BIRD WILLIAMS: You're listening to Bird Means Business Episode 71.

Well, hello there and thank you for tuning into Bird Means Business podcast. I'm your host, Bird Williams and in this week's episode we are kicking off a two-part series all about the hiring and post-hiring process. Now, if you're thinking Bird, I needed to hire someone onto my team yesterday, but I just don't know how to navigate this whole hiring process. Or you might be thinking, I know I'll need to hire at some point and I really know that I want to get a strategy together. Well, my friend, you are in the right place and as always you won't hear me say, hey this is the only way you can do this or that. My entire goal with Bird Means Business podcast, is to help provide context so that this isn't all so daunting, right? Every business is different. So I want you to take what's helpful and just leave what isn't. 

Now before we jump into the episode, I want to make sure that you know that if you're listening to this in real-time, y'all I am 35 weeks pregnant. Baby girl is on the way, and I could not be more excited to meet her. I am going to be on maternity leave in May and June. So, if you're thinking of booking a consultation session or a strategy session with me, you're gonna want to make sure you do that before April 30th. I wanted to just make sure y'all knew that again if you're listening in real-time. 

And you know how I just said that every business is different? Well, in a strategy session, for example, we could nail down a specific hiring strategy based on your needs and where you are in business, and so on and so forth. I actually did a hiring strategy session with a client recently. So, I can give you more guidance in a private session on exactly how to implement these strategies into your business. Okay? I'll link both the consultation session and the strategy session in the show notes so that you can just easily scroll down to the episode description wherever you're tuning in, and click to learn more or book your session. 

And if you're wondering how best to stay connected with me while I'm out on maternity leave in May and June, all of the most up-to-date information and what you need to know will be in my weekly emails. This is where I go deeper with my email tribe, so if you're not subscribed you want to make sure that you go to Birdwilliams.com/join so that you're in the know. Okay, I'll also make sure to link that in the show notes as well so that you can easily click and sign up for the email tribe. 

All right, let's jump into this episode, it's one I'm really excited about. When I get questions about hiring, they're the most dense questions with tons of like specifics, so this is a meaty episode y'all. You're gonna need a pen and paper, you might need to pause things, I'm going to split into two episodes because it's so dense, but we're going to just get right into it. And like I said, for the next two weeks, we're going to talk about all things hiring but we won't just stop there. We're going to also cover what comes next, what do I do after I hire this person onto my team? Okay, so this week we're going to dive into defining the role that you need to hire for, creating the job description, getting the word out about the position, and interviewing. Then next week, we're going to talk about what's important after you hire like what you actually need to send, that hiring decision that offer letter, your contracts, and what you need to think about in terms of payroll and taxes and all of that. Also what the onboard and training process could look like, how to engage regularly with your new employee, how to have check-ins and regularly engage with your new hire, conducting performance reviews, all of that. And we're even going to talk about some of the awkward and hard stuff like what happens when you need to transition a hire out or fire someone and what it looks like to have an exit interview or an exit survey. So there's a lot to cover with this whole engagement process with those who hire onto your team. And before we get into any of it, I want to make sure that we start with why. Y'all know if you've been listening to the podcast for a while you know that I love to start with why, with the purpose behind what you're doing. 

So as a business owner, you must understand two things. One, the importance of hiring, and two the importance of your people. First, let's talk about the importance of hiring. I want you to lean into what I'm about to say because it's so important. In the long run, you cannot grow your business if you don't grow your team. Period. I'm going to say it again, in the long run, you can't grow your business if you don't grow your team. There's going to come a point at which you can't do anymore in your business for it to actually grow. It can't grow beyond what you are limited in doing in your business, and you're going to need to hire other people on, that's something that you really just need to accept so that you can think much bigger about what you're doing in your business and with your growth plans. Okay? So the goal ultimately is to focus on your core competency in the business. 

