754 Deciding What your Next Hire Should Be

Welcome to the Next Level Life Podcast with Christine Corcoran. This podcast is made for the powerhouse business women who are ready to ignite their fullest potential. This is where we will dive deep into mindset breakthroughs and sprinkle in some kick up the butt motivation so you can scale your business with confidence and clarity. Whether you're craving more income, impact, or inspiration, this podcast will be your ultimate resource for all things next level. Listen in as we have authentic conversations with game-changing female entrepreneurs as we reveal the secrets on what it takes to rise and thrive. 5. So go ahead, ignite your inner fire, and let's get you taking massive aligned action. Are you ready to elevate? Let's go. Welcome back to the podcast. Thank you so much for tuning in. Today I want to talk to you about how to determine what your next hire is going to be, or even your first hire in your business. Wherever you're at, we're going to talk about this because there is a decision-making process that you need to consider, and you need to consider what part of the business is needed. Before I even dive into that, I want to share with you a big decision that I've made recently. I recently just shared it with my beautiful women inside Unstoppable Sales. This is a sales program that I've run for about 4 years now. Previously to that, it was Elevate Mastermind, and it was a continuous mastermind that ran every 4 months. I have been doing a lot of really deep work behind the scenes for my business to be looking at my business model, what's working, what's not working, what do I want to shift and change it, really just considering also what's happening in the market, And I've been doing some market research conversations with some people. I think I did about 12. I think I can't remember exactly the number, but I did, but I did about 10 or 12. And it really just helped me really clarify what people are wanting at the moment. And I think this is some work that you always need to be doing in your business. And, you know, starting off the brand new year, I have my two programs running, the Next Level Mastermind, which is coming up for reopening doors next month. And then I have Unstoppable Sales and it finishes up in April as well. And so I, decided that it was actually time for me to kind of retire Unstoppable Sales. And that decision did not come lightly. It's something that I've been really like sitting with for months now. Like, it's an incredible program. And it's not that it's not working, it is working. And my clients love it. And when I shared with them, it may be the last time that I run it, they were very sad that it was, that's what the case was. And I'm gonna be sharing with them this week, the new thing that will replace Unstoppable Sales. But it's gonna be different. It's gonna be a different way that I, I've run programs before. And I have thought about this for a really long time. And with the market research, it just helped me really clarify what people are really wanting in 2026 and how the market is shifting a lot with AI. And it's so interesting cuz like, you know, not a lot of people are wanting information. Like we're so bombarded with information at the moment. They want the structure, they want the step-by-step, and they want the support. They want the accountability is really, really important. And they just want the clarity as well. Like, I think everyone's so bombarded with so much information that they're— it's not about like needing more ideas on more strategy, it's actually like helping, helping them actually implement the strategy and, and really determining whether the strategy they're choosing is the right fit for their, their business. And so I want to really teach people how to think like a really successful business owner. And there's a few different things that, you know, AI is really not helping with at the moment, right? One, helping people making really defined decisions is going to support the growth of their business. Two, implementation. It's not all the way there yet where it can actually help us with the implementation piece and the uncertainty like that happens in business, being able to navigate uncertainty and the challenges that come with that, uh, the mindset blocks, the emotions that come with the uncertainty and the rollercoaster of business. And that's where I feel like this new offering is going to be able to support that, be able to support their mindset, to be able to support implementation and be able to support their accountability. As well as support being able to handle uncertainty because it is one of the most important things to be able to be succeed— to be able to be successful in business is being able to navigate the uncertain times and be able to handle like the lag time that happens in business. Not everything is quick. And in a world where we're so instantly gratified with things, like it's everything's so fast. Like I recently just moved over from ChatGPT to Claude and Claude's slower. And it's so funny how frustrating that can be because we do live in a very quick world. And I think the thing that doesn't change in business. Like, we don't get instantaneous results in business. You don't post straight away and get DMs straight away. You don't, you know, put out a new lead magnet and have all the leads you ever wanted in your life come in overnight. Like, you don't start a Facebook ad and then everything, you know, changes within your business because all the money starts rolling in. Like, there's always lag time, there's always the tweaking and the testing and measuring phase, and a lot of people really struggle with that and with the uncertainty that comes with business. So I'm really excited for this new offering. I'm not going to share it with you today because it's not ready, and I want I want to share it firstly with my community, and I'll be running a beta round first and foremost, and then I'll have founding members that'll be able to jump in and experience it. So then I can make sure that I'm really creating something that people absolutely love. So that was not an easy decision to make, and I'm excited for it. But then also the beauty of it is that if it's the wrong decision, I can just change it back. Like, so