What to think through, map out, and have ready before you make your next hire
Plus, what I’m calling in for 2024 business-wise (are we a fit?)
Hope you’re having a great week. If you’re thinking about hiring, wanted to send over a few tips on what to think about, outline, and prepare from a non-legal and legal perspective beforehand, and as always, the legal docs you need. Even if you’re not planning on hiring soon, I’d save/print this email for when you are. At the bottom of this email, I’m sharing some of what I’m calling in professionally this year, in case we’re a match!
If you’d rather watch a 2 minute video:
1. Outline your SOPs
Before you make your next hire, you should think through (and outline) all of the standard operating procedures around this hire. This is more than just your hire’s scope of work: your SOP’s are how you run your business from the inside as well as how you deliver your services to clients, and the nuances of how your hire will perform their tasks.
If the hire is going to be handling some of the tasks you’re currently doing yourself, it can help to walk through your work day and take note of all the tasks you do, how you do them, even filming short Looms you can then have ready as part of your onboarding process to make hiring the next new person even easier.
In the case of social media managers, do you have a standard internal process for creating content/videos? For engagement? If not, you should establish one, outline it, and record it, so it’s ready for all of your new hires.
2. What’s your onboarding process?
What’s your plan for training new hires? Is there a timeline for training before they start actual work? What does that look like, and how can you create the process and save any related onboarding resources/emails so that they’re ready (and even automated) for the next new hire?
3. Payment structure
How will you pay the new hire? Will they invoice you? When and how often?
Are you an agency doing payroll? Are there requirements for time or task reporting for your contractors, and if so, when do those reports need to be submitted to you in order for hires to be paid on time?
4. Your availability
How are you available to the new hire? When can they reach you and on what platforms? (i.e. you don’t want to be monitoring Slack, Whatsapp, Voxer, AND your DMs for messages from the new hire). Will you have regular check-ins?
5. Employee vs. Independent Contractor
This is a very important distinction and can have major tax implications. Most first hires are independent contractors, but it’s critical that if you’re hiring a contractor, you treat them like a contractor and not an employee. Employees generally can’t work for anyone else, and hiring employees requires thinking through things like federal and state taxes, workers compensation, unemployment, etc. Independent contractors generally work for themselves and can work for other clients, use their own equipment, can set their own schedule, etc. See #7 for the contracts you need!
6. Gut check
Are your systems ready to support a new hire? Would hiring someone actually create more work for you right now or are you ready to outsource now? Is this the right time? Does this person have the skill set you need in your business right now?
7. Lawyer-drafted contracts
Contract-wise, employees need a custom, lawyer-drafted employment agreement, while you can use an independent contractor agreement for contractors. Remember: no dueling contracts. If your new hire has their own contract and is reluctant to sign your Independent Contractor Agreement (what I always recommend because it is drafted to protect you as the business owner), make sure you have a lawyer review it first. If they’re going to work directly with your clients, have access to any of your confidential information like financial info, business methods, trade secrets, etc., it’s always a good idea to have them sign a NDA (this is built into our Independent Contractor Agreement, you only need the NDA if you’re signing their contract instead of yours).
If you’re running an agency, I highly recommend working with me or another experienced lawyer you trust for a custom contract for your hires.
What I’m calling in for 2024 business-wise
Sharing these in case we might be a good fit!
High level partnerships:
Honestly, I think clients/buyers are going to get even more discerning with their purchases in 2024. I think every one of us has been burned by coaches/courses/hires/some other business investment that didn’t deliver, so a unique value-add can be especially potent.
I’d like to really get creative and innovative this year and provide more value in containers like this.
Joint workshops/events:
Anyway, collaborating with like-minded entrepreneurs to produce joint workshops/virtual events (and in-person after my long term move coming soon, visa-dependent ;)) where we capitalize on complementary skill sets is something I’m definitely calling in this year. I also think doing a joint email collaboration could be fun and value-packed. If you have a large, engaged email audience you email consistently, and would like to do a series where maybe we do a legal Q&A or something tailored to your list, I think that could be interesting and valuable. Reach out via the Contact form if you’re not on my email list and we’ll chat.
One of my favorite entrepreneurs, James Wedmore, says he doesn’t create anything that can’t be repurposed at least 4 different ways, so we’d turn the collaboration into a million different types of content, too 😉
More podcast appearances:
Love doing these! It’s an opportunity for me to talk about legal without having to be completely focused on legal, if that makes sense. I love the informal environment, too. If you’ve been podcasting for at least a year and have a consistent, decent-sized audience, I might be able to add value to your podcast. Get in touch if you want to chat about it!
More legal masterclasses:
Love teaching these. Have had the opportunity to do a number of these and love interacting with entrepreneurs not already in my audience and learning what they’re struggling with, which helps me continue to evolve and learn what products I need to create, too. I release the copyright rights to the masterclasses so the business owner can resell it or repackage it in another program. I tailor each masterclass specifically to your audience. Pricing starts at $750.
Creating more licensing deals/agreements for my clients:
I love licensing because it’s usually passive income that can lead to even more passive income by reaching an entirely new audience. I’ve helped clients license everything from their masterclasses, to their courses, to their programs, to their stand alone digital products. With licensing, another business owner either provides them a flat fee up front to use their products in their own programs, or pays a fee to start and then royalties over time, or sometimes, the business owner will buy a certain number of “seats” of their product. Regardless, it allows me the opportunity to get a little creative and my clients the ability to make what sometimes is a considerable amount of money without launching or any additional work selling something they’ve already created.
More and better Affiliate resources and synchronicity:
I love my Affiliates, but feel I’ve really dropped the ball on providing consistent, updated resources for helping promote. I provide a content bank and Canva resources/templates upon sign-up, but we haven’t updated it, and one thing I really want to do in 2024 is synchronize my social media posting with my Affiliates so they can share relevant posts to their audiences and just drop/paste their affiliate link versus having to create a new post when they want to promote (although I’m working on making the latter easier, too). Would welcome ideas on this! And if you haven’t joined my Affiliate Program, it’s a quick sign up here.
Marketing on LinkedIn?
The last thing I want to do is add another social media platform, and TBH, LinkedIn makes my skin crawl a little, but one of my clients was telling me about the reach on LI: 40% organic on LI to .4% on IG. I think I could get past the overly-corporate feel for that kind of reach. Anyone had success on LinkedIn? Would love it if you would respond with your experience. TIA!
25 hour, 4 day work week:
A work in progress 😉 It’s been going about as well as my “totally off-the-grid for an entire month” went in December, but honestly, I think even the aspiration is transforming my business. Taking a rapidly growing business and saying “I want to continue to expand, but only in ways that feel nourishing, while working fewer hours” forces you to get extremely intentional not only with your offers and how you run your business, but also, with rewiring your thoughts and beliefs. I’ve doubled my meditation practice, which has helped me curb the monkey brain and hamster wheel of thoughts, and have been incorporating different nervous system regulation practices, too.
Further expanding my team:
Also a work in progress. Being really intentional with this.
If we’re a fit on any of the above, would love to hear! You can contact me via the Contacts form at the bottom of this page, or send me a message on Instagram.
Have a great week!