What position should I hire first for my growing business? | S04E12

Hey, welcome to this episode of Leadership is Feminine. We have another awesome podcast listener conversation to share with you. Let's get started.

So I know there's so many of you that are listening who have the beautiful beginnings of a business. Maybe you're making $50,000 a year, maybe you're making 100, and you know that team is in your future, but you're not quite there yet. So this is such an awesome interview and coaching session with one of our podcast listeners because she's just at 100k, she's just ready to make those initial hires, and she's a little confused about where do I begin, who do I hire? So I love this conversation with our listeners. She has a beautiful music teaching business and she does group lessons for children and she was trying to decide like, do I hire an assistant? Do I hire another teacher? I don't have a tremendous amount of revenue yet to hire both. I think you'll be happy to hear how we got to the end of this conversation and what she decided she could do. So super fun. I just love talking to all of you as my listeners. This will probably be something I continue to do. So if you would like to be a listener that receives some coaching, please go to hellorisplacki.com and let us know and we will send you an application to fill out and we'll take it from there. But for now, let's turn it over and you guys can tune into our conversation. So your question is, do you have a music school? I want to hire the right people in the right order for my specific business. I own a music school and studio for children. I'm trying to figure out if I should hire an admin assistant or a teacher first. My wait list for students to start music classes is long and I need to hire a teacher to teach the students on the wait list. The benefits of hiring a teacher first would be that I could use the profits from the extra classes to eventually pay for an admin assistant. However, I'm at capacity managing my business and teaching my in my business that I don't think I'm set up to hire someone and train them. Ideally, I'd like to hire both at the same time, but I don't make enough money yet to pay both. My husband has mentioned taking over the operations side of the business, but he doesn't have all the qualities I'm looking for in an admin person. I could delegate finances and some tech stuff to him, but not sure about customer service. Okay, yeah, well, first of all, yay your business is thriving.

It is. It's a good problem to have.

It's a really good problem to have. This is all good news. And I am so happy that you're thinking about this conversation because so many people don't. They just slap it together. Right? Yeah. Okay, honey, can you do this part? And it gets real squirrely real fast. So I just want you to pat yourself on the back that you've taken a minute to think about it, because you're right. It makes a little sense here to be sort of strategic and thoughtful so that you don't end up building something that you end up not wanting.

Yes. I think one of my. Yeah, I think one of my biggest fears is getting something set up and then realizing pretty soon after that that it wasn't going to work out the way that I had hoped.

So. Well. And I do want to kind of give you this heads up. Right. Is this your first business that you've owned?

Yes, this is my first actual real thriving business that I've owned. I've dabbled in some things before, but most of my life I've been a career corporate person.

Good.

And, yeah. So I have a lot of experience. At one time, I was an executive assistant. I was a manager. However, I. I don't feel super comfortable being a manager. I think that I have a lot of training to do in that area and work on myself. Which is why I appreciate your podcast and. And your program, because I feel like it gives me more confidence to what we do.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. They're very important. And, you know, you have obviously a wonderful skill when it comes to music, which is great news. Right. But, you know, running a company is a totally different jam.

Yes.

So where are you with your revenue right now?

So I generate between 7 and 8,000amonth, depending.

Oh, awesome.

Yeah. And that's. That's with, you know, the fluctuation of students that come in and out. So, yeah, that's about where I'm at right now.

So you're just about at 100k, right?

Yeah, that's my goal.

That's good. Well, it's time to stretch the goal. Right.

So I'm going to ask you just to think about potential options. Right. Like, one of the things about this process is there's no right answer. There's just, what's the best one for you right now? And I can see several potentials. Right. So the first thing, though is what I would do before you even decide, husband, assistant, teacher, is you draft very basic job descriptions for all Three kinds of positions. So you mentioned that you would probably have your husband do some tech stuff. Right? Like so. Okay, so then what would a role look like that includes what did you. Finance and tech, I think, is what you said, right? Yes.

Yeah.