I said to them, like, for the moment, that this round will be the last time that I run Unstoppable Sales as it is in the structure that it is. I may decide that I might run it like once a year maybe and do a live round or something like that. I just say I haven't decided around that just yet, but I needed to make space for this new offering. There's no way that I could run the high level of support that I offer in Unstoppable Sales as well as the high level of support in Next Level Mastermind and then try to then add another offering to that. It's just impossible. Like, I would not have been able to do that. So I've had to make that decision, and I'm good with it. I'm really good with it. I'm now just in the build-out phase, and I'll be bringing it to my community really soon. So keep an eye out for that. Okay, so I want to talk to you about hiring and your next hire, because wherever you're at, if you're right in the beginning stages of wanting to hire someone, maybe you're at a place where you're getting to capacity and you're like, okay, I'm gonna need help, like I'm working so many more hours than I used to, I'm at capacity, I just don't know what to actually hire first, then this episode will definitely help you. Or if you're at the stage where you actually have support but you're actually not sure what the next hire should be, then it's time to then consider, uh, what's the decision you need to make and what direction do you need to go in when it comes to making that hire? So before we even consider what we're gonna hire or what skillset we're going to hire or who we're gonna hire next, there's a few things we wanna get clear on first. First and foremost is understanding your zone of genius. Where are you your most valuable in your business? So if you think about that for your business, where are you your most valuable? Right? Where do you make the most money? Where do you— where is your time best spent in order for you to have the best outcome? You need to get clear on what that is because that needs to be kept as your North Star when you're hiring. Because if you don't have that as your North Star, then what can often happen is that you hire someone and then you just fill the space that you freed up with more stuff, but you're not considering like how it actually supports the growth of the business. So as much as we often go, I really need to make more time available for myself, I need to buy back my time, then you hire someone and then before you know it, you end up just filling it with stuff. And then you notice that then the cost of that investment feels like too much like a cost, less like an investment, and it ends up then being a decision of like, is this even worth it? Should I just fire that person and then keep the profit? Because if it's not benefiting the growth of your business, then it's not supportive of where you want to take your business. So I would start first with getting really clear on your zone of genius and Then I would step into determining where your time is currently being spent. So I would do a time audit on where you're currently spending your time, and I would break it down into tasks, and then I'd break it down into skill sets. And there are things that you currently spend your time on, and then there'll be an extra list you need to create, which are things that you prefer if that— if you had the actual space that you would spend your time on that, because I guarantee you it'll come down into multiple different buckets. And you need to get clear on what those things are because you don't just want to hire someone just as a generalist to just take stuff off your plate. It won't benefit you in the long run. So we want to get really, really clear on all these things first, right? Define your zone of genius and then do a time audit. Where are you currently spending your time? And then externally to that, if you had more time, where would you spend it? So then you can be like, okay, what do I need to be building? Like, what do I need to be growing? What should I be expanding on? Where should I be spending my time? Like, all the things that you say to yourself in your head of like, oh, if I had the time, I would do this. Those things need to be on that list because I guarantee you they're probably the growth-focused activities that will serve the growth of your business and the scalability of your business, but you just haven't had time to focus on them. So we want to make sure that when you do free up your time, you do spend time on those things. Otherwise, you'll just end up just filling your stuff, filling your calendar with stuff, and then you get nowhere with it. So usually the cycle of hiring kind of looks like this. We start with like getting to the point where you're at capacity and you've got enough money coming in the door where you're like, Okay, it's actually costing me money in order to spend time wasting time doing all this admin or doing all these things to keep the business running and maintaining the business that I don't have time to spend on scaling the business. So we go, okay, how can I use some of that money to gain back some of my time? So you buy back your time and then you fill that time with whatever that looks like. So it could be servicing more people, it could be selling more stuff, it could be really spending time on those growth-focused activities in order to make more money in other areas, right? Then you most likely either sell more or you scale even more because you freed up your time, maybe fill that with more paying clients. And then before you know it, you're at capacity again. And then you go back to, okay, how do I buy back more time? And often what we do is we think about things in, from a perspective of time instead of scalability. And that's where people go wrong. So we want to be considerate of, with that list of things that you wrote down, you want to ask yourself, which ones make me money? Or save me money, and which ones save time and reduce effort. Okay. So it's either gonna save time, reduce effort or energy, right? So they're in two different buckets. We wanna consider where are you at in the stage of business that you need to scale? Do you need to invest in gaining more sales and make more money, or do you need to save more time? Sometimes you are