You want to do ultimately what you're best designed to do, what you're best equipped to do in your business. Not all of us are best at bookkeeping or best at social media. So you want to be able to focus on what you are best at and hire out for all the other roles. Now, when you talk about the timing of this, I think that's where a lot of people get like hiccups because they're like, I don't know if it's time for me to hire or not. It's going to look different for every business depending on the resources you have first. So if you're a solopreneur with tons of time and energy, like you just have more time maybe you have less responsibilities. Whatever it might be, you may be able to grow your business at a good rate compared to another solopreneur. And by solopreneur I mean you're the only one working in your business. So compared to another solopreneur who is completely strapped for time with very little bandwidth or capacity, right? So the solopreneur who is just strapped for time will need to probably make a decision to hire much sooner. But ultimately, it's still true that you want to focus on your core competency, meaning even if you have a lot of time and energy you don't want your time and energy to be spent on areas of the business that could be spent on you really honing in on your craft and not doing other things in your business. So you're gonna want to consider hiring sooner than later. 

Now, I've waited too long to hire, as well as I've hired way too soon. Like before I was actually ready. Let me give you examples of both. With my gym business, I own a gym here in Houston called, The League. I mean I was just holding on so tight to working the front desk. When we launched the business as a gym my husband did all the classes, I was at the front desk for every single class and it got to a point we grew our business very rapidly in the first year. I was doing way too much and trying to still hold on to the front desk role, and it was partially the fear of taking the leap. Right, having to pay for somebody else to come on to the team and not really knowing about the process that I'm about to tell you about right now. Because again, what I love to do with my business with Bird Williams, with my strategy firm, and with the podcast, Bird Means Business is to be a resource that I wish I had. If someone had given me the steps I'm going to give you over the next two weeks, I would have felt a lot more confident in my hiring decision, but I didn't have that. So I was scared to have to kind of figure it out on my own, but I also think it was part trying to just control everything. And what if they don't do it as good as I'm doing it and basically not really being able to trust and let go. So I had to get past those limiting beliefs to be able to actually grow my business. There's no way we could have grown to two locations for example, which we did the following year if I was still trying to work the front desk because guess what? I can't be at two places at once. So again, in order to grow your business in the long run, you're going to have to grow your team. 

So I waited way too long to hire a front desk person for that gym business. Then when it came to me launching my small business strategy firm Bird Williams, back in November of 2019. I was like I'm not making that mistake again, I'm hiring day one. And y'all I literally hired day one, like the first day that I launched my business. Ironically, with the timing, it just worked out that we had gone through that kind of the whole process of the contracts and signing everything and setting up. she started day one and I don't think I was ready because I didn't know exactly what to train her on or what I exactly needed her to do. I thought I knew, but it was a baby business for me. So when it comes to you thinking about the timing, you want to just consider where you are in your business.

I did an episode it's actually one of the first episodes of Bird Means  Business, it's called Hire Slow Fire Quick, it's episode four and I talk all about that process. So, it's something you really want to think about in terms of timing. If you've heard that phrase before, hire slow meaning, take your time, and hiring someone onto your team, it's a big decision. And then fire quick, whenever you identify people who are not good fits in your organization, you're going to want to make sure to let them go sooner than later. So, we're going to talk about the whole firing process in next week's episode. 

So it's important to hire, I want you to get your mindset around that. Yes, I know right now, it might just be you and you're just starting off, that's fine. But just be thinking about what this hiring process and hiring strategy could look like because that's going to be very closely tied to how much you can grow your business. Okay? 

Next, let's talk about the importance of your people. Y'all, your people are everything. I say everything, obviously, not everything, because there's so many other factors in your business but they are so crucial. They are the heartbeat of your business, they're the hands and feet, right? They are building the culture in your brand. And I want to make sure I point out if you haven't yet checked out my free guide, it's called Team Strong Building a Winning Culture in Your Business. I talk about the connection between your team and building culture. And as we know today more than ever, it seems like culture building and having a strong culture is so important and is so felt. And I think that has a lot to do with the success of my first business, The League, my gym business. So I'll make sure to link that free download, that guide in the show notes. So you can check it out there if you're interested. But just know that your people are important, right? I say that they're the most important part and they're also probably the hardest part. But it's something that you have to get right so you have to just get really comfortable with trial and error and learning, and adapting, and all the things. 