So what would that role look like? What would be the key result that that role would be responsible for? So those are two kind of tangential. Not really. They're just. They're different. Then how would you know what would be the things that somebody in that role would need to produce? So the objectives in order to achieve that result? And then what would be the responsibilities that they would have every day? Right. And if you're doing a lot of that now, then that's just you making kind of a list and parsing it off, right? Yes. Then there's a teacher role. And what would a teacher do? What's the key result? What are the key objectives? What are the key responsibilities? And then there's the assistant role, because I actually think you might want to consider a little hybrid here. So not an all or nothing. All right. When you're at 100k, we recommend you have an assistant. It's when we start to hit that first the wheels are coming off a little bit time in our business. And then we hit it again around a million. And then we hit it again between 3 and 5 million, depending on how big you get. Right. It's just this evolution of growth. So having someone even for five hours a week, because how many hours a week are you teaching?

I teach about 20 hours a week.

Okay. And how much money do you earn per hour?

Depending on the class, between 160 to $200 per class. And those classes are generally an hour long.

Okay. And so you're doing 20 hours a week at about $120 an hour. Is that right?

Is that right?

Yes, I think. Is that roughly right? Yeah. The other way to do it is take. Take 7,000 and divide it by however many hours you're doing teaching, which is 40, 60, 80. Right. 7,005 by 80. The reason I'm asking you to do that is you're doing as many hours as you can, because then you have this other part of the business. You have to run it. So what would happen if you paid someone $25 an hour to do the other things while you're over here making 120? Yeah. Okay. There's a cost when we don't hire because it's limiting your earning. Just you. Whether we take a teacher on or not. Right. We already can. See, See that you actually have more earning potential than you are doing right now. If you told me I'm working 60 hours a week teaching music, then I would for sure say you need to hire assistant.

Sometimes it feels like that much.

Yes. But there's a lot that goes into one class. Right. So that's, that's the piece. It's like, these are the hours I teach. But then you're prepping and you're all the other things that you do. Right. But while you're doing that, you. You are also not doing social media, or you're not writing a newsletter, or you're not updating customer data or responding to customer service requests. So we have to think about this VA assistant role as an investment, not an expense.

Yes. I'm looking for somebody that can help give me more time and space. Because when I'm teaching, I'm on.

Absolutely.

And that can be a drain on my energy. And so it's not even necessarily sometimes a time issue. It's an energy issue where I feel like I don't have enough left over to give to the administration of my business.

Yeah. There's a real truth. I think you have to tell yourself the truth. I don't work past one o'. Clock. Yeah. With clients, I can't. I can't function. And if I have a morning that's 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 1, I'm done. That's it. And my team knows that. So here I am with you recording a podcast. Right. And there's five other people working in my company.

So I'm generating. Right. Media. This is what I'm doing. Which will hopefully generate weeds. Right. But in the meantime, people are working in my business. So that's, that's the way you have to start to think. It's like, yes, I'm not. I am a solopreneur, but I can bolster both my energy and my earning potential by getting some support. And I don't even think you have to start with a lot of. I think if you hired someone to do five hours a week, you'd be blown away at what you could get out of that. And what is that? 25 bucks? That's 100 bucks a week. 100 bucks a week?

Yeah. I guess I never thought about just having somebody only work five hours a week, because as an executive assistant, I was between 20 and 40 hours a week.

Yes. Yeah. But I don't think your business is there yet. You don't have probably 40 hours a week of work for a BA. But if you could Start with someone and grow with them. I think you could find that be tremendously resourceful. Like if there was one thing you could just not have to do anymore, what would it be?

I think it would be answering client questions. So I have a million. Not a million, it feels like a million.

Right.

Messages coming to me every day, throughout the day asking me random questions about policies, tuition.

Rescheduling, things like that. So it would just be nice to have somebody on the back end that can handle all of that.

Yes. And I'm going to add an and. And build you an FAQ page.

Yes, that would be amazing.

Yeah. Because that's what you need to start doing is you need to start collecting. Okay. These, these 20 questions are getting asked pretty regularly. So we're going to make an FAQs page and we're going to direct people to there first. But you need someone to build that for you. You don't build that. So I would honestly hire a VA to do that.

Yeah, that's great. Something that I've been wanting to create is a member site that would also kind of automate things and save me a little bit of time every week and give further instruction besides what was taught in the lesson. So that way they have other resources that they can go to through the week to help them practice, to help them learn and discover maybe some concepts that they didn't really understand in class.