gonna be best spent working on making more money versus someone else helping you make more money. So you need to decide, like, firstly, you need to know within your business what actually makes money. Like, how does the business make money? What are you currently working towards? What are your goals? What's coming next? How are you currently generating leads? And how are you currently selling? Like, what are you selling? What are your offers that you're selling? So once we're clear on those things and all the things that have to happen in order for you to make more money, we need to go, okay, so what's my next best step? I always start with, is there a way for me to save time, reduce effort with automation? You always start with automation first. So I look at all those tasks and go, what parts can be automated? Especially in the world that we live in right now. Like there are so many things in your business that you can automate with AI that will actually allow you to gain back more time, sometimes even generate more leads and generate more sales. Like some of these things that you could be putting in place right now for a very small subscription, and you don't necessarily have to hire someone to do that. So I would actually start there. Okay, so we're going to start with automations that are going to save you time and automations that are going to make you money. So we start there. All right. Then we look at what is the next best thing for me to spend my money on? Is it going to be— are we in the stage of business where we need to bring more money in? Then we need to spend time on the activities that will bring more money in, right? Or do we need to actually make space for me to have time to make more money? So then I need to free up time. So either way, it's just helping you clarify, like, what is this going to give me? Okay. Because if it's going to only save you time, you need to make sure you're replacing those time, those hours that you're actually outsourcing to more important things. Don't just fill your calendar with stuff that doesn't get you anywhere. Okay. So this is why it's so clear, like to get clear on your zone of genius, get clear on your CEO role of what you do want to step into. Otherwise you just keep replicating the same thing and create the same results. So get really clear on that. And then the other areas that we usually then spend money on is either, am I hiring team members? I always go, what skill set do I need in order to grow the business right now? So I consider the skill set first before the person, because sometimes we end up hiring because of someone that we like, or we hire because we think, oh, that's what everyone else is doing. Someone— everyone else is hiring a VA, so I should hire a VA. But you really need to consider, like, what does my business actually need? Does my business need a specific skill set in order to scale? Does my business need someone to support me? So then I have like a, an OBM or a business manager or a VA that actually supports me to be able to be the best version of myself in my business, right? Or do I actually need a coach that's going to help me with the strategy, that's going to help me with my mindset, to actually support me to be the CEO of the business? So that could be the next piece. Or does my business need help with marketing or sales or a manager or accounts or bookkeeping or CFO services. Like, what does my business need to scale? Consider that next, okay? Because then that will help support you with like, where do I make my next hire? So you might start firstly with automations or systems. Then you maybe would start next with team and go, okay, what do I need to hire next for the team? And what do I need? What does the business need? And that's why I always like say, what does the business need versus I? Because sometimes we make it from a selfish place and go, Well, I just really wanna get my weekends back, so I need to outsource all this extra stuff because it's taking me so much time. But is that gonna help grow the business? So I come back to that. So then I consider skill sets, like what skill sets does my business need in order for me to be able to scale and get to my goals faster? Okay. And then usually when we're scaling, we're looking at other investments to help support the growth of the business. So do we need strategy? So we hire a coach. Do we need to improve parts of the service? Maybe there's parts of your service or your deliverables that need upgrading. Maybe you need more support to run the community better that you have. Maybe you need better systems. Maybe you need better platforms. Maybe you need better processes. Maybe you need more customer service. Like, there's got to be something there with the deliverables. Maybe there needs to be a more polished version of everything that you do behind the scenes. So do you need to improve the type of service? Do you need to have, um, someone come in and support that service? Do you need better workbooks? Do you need better collateral? Do you need better functionality? Like, there'll be certain parts of behind the scenes that will make your service offering premium that maybe you need to work on upgrading next. Or maybe you need to work on upgrading your brand. So we go through different phases, right? So it really just depends on what does the business need to scale. And sometimes having someone like a coach come in and actually look at it from outside and be like, okay, I can see where you're being held back. Like, I can see that maybe your brand is, is the one that's the weak link. Maybe you need to upgrade your branding. Maybe you need to upgrade your website. Maybe you need to improve your marketing. Maybe you need to improve your PR, maybe you need to work on actually getting more eyes, you need to work on visibility and PR. So we need to look at like what's missing and where does the business need to go next in order for you to scale it. And so that might be the brand, it might be the behind the scenes of actually delivering of the service that maybe needs to be improved, maybe we need to work on your frameworks, maybe we need to work on the platform and the deliverability, like all of that, right? We need to look at all of it and go, what is gonna best serve the growth of the business? And