Also, remember that the people factor is part of marketing your business. It's one of the seven P's of marketing. A lot of times when people think about marketing, they think about social media, their website, and it's just limited to the promotion, promotion being one of the P’s. But people are actually one of the other P's of marketing, I talk all about the seven P's of marketing in Episode 19. So you definitely want to make sure to check that one out, too. I'll be sure to link it in the show notes as well. But your people again, because you're the hands and feet, because they are the client-facing role perhaps, or because they're the ones tying the packaging on your boxes and mailing them out. They're a part of your marketing. So you want to think about them in that way, as well. I mean, obviously, they're humans that we think about them as humans, but there's understand that the people you hire as you go through this process, you're not just thinking about filling the role. You're thinking about someone who's really tied into the heart and core values of your business because that's going to come out of them. And it's going to be felt by your clients and by the rest of your team and your audience. So you want to make sure to think more holistically about your team in that way. 

So, I just want to point out that when I'm talking about hiring someone onto your team, it doesn't have to be a full-time position with benefits when you first start off, right? You can start small, you can hire someone for five to ten hours a week, or even ten to fifteen hours a month, depending on your needs. You don't have to hire, I think a lot of times people think, well I can't pay for people's insurance and all this. You don't have to do that from the very beginning, you can start small and just get help where you need it and grow your team over time. 

Alright, so how do you prepare for a new hire? What ducks do you need to have in a row before posting a position on a hiring platform or on social media or however you share about this position? Okay, first things first, you need to define the role. So what will this person be helping you with? So you're going to ask yourself as the business owner, what do I need to hand off? Going back to those core competencies, what are the things that I'm doing in the business that I am least competent in that I would love to just hand off? So when you start your business unless you have the capital to hire people from the very beginning, you're likely going to be doing all of the things yourself, right? Like you're the janitor, and the bookkeeper, and the marketing manager, and the instructor, and the shipper, and the packager, right. You're doing all the things, and that's okay to start off if that's what it has to be. But you can't stay here forever. Because again, it's not how you grow a business or maintain your sanity, my friend. 

Any entrepreneur in business right now can think of things that they do every day, every week, every month, that they would happily hand off. So when you're thinking about who should I hire, who should be my next hire, start there and remember, what is the unique skill that you bring to the business? Are you really good at sales? Okay, great. Well, then you should be focusing on sales and alleviating the other tasks. Are you really good at production or maybe instruction? Are you the talent? Okay, well, then over time, you want to focus mostly on that and hire for all the other roles, so that you're again not doing all the things forever. 

So I want you to start by writing a list of all of these tasks. What would I hire out for if I could, and then group them into categories to kind of help you decide the role that you need to hire for. So when I did this a few months ago, I realized I listed out all these tasks that I do in my business, right that I would prefer not to do. And then I realized that when I looked at the list, so many of these are related to marketing, so I hired a Digital Marketing Assistant. So maybe a huge portion of your tasks when you do this list are mostly administrative. And so you say okay, I'm going to hire a Virtual Assistant. Maybe there's a specific role you're doing in the business that you don't need to do anymore, like working the front desk or doing your bookkeeping, those are things you can outsource. So you're going to want to make sure you list out these tasks in your job description, which we'll talk about next because you're going to want to make it super clear, crystal clear, what your expectations are for the role.