Instead of having my brain, my brain of course explodes Right. When I hear people's ideas. This is part of the benefit of working in the how to CEO program is you get someone else's brain on your company. And here's what I would tell you to do about that. I would find a teacher that you could pay five hours a week and I would pay them based on production. So however many classes they do, they get $40 or I'm making this up. I have no idea. Right. You don't want to say I'll pay you half. Don't ever do that. You make a decision of what you pay them per class and that's what they get paid. They don't make money based on how much money you make. Do you follow me? Yes.

And you're kind of answering one of my other questions that I've had about this. So this is that.

Yeah, we make people offers. The one of the biggest mistakes I watch people in service do is like, like as a coach. Right. I have coaches that do one on one coaching in our business. Right. And we charge $7,000 for that. What a lot of people do Is say, oh, well, it's $7,000, so I'll give you half. But then if I raise the rates to $10,000, they're like, I get half. No, I get paid $7,000. I'm going to pay you $500 an hour. That's how that works. Right. And so that's always how you want to make things work. So you have to not ever make their earning contingent on your earning.

Is there a general. Yes. Is there a general percentage that you would recommend or is it just based on. I know you've talked about the results that they're creating.

Yes. Okay. Yeah. So I would look at. And you want to look at value. Right. Are the classes just one person?

No. So the classes. Groups. Yeah, they're groups. So they're generally about eight students.

Okay. And so one group with all the people who paid for it. That's what that $160 is per class. Okay. So. So then I think. And I think you have levels like, come on in, be my protege, be my apprentice, be my whatever, and I'll pay you $40 a class. And then as you build your acumen and as you build my confidence in you, then there's a opportunity to earn more because it'll just make you more money. The better they get, the more students you're going to attract, right?

Yes.

Yeah. So it's worth it for your top performers, for you to actually make less profit on those classes because you're building retention and.

More. More students. Right. Just keep that in mind. Yes. But I would bring someone in and say, hey, teacher, I'm going to apprentice you and I'm going to pay you. And also, by the way, I want you to start to watch me teach. And let's start building resources that will go into a membership site right away. I wouldn't. I would not. I'm sorry, not right away. I wouldn't get too invested in building a platform immediately. A lot of people think building membership sites makes everything easier, and I will tell you, eventually it does. But it's a whole other literal business to run a portal.

So before you go there, I would just amass all of your resources, video clips, things that you might want to have in there, content lessons. Start putting that together before you build the site. But I would leverage a teacher and their skill set to help you.

I love that idea. I didn't even consider that. I started dabbling in a membership site last year, and I thought it was going to be wonderful and easy, and I quit three quarters of the way through realizing it, it wasn't going to work out the way that I thought I wanted it to.

So it's, it's not that membership. I think there are me. I mean, I have a membership site, even though we don't really treat our program as a membership, but it's an incredible way to organize and structure content and sort of a step process for your student. It's brilliant. I just think where you are right now, let's get some of the administration part of your business dialed before you take on something that will need managing. That's just all that's gonna do is require more time from you to build it, manage it, oversee it, fix it, edit it, upload to it. Like all the things that end up needing to happen. And it seems like you could create a Dropbox or use suite process or Google Docs and start amassing your content and not starting it until then. It's just building it and it's done. Yeah, I love that idea. Yeah. So I would look at your budget because if you add a teacher, right, you add a teacher, you know, maybe for their training, you do two or three weeks, they have to shadow you. So you're gonna, you'll, you will take a hit a little bit on your revenue in that, that window. But then eventually they become a teacher and you're not working in the class and you can add classes. And like you said, you have this great waiting list. So I don't know you. We go through years of our business where. Or seasons. Right. Where we do take a little less profit because we're going to reinvest. But it all just amasses and pays off in the long run. And I do, I did that last year. We were way high on wages and we had our, our best year, revenue wise. And now we're still generating revenue and I don't have the same level of wages. So it's, it does pay off. It's just, you got to think about this as an investment and put numbers to things that you don't normally put numbers to. Like you're just working. You're not thinking about. Okay, I'm doing all this when I answer a customer service email. I'm paying myself this much money when really I could pay someone $22 an hour.

Yeah. Reframing all of that. Definitely.

Yeah. And if you think in big numbers, like, well, I don't have, I don't have $35,000 a year to pay someone. Don't think like that. You're paying them per hour. And if you follow accountability strategies that I teach. If they don't deliver, they don't stay.

