June 26, 2024 • 42 mins
At some point in your business, you'll need to hire help in order to scale. Maybe you've already dabbled in the hiring arts, or are thinking about doing so. In this episode, we are giving you the low-down on how to hire standout talent and how to know when it's time to part ways. We hope this episode helps you get more time back and scale your business!
Want more help with your emails? Follow us on Instagram: Angie: https://www.instagram.com/angiemachado_/ Clara: https://www.instagram.com/claratoombsconsulting/ Download Our Free Resources Get instant access to Angie's Free Email Planning Bundle Get Clara's 14 AI Prompts to Help Transform Your Email Game
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:04):
Welcome to the females across the pond and beyond podcast. Hi, I'm
Clara. Hi, I'm Angie. We're here to share all things
email and beyond. We go through the trials and tribulations of running your own business,
being your own boss, and sending your own email marketing.
As email marketing experts, we're dedicated to helping small businesses
thrive so they can have more freedom in their business. Ready to get
(00:27):
started? Let's dive into the episode.
Hello. Welcome, everyone. Today we are
going to talk about hiring contractors as
small business owners. Clara and I also dabble
(00:47):
into the hiring contractor arts. So
we're going to take a moment and take an episode to talk about
how we hire contractors. Tips and
things that we've learned along the way. Because it's quite a journey, isn't it,
Clara? It really is, yeah. Hopefully
help you as you venture into hiring more contractors.
(01:11):
So before we get started, though, I am going to
kick it off with. I want to hear about a new thing that I want
to do called, like, your bonkers business moment. If you had,
like, a bonkers business moment or like a magical
business moment this week, because we're all business owners
here, and sometimes, like, just crazy,
(01:34):
insane things happen, whether they're good or bad. I'll
kick it off with mine because I am surprising you with this.
So you can take a moment and think about it. But
one thing that I think is really cool or an experience that
I have constantly had as a business owner is anytime
I make a big investment in myself,
(01:56):
somehow that money comes back to
me. And it happened again this week. So
I was thinking about joining a new coaching program. I don't know if anyone
out there hires coaches. I love hiring coaches.
Clara hires coaches. So I was thinking
about hiring a new coach, and it was quite a big investment. It
(02:18):
was $7,000 for six months.
Yeah. Yikes. So. But
honestly, I was like, okay. And it's to really scale my
business and streamline my product offers. And
I decided, you know what? I'm gonna take the plunge. I'm gonna do
it. Amazing. Really scary.
(02:41):
That's amazing. Thank you, Clara.
But what's even more amazing is literally an hour
later, I got onto a sales call, and I made it
all back. Wow. That's spooky. Isn't that
crazy? That's really scary. Like, scary
spooky. What? That. And I'm talking about
(03:03):
pretty much the same amount. Wow.
I love that, though, because it's kind of like the whole kind of manifestation
of, yes, you're putting something out there, and it's coming
back to you in. A good way, I was like, the energetics of
money. And, you know, I do a lot of, like, manifestation, and
I practiced it a lot years ago, more so than now.
(03:26):
And they would talk about this, how you'll start to see,
like, how money, like, flows and, like, it's like a full
circle thing. Like, what you give, you get back.
And I think it's. That's really hard to believe in, especially
when you, like, have fear about spending money or making big investments. But then
to, like, kind of see it all play out, I'm like, oh. My gosh,
(03:48):
that's, that's, that's great. And I think it just shows
everything is linked to mindset. And if you had
decided against that
investment, I wonder if you would have got the sale. Like, it's.
You would never know, but I don't know. Yeah, I don't know.
But at the end, and my husband was like, oh, but it wouldn't it just
(04:10):
been nice to have that money and not have spent it? And I'm like,
well, I'm investing that money to increase
even more, to be able to hire more team members, to be able to really
streamline my products and things like that. So
obviously, the idea is I'm going to scale. So,
yeah, I would rather scale, you know, to even
(04:32):
higher. I love that. It's brilliant, and it just shows
that, and it's kind of linked to the topic of
today's episode, but really it's about, you know, hiring people that can
help you. Yeah. Scale your business, you know?
Absolutely. I love that. I think it's brilliant. I
think it's great. I think it's really positive as well. And I love that.