Now, in defining the role, you must also consider if this person will be classified as an intern, or as a 1099 independent contractor, or as a W-2 employee. We're going to talk about the interns in just a second. But when it comes to whether you should hire an independent contractor or an employee, here's some things to consider. So first, an independent contractor, the entire process of hiring them is a lot more simple. You're simply going to hire someone as an independent contractor and pay them a check, write them a check for their services. And then when it comes tax time, you're going to give them a 1099 form, it's a tax form. It's as simple as that. Well, for the most part, there are some other considerations that you want to ask your specific CPA about, but as an overview, that's how that relationship works. But then when it comes to an employee, whether it's a part-time or full-time employee, there's a lot more to consider. One is the tax component, so instead of just giving them a check and the independent contractor taking money from that check themselves and putting it aside for taxes. As an employee, you're taking the taxes out of their check for them. So it's a little bit more complicated, and you're likely going to want to work with a payroll processor, or someone who can process your payroll for you, which we'll talk a little bit more about later. But here's where I think entrepreneurs get a little confused. You can't just decide or choose if you're going to have an independent contractor or an employee. There are actually specific questions that are listed on the IRS website that you should ask yourself when deciding this. And you want to make sure you get this right. Because if you classify someone as an independent contractor who should actually be an employee, and you get audited, you can get in big trouble. So you want to make sure you don't mess this up. A few of those questions are, does the worker use his or her own equipment? If so, they're likely an independent contractor. Does the worker set his or her own hours? If so, likely an independent contractor. Does the worker not need training from our business to do their job? If so, more likely an independent contractor. And can the worker work from wherever they choose? Again? If so, they're likely an independent contractor. So this isn't a cut and dry list. It's not perfect, you're going to want to really engage with your CPA and ask, what's the best based on how the workers are working in your business. It can get tricky, but you want to make sure again that you don't just overlook this. 

So I go into much more detail about independent contractor versus employee with examples and more considerations and all of that inside my online course, Prove It Plan. So for more information on Prove It Plan, it's my strategic business plan development course, you're going to want to go to Birdwilliams.com/proveitplan to sign up for the waitlist and to be the first to know when enrollment reopens because it's going to be soon my friends. 

Okay now, when it comes to interns you want to make sure that you understand that when you hire an intern on their pros and cons. So one of the cons is that there's a lot of turnover naturally, right? Because typically they're college students and a semester will end, and so you'll need to hire new interns in for that role. So you want to make sure that if you hire on an intern, it's not for a role that would need to have consistency beyond a semester, for example. And you also want to make sure that your operations are in tip-top shape so that it's easy to onboard new interns through each cycle. But then there's the pros. The benefits to having an intern is that you can get help in your business for low or even no pay. But that's going to really just depend on your values. I know for me, if I ever hired an intern I do still want to pay them. But it's probably going to be less than I'd have to pay a professional, right. And the one other consideration is that there may be more of a learning curve if the role is more skill-based. You're going to have to do more training if they're not already trained specifically in what you're hiring for. 

Okay, so after you identify the actual role that you're hiring for, and you really define it, then you're going to create the job description. So there's some things you want to include in your job description. First, there's the position overview, you want to make it crystal clear why they're here, and how their role fits into the grand scheme of things. Also, their duties and responsibilities. Again, you want to make it crystal clear what you expect from their role. And depending on the role, sometimes I like to list the exact duties, so they can really understand the expectations and their time commitment, right. Another thing you want to list are the skills and abilities that you believe you need for this role. And don't just go with the standard stuff, you know, like, do they really need a college degree, or does experience actually matter a lot more for this role? You might want to consider the tech or the tools in your business that they will need to use in order to do their job. So if you use a specific type of software, you know, maybe you say having experience with that software is a plus. Another thing you want to list in the job description is the employment type. So we talked about intern versus independent contractor versus employee. It's important that they understand that if they are going to be an independent contractor that means, okay they're going to need to withhold the taxes themselves. So you want to make sure it's clear what their employment type will be. 

And then there are application instructions. So I love this part. One of the most important skills that I look for in anyone that I hire is attention to detail, so important to me. So I use this application instructions section of the job description to kind of really helped me weed people out to make sure that I can weed out those who don't have a good attention to detail. So I might say, to apply for this position, email Hello@Bird Williams.com with your one-page resume, a cover letter with no more than 450 words, the results of this personality test in a PDF attachment and I'll say, like Click here to take the personality test, and also your answers to the following questions in a separate word doc. Now if someone can't follow these basic instructions, maybe they aren't the best fit. Or maybe they just don't have the work ethic or concern to put forth the effort required to perform well in this role. So you want to make sure that you think about what you want to put in terms of the application instructions so that you can make sure you're hiring someone who is a good fit for your role. 