So you're paying per hour for the result that they achieve. And if they're not achieving the result, we're not going to spend 30 grand on them. We're going to spend two weeks worth of a few hours, and then we won't keep them. Right? Yeah.

Yeah. I appreciate you breaking it down into smaller numbers so that way it doesn't seem so daunting because I do feel like I need both. I feel like I need help in both areas because I do need to hire a teacher right away because I have this wait list, and they all keep contacting me, and the community needs it. My mission and my goal is to bring as much music education to my community as possible, because I didn't have that growing up. When I went to college, this. This whole world unloaded, and I was like, why didn't I get this when I was younger? And so now I have all of the tools to provide that to the community. So I know that they're waiting for that. But then I. I feel like I haven't been. I'm going through a lot of growing pains. And so my administrative side isn't set up to hire people yet, to hire teachers yet. So I need to get that under wraps and kind of.

Well, just start with a really basic job description, and then, you know, one. One next step after the other. Right. Start talking to people, bring someone in to shadow. You can treat all of these hires as projects instead of like an employee, I would say you bring in a va, and that's their project is the whole customer service response, setting up templated replies. You'll have to do that with them. And then ultimately, let's build out a whole faq. That's a process that you can get into place. And once that's built. Right. That's a game changer because then anybody who comes in the business will have all of that institutional knowledge of your company. And then the teacher. I think you know how to observe and know if a teacher's good. You just have to identify what those principles are. They you're going to be evaluating to know if they're the right fit. And you might have to kiss a few dogs. Right. That's part of the deal, too. Just keep going.

Yeah, it is.

Yeah.

I had. I had a couple of people in mind, and kind of the more I listen to your podcast, the more I question, oh, maybe I don't know if they would actually be as good of A fit because I originally thought going back to the results part of it and.

Not just working to work, but to actually produce quality results that are going to give my business a good reputation and.

Contribute to the growth in a significant way.

Yeah. I mean, it's a queendom, Right. That you're building. You've probably heard me say that. Right. And so we don't want to just let anybody in, but we also have to recognize, and I love that you're doing it now, that you have to let people in to grow it. Like you can't get it bigger on your back. It's not going to happen. So, you know, the worst thing that happens is you bring someone in and you work with them for a couple of weeks and they don't work out and you move along and you do it again and you do it again. And I mean, I have clients I've worked with for four years. Right. And they're. That's why they stay in the lab, because everything's great. And then they pop up and they're like, okay, three people quit. Like, yeah, welcome to running a company. Like, it doesn't ever stop. We just get better at responding. But I think that if you can think about this as feeding the company, you're feeding its success. You're not. You're not detracting from your personal revenue. Like, there's a. We got. You have to kind of start separating the business's money from your money.

Yes. And that's a difficult thing to do, as, you know, Solopreneur going to. Yeah, yo.

Yeah. But it's. But it is where ultimately you make the best decisions. If you're just making decisions about, well, what can I afford? That's a different way of thinking than what does the business need. Yeah. Yeah. So. But I'm excited for you. It should be fun.

Yeah, I'm really excited. It's scary exciting. Yeah.

And like you said, really well needed in the world. I love that. I was a music student myself. I took music all through elementary school, middle school, and then even in college. One of my favorite classes was my music appreciation class as a freshman in college. And we did all the. Listened to classical and we did all the things and I loved it. So I think it's very important. I took Voice forever, so I love music and so I think the more we can get kids into it. My son is actually a music engineer in la. That's awesome. We have a lot of. A lot of musicians in my family, so I'm a big believer. So grow.

The world needs you. Don't get caught up in your own drama. Right? I know about you. It's not about you.

It's for the kids.

For the kids. Best for the children.

It really is.

I mean, it really is, right? Like, I have a coach and she'll say to me, can you get over yourself? So other people could get help, please? I'm like, oh, okay, I forgot there's other people out there. I thought it was just all about me. No. You know, that's why we do what we do. We get kissed with a vision because we were kissed with it for a reason. And that vision really doesn't belong to you. Right. And the more you can kind of hold it there and say, okay, what do you need to get what we want to achieve? That's a very different way of thinking versus, like, how much money do I want so I can buy groceries next week? It's just a different mindset.

I do feel like my vision is bigger than myself.

It should be. Yeah.