(04:54):
Yeah, it's just about energy, I think, as well, and putting something positive out
there, and it comes back to you. Yeah, I love
that. Okay, so now it's your turn. What about you? Do you have,
like, a bonkers. But, I mean, you kind of told me before we got on
here, and I really wanted to tell you, like, oh, yeah, me, too. You said
that you landed a big project, but it doesn't have to be about that.
(05:15):
Yeah, I did this week, which I'm delighted about.
But actually, I wanted to share just a quick story about a random
conversation I had this week, which I'm really excited about.
And I guess, like you, unless, you know, I love the saying
fortune favors the bold. I think it is,
if you take the risk, it's about taking that leap
(05:38):
forward, and a lot of people are frightened of doing that, particularly when it comes
to either investing in their business or exploring something new.
Yeah, and I had a really interesting conversation today and it got
me thinking about, well, let me
give you the context. So I'm working on a big client project
at the moment that is linked to a migration. So we're doing a couple of
(06:00):
migrations and I was thinking more
broadly about how I can accelerate and scale the support
I give to my clients without cloning myself a hundred times or
hiring lots and lots of people. Like how do I give good
quality time to these clients, particularly
on some of the aspects that
(06:21):
require a lot of my attention? So I
am specifically talking about when you're signing off on
campaigns, the kind of whole QA process.
And I had a really good chat this week with this, this
guy who has developed this amazing,
(06:42):
I don't even know what it is, like a tool or platform, it's so early
stage and he's developed it just for himself. And
I am so curious to know how this could actually
help me scale my business. And we had a really good chat
about what he's developing. He's actually using for his
corporate job, but he's starting to look at how he can help people like
(07:04):
me and people like you. So it's just
about automating and using AI to
accelerate a lot of the things that might be quite manual. And this is
more in relation to email marketing specifically, but
yeah, so really excited to work with him on this.
I don't even know where it will lead to, but the first
(07:27):
session was really good and you just never know when you put the question out
there what kind of responses you'll get. So I'm excited
to work with this guy to come up with something
really cool that could be quite revolutionary for a lot
of service providers, particularly email
(07:47):
or even social media people as well, anyone that basically works through
a QA sign off process. So watch this
space. Hopefully sharing more about this in the coming weeks.
Weeks. But yeah, we're certainly looking at AI to help
this cool. Yeah, and AI, I mean,
I think a lot of people tend to think like chat GPT but you
(08:10):
know, there's just so many things that AI can do and I know art
is already doing for my business. I really try to lean into it and look
for tools to streamline stuff and there's a lot of good stuff out there.
That's another episode that we need to have. Yeah, yeah, there is. We need to
do an episode on AI. Absolutely. Because it's getting
to the stage where people, there's so much people are
(08:33):
discovering on how AI can help them. And yeah, we're
talking way beyond copy and content generation now.
So I'm excited by that. Let's do an episode on that. We've decided
here, right here. Decided here now. But I'm really
excited. I'm very interested.
So definitely keep us posted because it sounds like something that
(08:55):
I absolutely need as well because, yes, I
am scheduling emails all and Q and a all the
livelong day. Yeah, I will keep you posted because,
yeah, watch this space. Watch this space. All
right, well, let's get into hiring contractors,
you know, but, like, before we even go to hire a
(09:18):
contractor, how do we know that we need a
contractor? What. What might be the signs that, you know,
someone might. Someone might make more money, right?
Because the whole point is we want to hire someone that's going to make things
more efficient for us so that we can spend more
time making our business money. Or the contractor also
(09:40):
helps with, like, our marketing and making us money. Right? So how do we,
how do we know we need one? What do you think, Clara? It's a great,
great question. I think for me it's maybe signs of
burnout. So you might be trying to do a thousand
things and just feel like you're getting nowhere. You might
feel like you're so focused on client work,
(10:01):
you're not promoting your business. And therefore it really
is a sign that you need help. Because unless you're getting up at 04:00
a.m. to try and do everything, we also want to have that balance of a
life as well. And I think with becoming a
business owner, you also want that freedom and flexibility.
And if you're working longer than you did in corporate, then something is
(10:24):
going wrong. Now, listen, I know that there are some startups out there
that are working all hours to launch something, and I get that. And
that sometimes needs to happen. But we're talking about
burnout here that's kind of constant and
you're not seeing any respite and there's no light at the end of the
tunnel. So these are the signs that should
(10:46):
be looking for. Right? In terms of, you know, what kind
of, why would I hire a
contractor? Well, burnout is certainly one
another is looking at, you know, are you falling behind on promoting
your business? Are you actually investing in time to
build your email list and also showing up on social
(11:07):
media, networking, all of the other things you should be doing.
