Facebook group and email list, share it with them. But I also want you to reach beyond that, which LinkedIn will do that for you. So I want you to get a really good pool of applicants, ideally, you know, over 20 to 30 so that you can start really filtering through and triaging and from there. We start to do the initial screen so once we feel good about the pool people we have usually this doesn't take very long I it's varied but I would say If you can leave it out for a couple weeks and see there was a point where we were getting too many, so we had to shut it off after like seven days, or we weren't able to like keep up with the demand, I can't remember though it might have been a little bit longer, maybe 10 days, give it some time. And get make sure that you have a really good pool to work with. And so the step four in this process after you shared the job description and the application process, is to start that initial triaging. So as people come in, it's like really looking at what they are on paper, basically, their resume their interest, there's even like a salary if they're thinking if they're really looking for like higher level salary that you may not be able to afford, you know, that might be something that you could triage for. But again, you just never know people surprise you. But in that initial screening, you will find the people that absolutely do not qualify. And so you can really feel you can like weed those out of that process. Because ideally, what we want to do is start having interviews with people, but I don't want you to have interviews with like, you know, 30 people, ideally, we want to get get it down to less than 10. Now, what I do is I actually have a team member, do an initial interview process. So after the initial screening, we weed out the most obvious nonprofits. Then we picked I think, our last one, we did picked 10. And we did just like quick initial interviews, like 30 minutes long to get a sense of who people are their energy, their excitement for the position. And then they weed it down to I believe three or four. And that's where I come in to do more of that interview test where I get to meet them. And we can make our final decision from there. But going back to Step Four of like going out of process here, step four, that initial screen allows you to again, get out the most important or get out the most obvious misfits, and then get a sense for how much do you have left from there. Now, if you have too many to interview, you could do a skills test. So I do a skills test as step six, so we do step four, initial screening, then initial interviews, and step five, then Step six is a skills test before the final interview. So the skills test allows us to see how good of a communicator they are, design, how good they are with content, even if they're serving another role like tech, again, I just want to get an initial sense for how they process information and how they communicate. So when I was hiring for an executive assistant, I wanted to they would be doing a little bit of content management. So I wanted to see how they could take one podcast episode and break it down into three pieces of content. Again, it wasn't something necessarily I was going to be having them do right away. But I was just seeing how their brain was working, are they creative? What is their just initial strength in that regard, and really just their communication style. And I didn't really look as far as like looking at the results of that it wasn't really like the nuances of like, oh, how good was the content, it was really again, just like how they built that process, and even how they shared it, there are some women that got they were just really organized, and how they share their process, because I don't give a lot of requirements around how to do it, I just tell them what to do. And some people just in how they organized it, it was just so amazing. Because again, I want people obviously that position, they have to be detail oriented, very, very organized. And although a lot of people say they are I've learned that many, many people aren't naturally that way. And so even gives you a sense of like how they work and how organized they are. So we do a skills test in between the initial interviews, and the final interviews. And that helps us even we down further if we need to, or just kind of get a sense of our final interviewees. But if you need to bump that skills test up because you have too many qualified people and you don't have somebody to help you do initial interviews, then you can use that skills test is kind of like that, but way to further weed people out. So that is really when it comes to the last few steps. You can really ebb and flow like make it work for you. The point here is doing your due diligence and having been with it, right. And also really thinking about what is going what type of information is going to support you the most in helping you decide who this who this fit is. Right? You can have them take a personality tests whether it's an Enneagram or Myers Briggs really love those that gives you a sense of like, if you're hiring for somebody that needs to be really structured and detail oriented, but they're like their personality type is totally outside of that, you'll probably get some, like initial red vibes right out of the gate. So I would absolutely encourage you to implement some personality it has in there, if you know how to use them. If you don't, don't worry about it. But again, I want you to take this process and run with it and make it your own. I wanted to share it though, through the lens of this is how we run this in in a way that is going to give us our best fit people. So that we can put the right seats in the right, the right people in the right seats, and move the needle faster. But here's the thing is like, even if you are hiring for a contractor, you can still follow this process, they still have to go through these things, we have several contractors apply for our positions. And again, it it gets you in the leadership. See, what I see a lot is people hire contractors, and it's like the contractors are basically driving the bus right there in the driver's seat, and just telling people what they can or can't do. And that's not okay. Now we know that contractors have other a lot of times they have other responsibilities for other clients. But you still should be saying, right, going through this process, letting them know what you expect of them. And they still have to go through right, the due diligence to rise to the top as those final applicants. So I don't want you to think that just because it's a contractor, they shouldn't have to go through this, it's actually maybe it's even more important. So you can see just like the the fully fleshed out process and how we really move through that to, again, get the best people in the right seat. And it is really about doing your due diligence, even though it might feel like it's overwhelming, or it takes time, it's okay, I want you to understand that whether you wait too long, or you do it too fast. Without the due diligence, that is an opportunity cost, it's going to cost you something in the end, whether it's just time spending, you know, bringing somebody into the business and they don't work out which again, that's okay, that will happen. But you'll feel better about it if you did your due diligence on the front end. So I want you to take this and really feel encouraged and empowered to bring in your next or even your first hire the right way. Even if it's just a couple hours a week, I want you to really look at this as not just a short term opportunity, but a longer-term opportunity. You never know where things will go with your part-time contractors or employees. And when you start to really treat your business like a business, you'll be surprised at the opportunities that come in place. So we have a template and a an example of a job description to support this. And and if you want to get your hands on that, all you have to do is go to Kinsey mcafee.com, forward slash hire. So we'll include that link in the show notes. It's totally yours for free. And hopefully this will even further inspire you to go out and make your next hire. I know that this holds a lot of women back. But I'm telling you that it could be the very thing that takes you to that next level. And a lot of times I find women really try to hold too much on their own. And it's keeping them where they're at. And I don't want that to be you because you've got big, big things to do. And it's actually so much more fun when you have a team to deal with.

All right, my friend. I hope this was helpful. Hey, you, thank you so much for listening. It's an honor to be able to pour into the hearts and minds of like-minded entrepreneurs all over the world. But my most favorite part is being able to connect with you in real life. If you love what you heard here, head over to the community where thousands of female CEOs just like you are changing the world one human at a time. We go deeper into the topics you discuss here and giveaway tangible roadmaps to help you crush your revenue goals to join this high-caliber free community head over to kinseymachos.com/community. I'll see you there