And it's. It's a beautiful thing. It's what keeps me motivated to do this and what helps me wake up every day on the days that I don't want to wake up and answer emails. Answer emails and, you know, even sometimes, like, muster up the energy to, you know, get up in front of eight little, little energetic bodies and, you know, teach them all of the things and. Yeah, yeah, I understand. Yeah.

I will tell you that the best. One of the best days in my business recently was when probably about a year and a half ago, we have a hello at Chris Plackey email, which is where all of our questions go, even external, Right. And I'm not in it. I don't see it. I don't read them. The only time is when my team is like, hey, they don't know how to reply. So they'll send it to me and say, what do you think? And then they'll still reply. I don't reply. And I was terrified when I did that because I run my own company for eight and a half years at that point and changed my life. Because, you know, you read those emails at 9 o' clock at night or.

11Pm, 2 in the morning, and then.

You'Re like, oh, God, I better reply. Better figure I better. No, stop it. So, yes. So let's get the VA right away.

Okay.

That's easy.

I love that you make it easy.

Yeah. How we roll, that's what we do around here. Because it isn't that hard. It's just all our mind Drama that makes it hard.

It is. Yep.

Yeah. And you're going to fail, and you're going to be fine, and then you're going to do great, and then you're going to fail, and then you're going to do great. And that's just how we do things when we run a company.

I think that's the other part of it, too, is because I started this company in 2017, and it's just been growing, growing, growing, and I don't feel like I've hit any sort of a major fail yet.

Oh, good.

I mean, there's been minor ones, but, like, nothing.

But you grew during COVID I mean, come on.

CO was the best thing that happened to my business because I was the only thing that was open.

There you go. Yeah. So people needed a place to take their kids who are in home all day. Yeah. Yeah. So good. It's all good. Keep going. Yeah, but make a decision. Make a decision. Don't waffle. Just choose, decide. Go forward. Make a decision. Be willing for it to be a little messy and not work out the way you thought. And that's okay because that's the only way you're going to go forward.

Yeah. I think in my mind, I've been thinking, oh, there might be a wrong decision here.

But no, the only wrong decision would be to hire or bring your husband into your business, and he doesn't have an actual role. Do not do that. Do not do that. I did the conversation with a bunch of women not very long ago, and we were talking about spouses being in the business. And I was just sharing my perspective because I've coached so many women who bring their business, their husband into their business or their partner. And I wish I could say differently, but a lot of the time doesn't work out so well. And the reason it doesn't work out is there's already some issues in the marriage. Right. Or there's just not clarity. The expectations are unclear. And so we were having this whole conversation, and we were talking about how a lot of women involve their husbands because they want their husbands to feel involved.

And I'm like, it's not your job to take care of that for your husband. That's your job. Your husband's job. Right. So there was a woman on that call who came up to me months later, and I didn't even realize. And she's like, I just need you to know I got off that call and I fired my husband. And it was the best decision that we ever made for our marriage. And I just want to thank you. And I'm like, well, good to know. So we just. It's not a decision. It feels like it could be such an easy, like, yeah, could you just. But it can get squirrely. So that would be the one thing I would say. Don't do that unless you have very clear expectations and job description.

Yeah. We have such a good relationship right now and.

The thought of me being his boss, so to speak, is. I just don't think it would bode well for either of us.

Yeah, that's good wisdom. You have to know that. Right? Like the women that I know who do work well this way, they have a one on one with their husband. Like when they're at work, they are the CEO, they are in charge. But it works. Right?

And that's, you know, just adds a whole dynamic to the relationship that some are totally ready and able to do and others like, oh, wait, this is weird. We don't want to do this. Yeah. There's no right or wrong. It's just, I like people to be really clear before they make that decision. Because the marriage is important.

Yes.

An employee you can just fire.

Yeah. I'm in it for the long run with my husband.

There we go. Yeah.

Yeah. And it could be the best decision you guys ever make. It's just right, like, let's just go. It's same thing with like, if you. I did one, a couple. Right. A while ago. Hiring a friend, especially hiring a best friend, hiring your mother, hiring your sister. Like all those relationships are the ones I love to help people treat very uniquely because those have other. There's other implications involved in that. So. Yeah. Okay.

Thank you for your wisdom.

It's my pleasure. I'm so glad I got to meet you. Thank you for being on my podcast.

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