What else is there? Angie, I think my big thing was kind of hitting
on what you just talked about is understanding that you're
one person, and there are some
things that are falling to the wayside that are not working in your
(11:27):
business, and they're most likely just not working because they're not
getting the prioritization and the time and the
expertise or skills that it needs. A lot of that time, a lot of,
a lot of the time that's happening with our marketing, you
know, with marketing our business, that tends to
fall to the wayside because we're so focused, again,
(11:49):
on client work or product creation or
the things that we really do enjoy
doing as business owners. Right.
So I think it's also realizing, hey,
maybe my sales aren't growing or my social media
audience isn't growing or my email list isn't growing
(12:12):
because, you know, somebody, it really
would do a lot better if somebody was actually focused on it.
Yeah, absolutely. I mean,
one of the things I've noticed, actually, with some of my clients is that
they're either trying to upskill in certain areas, like social media,
(12:33):
or like, any kind of aspect of marketing that may be new to
them and the time it takes them to learn a new
skill, it's just not there. Right. You're talking,
they're cutting into their weekends on top of trying to
run a business. And so you've got to ask yourself the
question, what value is there in me learning that skill
(12:55):
versus bringing someone else in to do this
for me and saving me a lot of time
and just learning that skill is not enough. You have to keep up to
date with it. You have to refine. There's things
that you need to build on that skillset once you've learned
it. And also going back to the point around
(13:16):
freedom, how much time do we want to spend learning all these new skills?
Do we actually want to be spending time on doing what we enjoy, what
we love, what we're passionate about within our business, and then spending time with our
friends and family? Or do we want to be learning all these new
things in our business to basically
be doing absolutely everything, there's got to be a
(13:39):
cutoff. Right, Angie, in terms of, I
actually draw the line at doing XYZ, you know,
like, yeah, we can't do everything. Yeah. And I think that it
is important to understand that there are things that you're going to enjoy
doing, like extra skills. Like, I have
clients that are really good at social media, and they do their own social media
(14:01):
and they excel at it and they love it. And that's great. They should absolutely
keep doing their social media. Same thing with email marketing. I have clients that are
really great at writing their own emails and are really comfortable sending their
own emails. Great. You know, so I think it's also
being able to understand what do I enjoy doing? What do I feel good
about doing? As opposed to what do I want nothing to
(14:23):
do with? And I really don't want to learn how to do and being
honest with yourself about that. And it's okay to, like
you said, not want to learn a new skill and not want to do
something. Yeah, exactly.
Okay. So we decide, hey, I don't like doing my social media.
I don't like doing this or that. What do we do
(14:45):
next? Like, what do you think? Where do you
go? Or how do you source, I guess finding
a contractor. I kind of want to talk about that.
What's the next step for you when you're like, okay, I need a contractor.
What do you do next? It's a great question, actually.
And for me, I actually ask other business owner friends. So
(15:07):
I get referrals, recommendations. For me, it's about trust. I'm
bringing someone into my business. I need to feel I can
trust that person, and I'm more
likely to if I've had a recommendation or kind of
referral. So depending on the skill set I need,
it's usually a vA or, you know, depending on
(15:29):
what the requirements are, I will look out
to my friends first and then perhaps go on Facebook
or, yeah, usually Facebook. But within
certain groups, I'll ask the question. And actually, that's how I found
current and previous contractors that I've
worked with in the past or now. So I think depending on
(15:52):
the requirements you have,
it depends on then where you find them. But certainly my first point
of call is our referrals. How about yourself,
Angie? Yeah, same for referrals. I'll reach out to other email
marketers in the space. I think we're in the same Facebook
groups. I think the next step that I would do would be to go into
(16:14):
that women of email marketing, Facebook group that we're in
and post there. A lot of people post there. There's, like, other
marketing groups. So whatever you're looking for, there are definitely groups,
Facebook groups out there of people who are in those groups just to
network and not even sometimes, sometimes to get jobs
and, you know, get contract jobs, but a lot of times so that we can
(16:35):
learn from each other, so that we can ask questions. So I think you can
feel comfortable knowing that the people inside of those, like,
niche down groups really do have
experience and expertise. And I think at the end of the day
passion. Right. If I'm in a Facebook group for something, I'm really interested
in it. I want to learn more about it. That's something that's really important
(16:57):
to me in hiring someone, someone that's dedicated and
passionate and, like, wants to do a really good job. So I think
knowing that they're in groups or that they are, yeah.
