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Hire quick, fire quicker — or some such saying. It means, hire when you need someone to expand your staff. Fire as quick as you discover the person isn’t working out. There is nothing worse for a small business owner to have hired someone who is a bad fit. That person could damage your business and its reputation and no entrepreneur can afford that.

We have 3 ways to hire smarter because if you’re fortunate enough to have grown your business to the point that you can expand your staff to be more than just you, congratulations! Another perk in hiring is that you can focus on your core competency and the new hire can take away those items at which you either don’t excel or that aren’t making any money for the business.

Many entrepreneurs look forward to the time when they can hire, but it is a time fraught with stress and the worry of “hiring wrong.” Here are a few ways to help ensure a new hire has your business best interests at heart.

3 Ways To Hire Smarter

  1.  What role are you hiring for? Define it as narrowly a you can, but leave a little space to expand the role if the person you hired has complementary skills that could be helpful in the future. Whether you’re hiring a vendor, a freelancer or an independent contractor for either full time, part time or per project, you need to know what you need them to do and what skills they need to have to fulfill the role. Having clearly defined – and written job tasks – with outcome metrics helps the new hire know what’s expected and helps you know whether it’s working out.
  2. What do you need and why AND are you going to be able to delegate and let that person do his or her job? If you have an immediate need for help because you have a quick influx of opportunity, do you need someone on the payroll following that or is it a one time need? Be up front with the prospects.
  3. Formulate an onboarding strategy to assist them in their job and you in their success. If a new hire is floundering and don’t know where to begin or what is expected of them, they will be dissatisfied and overwhelmed and will leave.

I have been fortunate in my hiring that I have had a couple of team members — my copywriter, for example — who has been with me for close to a decade. I have other project based vendors on whom I have also relied for many years. I set expectations up front, train staff, give them the tools they need to succeed and it has been a win-win!

Reach out to Rex Richard and ask him for his secrets to hiring, and retaining great employees!