There comes a point in the growth of your business where you know you need more people. And just like hiring your first salesperson, it’s not a comfortable feeling. (And that’s why we say growth comes from being outside the comfort zone!) You’ve probably been holding things together for a while now. You and a small team, doing a bit of everything. Talking to customers, delivering the work, fixing issues, chasing opportunities. Whatever needs doing gets done. Maybe getting some of that in writing so it’s repeatable (I hope.) And for a while, that works. But then things start to stretch. Not all at once. It creeps in. A few delayed responses. A couple of things missed. A customer you didn’t get back to as quickly as you would have liked. An opportunity you just didn’t have time to follow up on. “I’ll just push a bit harder”, is the common response.“We’ll get through this busy patch.” The problem is, growth doesn’t really have “patches”. It tends to stick around. And by the time it feels obvious that you need to hire, you’re already feeling the strain. I’ve if you can’t explain the role simply, it’s probably not ready yet.
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seen this a lot. Teams are working flat out, doing their best, but slowly slipping from proactive to reactive. Not because they don’t care, but because there aren’t enough hours in the day. That’s usually when hiring becomes urgent. And urgent hiring… well, it rarely leads to your best decision. On the flip side (because there’s always a flip side), I’ve also seen businesses hire too early. Bringing someone in because it feels like the “right next step”, but without really knowing what they will own, how they will contribute, or what success looks like. That doesn’t go well either. The new hire is unsure where to focus. You start to feel the cost. And everyone ends up a little frustrated. So, where’s the balance? One way I like to think about it is this: don’t base hiring on how busy you feel. Base it on how your work is behaving. Busy is normal. If you’re growing, you’re busy. But some signals come up again and again when it’s time to add capacity: • Work is consistently being delayed (not just the odd thing here and there)
• Important tasks are getting rushed or dropped • Customers are starting to see inconsistency • You’re turning down opportunities you would usually go after • The same bottlenecks show up every single week If you’re nodding along to a few of those, it’s probably not a one-off. It’s a pattern. But (and this is important), just because you need more capacity doesn’t mean you’re ready to hire. You also need a bit of clarity. Before bringing someone in, it’s worth asking yourself a few simple questions: • What will this person actually own? • What does “a good 3–6 months” look like for them? • Is this work repeatable yet, or still changing all the time? • Could I solve this short-term with a contractor or part-time support? You don’t need a perfect job description. But if you can’t explain the role simply, it’s probably not ready yet.
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