As your business grows you will find it increasingly more difficult to handle everything yourself. Hiring new employees is a major growth milestone. It’s also something that needs to be done thoughtfully.
Remember that balance is key. If your new hire does not bring in more revenue than they cost in salary you would have been better off not hiring them at all.
Scalability is one of the biggest challenges that any business can face, but it doesn’t have to be daunting. On the contrary, a well-executed expansion strategy can be an exciting and highly impactful process.
In this article, we look at key roles you should onboard as your business levels up.
Sales
While the line between sales and other departments seems to blur more and more each year—with many divisions of big businesses now being trained on how to initiate the sales funnel—a dedicated department is still key.
A good salesperson will generate a lot of revenue and accelerate growth faster than any other position. You do need to make sure that the person you choose will make a good cultural fit for your brand. The sales element may be the most direct interaction that consumers have with your business. You want the experience to reflect your branding perfectly.
To get this right:
- Develop a clear vision of what you want a sales interaction to look like.
- Create processes that a salesperson can follow to consistently deliver a positive experience.
- Choose someone who will be a good brand fit.
It will take a bit of time to perfect your sales funnel, but once you get it right, you open the door to major expansion and growth.
Operations Manager
An operation manager will come in and take over many of the more basic tasks that you focus on every day. It is a leadership position that will influence many of your other employees’ work experience, as well as your customers’ experiences.
While they maintain what currently exists, you are able to focus more of your time on tasks that foster innovation and growth. Basically, finding a great fit for this position will take you out of the trenches and into the “command center.”
Obviously, you will need to find someone you can trust a lot for this position. They will be coming in and basically doing what you currently think of as your job.
To make an operations manager worthwhile you do need a clear second step in place. Why do you need to move up into the “command center?” What high-value task will you be doing to grow the brand?
Most business owners make this hire once they find that they are consistently being thwarted from pursuing high-value tasks by day-to-day requirements.
Finance
Having a finance department—even if it consists of just one person—is a good way to make sure your business remains legally compliant with tax law as it grows. Your finance department can also help you better understand the financial realities of your goals.
Scaling efforts often fail because business owners struggle to factor profitability into their growth strategy. On paper, they are making more revenue, but they aren’t making more profit. A good finance department can help with that consideration.
Customer Success
Customer success, or customer experience professionals are an important though non-glamorous aspect of business that every entrepreneur should take seriously. For brick-and-mortar stores, everyone working there is basically responsible for CX.
If you own a café, for example, the water may several of the roles we have described up until this point. They will take your order, make recommendations (sales) document the transaction (billing), and interact with the customer (CX) all in a stretch of two minutes.
If you are running an e-commerce brand or something along those lines, the need for a designated CX department will become more apparent. Any time you have customers who might have concerns or questions that can’t be addressed conveniently in person, having a designated CX department will make a big difference.
Not only does this help turn aggravated shoppers into repeat buyers, but it also provides an awesome source of data. You’ll learn more about the experience you are providing consumers by finding out what complaints are most common.
Modern CX departments drive revenue by making personalized recommendations. Some even play an important role in corporate branding. For example, Zappos, and to a lesser extent, Amazon, advertise themselves on the strength of their incredible customer service.
You don’t need their money to deliver a comparable experience. You do need:
- A well-defined set of policies.
- A staff carefully chosen and trained to fulfill them.
- A process for handling off-hours questions.
Most brands can’t afford to offer 24/7 support, but you don’t have to. Chatbot technology can take on a lot of that burden, while a diversified roster of communication techniques (email, chat, phone, social media) can ensure that customers always have a way to reach out, even if they might need to wait a while for their answer.
CX professionals can be hired off-shore, or on a freelance basis at a relatively affordable price, making it a good investment for businesses of any size.
Keep in mind that while AI tools can help a small team accomplish more, they can’t replace human support. Data consistently shows that customers prefer human interactions.
Onboarding
Onboarding is simply the process of bringing someone new into your business. When done right, it not only helps ensure that the employee can do their job correctly, but it also significantly increases the chances that they will stay with your business long enough to make a real impact.
To onboard appropriately, it is important to make sure that the person you have hired does not feel overwhelmed. Give them a good amount of time to learn your processes, adjust to your expectations, and learn the job. This might take a few months. During that time, they probably will not be generating the revenue that you are hoping for. That’s ok. It is a process. A successfully onboarded employee will ultimately be worth a lot more than a hastily trained one.
