Whether your yet to start up your business for the fledgling idea you have or have embarked on the journey chances are you could have little to no knowledge about many parts of business strategy or operations.
Your business startup, will be likely based on your own specialist expertise e.g. a plumber starting a plumbing business, a chef starting their own restaurant, a beauty therapist opening their own clinic, a florist opening their own floral retail business, or a physiotherapist starting a practice, you have
built up your experience through your ‘trade’, but often what little business skills, and knowledge you may have picked up through gaining your qualifications, or from employers, its often not enough or where you should be focusing your time or energies with starting up your business.
Certainly, do the sensible thing, and work with your bank, a lawyer, and an accountant as part of setting your business up. However, you may well want to consider bringing in other expertise, so that you can focus on doing what you do best, being that plumber, beauty therapist, chef, florist, or physiotherapist.
What expertise do you have in finance, HR, administration, IT, communications (including email, media, PR, social media, and websites), planning, systems and processes, and policies and procedures? By the time you’ve learnt how to do all of this, you will have taken away your ability to do what you do, do well.
As with any small business just starting out, often there is little to no cashflow and you are ‘surviving’ financially week to week, maybe not even drawing a wage for yourself. So how on earth can you afford to employ people to design, develop, and deliver on the areas you do not have expertise in or the time to give to it? When do you start bringing on board this expertise? How do you know what expertise you need?
My question to you is how can you not afford to bring in this expertise? Bring on board the expertise so that you can focus on using your expertise to do what you do best, and so that you are setting up your business to be successful, profitable, and sustainable.
Rather than thinking about how I can afford to do this, think about how you can afford not to, and look at bringing in this expertise through alternative models to ‘employing’ people in the traditional sense of full time permanent.
The following are some alternative suggestions to building the capability of your business from the ‘ground’ up, but at the same time not committing your business to employing someone ‘full time permanent’.
Rather than hiring someone on a permanent basis, look at hiring them on a fixed term or casual employment agreement. This could be a full time or part time arrangement, can provide flexibility for your business, and the employee, and enable you to bring on board specific expertise perform projects, undertake seasonal work or to manage a peak in your businesses workflow, or to cover short-term skill gaps.
See if your local higher education (tertiary education) provider has students who need to complete work integrated learning including internships, work experience, or co-op placements. You would be providing the students with practical, on-the-job experience while being able to access emerging talent. The student could complete a specific project, or a range of tasks that can bring you fresh perspectives and increase your organisations productivity.
Hiring a contractor, consultant, or freelancer provides flexibility, brings in specific expertise, and enables you to manage the costs of your workforce. The contractor, consultant, or freelancer are responsible for their ‘own’ income tax obligations.
Employ someone part time permanent and not only manage your staffing budget but have a level of commitment of the staff member to your business. It could be as your business picks up on the amount of revenue it is generating, that the roles hours could increase, if it suits both parties.
Seeking a mentor with the expertise you do not have, can provide a way for you to learn from their experience and you apply it in your business. While this doesn’t free up your time, in fact it could increase your workload, you are building your own capabilities to get some of the work done, that you cannot currently afford to bring on people to do for you.
See if you can find someone to volunteer their time, who has the expertise that you need. Think about who you know in your network or via other business connections. It could be retiree who wants to help support a new business owner or someone who wants to apply specific skills and knowledge to build up their experience to support their career aspirations.
Bring someone on board whose role it is to generate revenue, and base their pay on a base retainer, with performance incentives as they start bringing in revenue.
If you decide to go down one of these alternative routes, you still need to be able to afford to employ the person, pay them according to legal and ethical requirements, and abide by any labour laws.
You will need to find time to spend with them, so that you are both very clear on expectations and what is to be achieved, and by when, and of course available till they are up to speed, for them to update you on their tasks, and to report on deliverables, and for you to delegate work.
There is no quick answer to building your business from a ‘one man band’ to where you can afford to build your workforce. The ideas generated here on how you can consider alternatives, may provide a short to medium term solution, until you are able to bring on-board longer-term staffing solutions.
As a freelancer, I offer a range of services to support businesses, including working with you to identify what your business challenges are, prioritising what needs to be done, and providing you with recommendations on your next steps.
You can find out more about the business services I have on offer HERE or you can contact me HERE. As a business owner myself, I know how challenging and rewarding starting up your own business can be, but you don’t have to go it alone, with me as ‘your business plus one’.
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