I also like to include a business overview, so they have any important background on the actual business. And even when it makes sense, maybe a section on meet the owner, if they're going to be working directly with me, maybe I give a little bit of my background as well. Now, you want to make sure to include your business's core values or your team values. Because remember, it's crucial that you hire people who are aligned with the ethos of your business. And it's great to begin communicating this from the very beginning. Now, you also want to make sure that you include the compensation, and when it comes to okay, within what do I pay for this role? You're going to want to do some research on the market rates. And you want to remember that you get what you pay for. So you're not always looking for the cheapest virtual assistant or social media manager, you want to make sure that if you find someone who has set prices perhaps and is charging more than the market rate that you have researched, then you should expect to get excellent or above-average work. And you would want to communicate that to the person. So you just really want to understand and be thoughtful about the compensation piece. But you want to make sure you put that on the job description so that you don't waste your time or their time with the calls and all of that. 

Now, on getting the word out. So the route you choose to get the word out is going to be completely dependent on what works best for your business and what you feel comfortable with. I'm going to give you a few ideas here. Okay, so my number one strategy for my gym business is hiring from within. This has worked so great for The League, we might have a client who really just loves the league and totally gets what we're trying to do and loves the mission and is great and has been training with us for so long makes it so much easier to hire someone from within than it is to hire from the outside and have to kind of explain all the things about our business. So that is a great strategy for that business. Another thing you might consider is your immediate network. So family, friends, colleagues, you could send a text to people, or an email to people with basic info, and a link to your landing page or your hiring page on your website. You can look into referrals. So that's been another strategy I've used with maybe there's another entrepreneur who has hired for the role that I'm looking to hire for. And I could ask like, Do you have anyone that you would refer? 

Another thing is social media groups. So particularly Facebook, and also LinkedIn, there are a ton of these social media groups that are specific for different roles. And so you could go into those groups and say, Hey, I'm looking to hire X, Y, and Z, here's the link to the hiring page on my website, or whatever it might be. Then there are actual hiring sites. So Indeed, for example, there's also like Fiverr, and Upwork, you may have heard of where you can go on and hire specific people for specific tasks. But they all work a bit different, so you're gonna want to do your research, but understand that if you're hiring a graphic designer through Fiverr, or Upwork, you may only be able to work with them through that platform, and not independently. So it's just something you want to consider, you might have to continually work with that specific platform, instead of just working directly with them. So just take that into consideration. 

There's also using an agency. So there are these agencies out there where you can hire for a specific role, and they have like all the infrastructure set up, which is really nice. And I started kind of going down this road, I was looking to hire a Virtual Assistant probably a year ago. And what happened is, I realized that, Oh man, again, I would be tied to working with an agency and couldn't bring on the person to work with me independently. Meaning if I hired a Virtual Assistant through the agency and we really hit it off and you know down the road, maybe a year into the relationship, I wanted to bring him or her onto my team and work more closely, or maybe work in a bigger or a slightly different capacity, or role their role in my business in some way, I would have to work with the agency, and I didn't want to have to work through the agency forever. And the only options to not do that was to have to wait two years, like stop working that with them, wait two years, and then hire them on myself, or pay tens of thousands of dollars to buy that person out from the agency. So I was like, no thank you, I don't want to go that route. And it's just because like, in my ideal world, when I hire someone onto my team, my hope and my goal is for them to be on long-term right and to be able to grow the business. And so having an agency for me in that situation just didn't make the most sense.

Another thing to consider are industry networking events, or even college campuses, especially if you're hiring for an intern. Colleges have actual platforms where you can go on and post a job description whether it's paid or not. So that's something you can consider. And then also just like doing a social media search, I was in a desperate moment once and I really needed to make a hire very quickly. And I just went on to Instagram and searched hashtags and was able to find someone great. So it might be just searching social media and then posting on social media. So you could of course post your job description on social media or I should say a promo of your hiring position on your social media, and link it to your hiring page on your website. This can just be tricky, though. So you want to be careful, because let's say you have a client or a potential client who wants to apply for the position but ends up not being a good fit, and you have to turn them down could just get kind of awkward. So just something to consider just again, all of these just depends on your personal preference, your comfort, and kind of what role you're hiring for in your business. 