so that's always the question that I'm coming back to rather than just going, oh, I need help, I'm just gonna grab another VA and I hope that saves me time. Nope. It's not the best way to go about it. You wanna ask yourself what's gonna support the growth of the business and what does the business need next? And if you are hiring to support saving time, right, to buy back your time, you wanna just keep in mind what the purpose of that is. So free up your time to do what? So you're replacing that time with more effective use of your time. And that way you will then look at that cost being more of an investment rather than a cost or an expense in the business. Yeah. Because one of the things that I see that causes people to go backwards, they hire, they hire the wrong thing, they free up their time, and then they end up filling that time, like I said earlier, with stuff that they just, you know, keeps the business maintaining rather than actually growing. And then before you know it, they look at that investment or they look at that expense as an expense and a cost, and they go, oh, I could actually be making more money if I just let that person go. And so they let that person go, they take all that stuff, put it back on their own plate, and they're exactly where they were a year ago. So you just wanna consider the purpose of hiring or the purpose of expanding your team, outsourcing, whatever it looks like. You wanna ask yourself, what is the overall outcome I want from this? And what's the long-term goal here? And how am I bringing people into the vision and the mission of the business to support the long-term goal and the outcomes that I'm looking for? Otherwise, you'll just end up doing the same thing, stuck in the same cycles and just maintaining instead of growing and scaling. The last thing I want to say as well is it always feels uncomfortable to hire because sometimes you're just not ready and it doesn't feel ready. Like, I don't think I've ever felt super ready to hire the next team member. Um, although I did have a moment towards the end of the year where I was like, I think I need more support. And it's one of those things that I recognize because I have hired before. So if you're right at the beginning of first hiring, I want you to know it never feels— you never feel ready. And, but you have to look at the signs and the data of what your business is telling you. So if you're at full capacity and you cannot sell anything more because you can't fit any more in, then it's most likely time to hire, right? So, because there's no way that you're going to be able to make more money or grow unless you just increase your prices. But other than that, you won't be able to serve more people. So you've hit a bottleneck, like, and you're the bottleneck. So you obviously need to obviously bring support on to buy back more time in order to give you more time to sell more stuff, right? So look at the signs your business is telling you. Secondly, do your numbers. Like, do your numbers, because if you're if you're feeling uncertain about whether it's time to hire or not and you are just getting by financially, then there could be a reason for that. So we need to look at, do you have the income in order to support a hire? And start with where you're at, where you can. So you don't wanna put yourself into a position where you can't put food on the table because you've hired someone and then that's basically taking all the profit outta the business. That's ideally not what you wanna do. But there will come a time where you're like, I need to feel like I need to get that space back in order for me to be able to continue to grow. And so do your numbers first and make sure that you can do it. I always look like 3 months in advance to be like, can I feel confident that I can cover this cost 3 months in advance? Um, and then when I do that, then I hire, because that way I feel that, you know, within that 3 months I'm going to be able to get my time back in order to be able to make more money to be able to then cover the cost as well. So I just consider that ahead of time, and usually I'm looking 3 months in advance I've got income that's confirmed and I know that I'll be able to cover those costs in the next 3 months. And then ideally I've had that team member up and running and it's actually benefiting the growth of the business. Now, if you're just taking a little bit of the profit off the top and investing it, then you might— like, I would start with automation first and I would start with that, okay, what's going to be able to help support the growth of the business, not just save me time. And so you just want to be conscious that you really see and understand that sometimes a hire is not going to make you money Initially. And so it may feel like you're taking a bit of a pay cut if you're taking it out of your profit. Like, I get that it's going to feel like that to begin with because it's going to take a bit of time to actually see the impact that'll have on the business long-term. And so that's why I always look 3 months ahead, because then ideally I should see those— start to see those results coming through after that 3 months. If you've been spending the time that you've had freed up on more important things, then you should be able to see those results within 3 months. And I'm such a big believer of, like, commit to what you feel like you can commit to, not what other people are telling you. So anytime that I have hired, sometimes, you know, they'll say, oh, I do a 3-month commitment for this many hours or this many whatever. If that doesn't feel right for me and my business, then I'm not going to say yes to it. Just because you have conversations with people does not mean you have to hire them. So just stay strong to what your business needs and make better financial decisions based on what the data is telling you within your business. I hope this helps. If you have any questions, feel free to send me a DM. Otherwise, enjoy the rest of your week. Thank you for listening. And if you found any value out of this episode, make sure you hit the follow button so you get access to the episodes as soon as they are live. And make sure you come hang out with me on Instagram. You can find me at Christine Corcoran_Coach. Have an incredible week.