If you went to conferences or wherever, you know,
those people are invested in their own
industry and excited to learn more. And I think that's
(17:18):
also important. Definitely. What do you think
about, like, Fiverr and upwork? Have you
had any experience on there? Yeah, I mean,
look, there's a place for everything. And I think when
I launched an app years ago with a friend and we
used people from Fiverr and
(17:40):
upwork, and it was more about we need something designed
quickly. This was like before the days of canva, which is scary
in terms of how long ago this was. But really,
for me, with my specific requirements around the help I need in my
business, I am looking for specific skill sets that
(18:01):
may not exist on upwork or
Fiverr. And I think it just really depends on what you need. I
think Fiverr is great for if you need something quickly created
that, you know, you might be, might be on a particular
budget. But personally, I don't use those
platforms for looking for someone to bring into my business because I'm looking
(18:24):
for not just one project, but looking kind of longer
term. If I really like working with that person, I
will bring them back onto future projects as well. So I
don't, I personally haven't experienced that. On Fiverr
or upwork. Have you experienced that? Yeah.
No, that's why I was asking you, because I've definitely looked on Fiverr and
(18:47):
upwork and thought about reaching out to people. But
as an email marketer, I have redone
so many flows that people had gotten from others
on Fiverr, and they were just so bad.
So bad. So, like, it makes me kind of scared. But I think
if. I think you're right, it depends on what you're looking for. If
(19:09):
you're looking for an email flow that's. That
can make you money consistently
for years to come. You want that to be done well. And
to me, it's totally fine to spend a $1,000
on that because the return is going to be so much
more than that, right? Yeah, absolutely.
(19:32):
You're right. It really depends on what is the task, what is the
ROI of the task. If it's a potential huge
roi, take some more consideration and time
into who you're going to hire for that, right? Yeah. I mean,
it comes down to, like, for example, experience
and, you know, their track record. Like, what is it
(19:54):
that you are looking for? So, for example,
I have quite a technical project I'm working on at the moment, so
I don't have time to train someone up at this point in time.
Maybe in the future I will, but I need someone that can come
in quickly and hit the ground running and really get to
grips with multiple CRM email
(20:17):
platforms that I don't need to therefore
spend time training them. So experience
and skill set is really important, like technical
skills for what I'm looking for. But you might find that
actually I just want someone to come in and run my
social media because I have zero time. And that's a really, really
(20:40):
common one that I think a lot of people need help with.
But really, I guess when we start thinking about hiring someone, like,
the kind of qualities we want to see in a contractor are, for
me, it's passion. It's actually showing up with
enthusiasm. It's someone who has good
(21:00):
communication skills and can, you know, respond to me
in a good time, not take weeks to get
back to me because that's a red flag. But also,
like, you know, how do I know that this person is as
good as they say they are? You know, what are
you, what steps do you take, Angie, to make sure that you're hiring
(21:23):
someone that you think would be a good fit? I usually
do, like, a little grace period for a few weeks,
especially because the people that I have looked to hire, I want
them to stay on for a while. I'm not really looking
on for project based or I haven't really. It's always been, I need, like a
va or I need someone that can do the things like scheduling emails
(21:45):
or, you know, helping me with these little tasks that I'm going to need
for, you know, as long as I have
clients. Right. So for me, it's all about,
you know, I've never done a sort of, like,
project test or, like, paid for someone in the hiring
process. I've always just said, okay, like, I'm going to bring
(22:07):
you on for the, for a month and we'll kind of
test the waters and see if this is a right fit. And typically
within a few weeks, I can tell, you know, if this
person is what I'm looking for or not. Yeah.
Oh. Which has been a journey, and
learning how to do that has also been a journey for me. I will
(22:30):
admit I feel like I'm not that good at hiring people
because, I don't know, I
tend to just be really optimistic and hopeful
and I think something to be
wary of or something that I get nervous about is like,
confrontation and feedback, which I need to get over. I
(22:51):
just need to be like the boss CEO of my business
because that's been really challenging for me. Because once I see that someone
is making mistakes and making repeated mistakes, I'm like,
okay, do I need to train them? Is there a
future with them? Or is this just not going to work
out? You know, it's time. So I always say that it's
(23:14):
time to say goodbye. That's another thing. Like when.