And then finally, the interview. So you're going to review all of the applications you receive, and I suggest you group them by priority. Like you're going through all of them and you kind of group them in Priority A, Group A, Group B, and so on. And you begin to conduct interviews. Now you can do phone interviews, or in-person interviews if you have a physical location you might want to do in-person interviews. But I would say if you do want to do in-person interviews, still do a phone interview or zoom interview first. Because in my experience with having a brick-and-mortar facility in my gym business, there have been times where we had this huge group of interviews right all day long. People coming to the gym and some were just like very clearly not a good fit, and it was just kind of a waste of both of our time, right. So I would have rather been able to weed that out on a call that was less involved than them driving all the way over there and making time and having to be in a specific place. So, start with the phone interview or zoom, it's much better to do zoom than over the phone because you can actually see their face and interact with them. So start there, and then if you do decide to do a second interview in person, if you again have a physical location, you can go with that. When it comes to the interview questions, of course, that's going to be specific based on your business, but be really thoughtful about the questions you ask, you're trying to determine if this person is going to be a good fit in your company culture and if they are going to be able to really excel in this role. So I like questions that really get beneath the surface to help really bring that out. I also ask them if they have any questions for me. And I'm always impressed if they have a really good question about our business in general, or the future growth of our business or something meaningful, like how they can provide more value in their role or any ideas, they have any solutions they want to come up with. Even they're in an interview, that's always really impressive. So that's just something to consider. 

So after you've interviewed them, you are going to send them an email with a test assignment. Now, let's say, for example, you're hiring a social media manager. An example of a test assignment could be saying, I'm going to give you an exercise of repurposing my social media content. So based on this blog post, or based on this podcast episode, or based on this Instagram Live that I did, I want you to create two repurposed posts that include both the image and the caption, right? So you're going to give them a post, like a blog post you wrote, maybe five weeks ago, or whatever. And they're going to come up with social media captions for it. Or you can just give them a topic, of course, you can get creative with this but the idea is really trying to hone in on are they able to do what they're going to be doing in their role well? One of the hardest parts of hiring is that you're kind of just going off of what you think. So to the extent that you can actually see their work, whether it's their portfolio or see other client reviews they have, but having them actually do something that they would actually have to do in their role through a test assignment beforehand before you have that commitment, and you've gone through the whole process, is going to be huge. So I love the test assignments after the interview so that I can really figure out, especially if you have multiple candidates that you're trying to choose between. Let's see who has the best social media posts and caption and all that right. 

So we've talked about defining the role that you need to hire for, creating the job description, and getting the word out. And then also interviewing. Next week, we're going to talk about what happens once you've chosen the person you want to hire, what do you need to send them, how do you actually onboard and train them, and then get into how to engage with them over the course of their time in your business, checking in with them regularly, doing performance reviews, and on and on, and even the not so fun stuff like transitioning, firing, conducting exit interviews, and all of that. 

So, like I said, hiring is an involved process. And I'd say that when it comes to building a business, this is probably one of the hardest parts hands down. And it's because it's the most important your people are so key. So establishing a solid foundation with your hiring strategy and your onboarding practices. Now, will sew such good seeds for your future growth. I promise you, your future self will thank you. As a reminder, if you want to develop a specific hiring strategy for your business, I'd love to strategize with you and come up with a specific game plan for your business's needs. So you can go to BirdWilliams.com/strategy to sign up for a session and make sure that you do it before April 30th because I will be out in May and June. As always, thank you so much for tuning into Bird Means Business podcast, for subscribing on Apple podcasts, and for following us on Spotify. And make sure you tell every entrepreneur you know about this episode so that they can think about their hiring strategy too. 

Talk to y'all next week!