If you’re reading this, you probably run an agency or a business.
Or you work in a role which allows you to delegate work.
Or, you’re a freelancer who may have been tempted to outsource at some point.
At some point, everyone wants to outsource: Hiring people to do things means you don’t have to do those things, which is great.
But one mistake people make is hiring too quickly.
How do you know you’re hiring too quickly?
The biggest sign it’s too early: Many people delegate before they’ve even tried doing something themselves. For example:
- You want to “scale growth,” so you hire a growth person.
- You want to “build a better product,” so you hire a developer.
- You want to “write better copy,” so you hire a copywriter.
While these are all well-intentioned aims, it is hard to hire for something you know very little about.
And it’s probably too soon to hire for something you haven’t at least tried yourself first.
When you should hire?
Think of it like cooking. If you’ve never cooked a steak before and decide you want to hire a private chef to cook steaks for you, you may not know what to look for, or how much work is involved.
But if you’ve tried to cook a steak a few times and learned some ins and outs, you’ll have better questions to ask your private chef, and you’ll be better at judging value.
It is, more or less, the same with hiring.
So before you hire:
- Try doing the task yourself first.
- Document the task step-by-step as best as you can.
- Develop basic questions for applicants based on what you now know about the work.
- Begin the hiring process, your experience, your documentation, and your questions.
Simple, right?
Happy hiring—and steak cooking!