So tell me about your process and
how. Yeah. And how you bring people
on. It's really weird, right? Because I know the
questions to ask when I meet people, and it's usually an informal, quick call
on Zoom or whatever. After I've, you know, initially
(23:36):
someone has reached out to me to say they're interested,
but I actually go on gut feel a lot. I actually.
That's always right. Yeah, I've hired, in my corporate
job, I hired. I hired lots of people and I
always followed my gut. I always had a sense of even if the person
didn't do the best job in the test, I
(23:59):
mean, obviously we're looking for good standards here, but like, let's say they
may not have all the experience I need, but their
enthusiasm outweighs that. Then, you know, that for me is a
good thing. But I go on gut feel the mistake
I have made and I'm going to share this, but
obviously protect the person I'm talking about because
(24:21):
I'm not about that. But I guess the mistake I made
was I actually did go on a referral
and I didn't then do my due diligence to check that this person
was actually of the standard I was looking for. So I guess even with
referrals, we still have to be doing our checks.
(24:42):
What ended up happening for me was this particular person
was getting some really basic things wrong
and the client was seeing it.
I was trying to keep up with the mistakes that that person was making,
but it was just a disaster. Like, it. It just
made, it actually made it harder for me because I was
(25:05):
doing more work to correct the mistakes and what have you.
It was just awful. Like, it was a really bad experience. And I remember at
the time feeling like this is actually causing me more stress.
And, yeah, that mistake I've learned from. Like, I still would go
on referrals, but I would still do my checks. I would still look
at what experience did this person
(25:28):
actually have? You know, I think if you've been running
your business, even if, like, let's say you've been running your business for a year
and you've started to hire people, unfortunately, sometimes it
doesn't work out, and sometimes you do have to part
ways because, you know, when I hire, it is for the
longer term. Like, if you're good, I would keep you on. If you want to
(25:49):
keep receiving, you know, work from me, then I
will happily bring you into
many future projects. But you also have to
prove yourself, right? Yeah, absolutely. I have
been through the exact same thing that you went through
on referrals and on me reaching out to people
(26:13):
on Instagram and things like that, where. And
it's funny that you talk about gut because that is absolutely right
with, with every VA or assistant that I've had that it
hasn't worked out. My gut has, like,
always been, this is not going to work out. This is not good, again,
within, like, those first couple of weeks. And I tend to
(26:35):
quiet that because I'm like, no, I just hired this person.
I want to commit to them. I, you know, if they need a little training,
if they need a little extra help, I'm happy to give it to them. But
it's just always turned out that if I have a feeling about
something and it's not good, it's just, it's like that it's
not good, and eventually we need to part ways.
(26:57):
Yeah. And it's the whole red flag situation, isn't it? I mean.
Yeah. Um, like, what, what is your hiring process?
Yeah, so my hiring process is
I jump on a quick zoom call with them,
have a conversation about, you know, what I'm
looking for, and ask them questions about what they're looking for. For me,
(27:20):
for the positions that I'm looking for, everything is trainable, and I'm happy
to train someone. Right. So it's more so about the
passion. It's more so about the work ethic, but I feel like
it's really hard to pin down the work ethic on an
interview. People can tell you and, like, you know, talk to you
all the live long day. And I do find, I don't know,
(27:42):
like, I know that people are, like, really excited about jobs
and things like that, but they, they definitely, like,
give me a lot of compliments and talk me up, and I'm like, I need
to not get, like, in my head about that stuff because it's
not really about, like, how big of a fan they are. Of like my work
or my business, right. It's really about the work ethic and how
(28:04):
they do the doing. So after we do the Zoom call,
then I say, and I'm happy with them and I get a good
feeling just from their, like, energy. Then we,
I bring them on and I usually pay upfront. I've
always paid for a certain amount of hours for the month
because I ask for payment up front for my,
(28:28):
the work that I do. And
then I give them and I will train them. I will send them
training videos. I have training videos now for vas on how to do
everything I need to do. And I always send them the training and start
the training and then give them really simple tasks
like scheduling emails, checking links
(28:51):
of emails. Very simple thing that I think are simple
but might not be simple to somebody else, I guess
because there are times then, even in those tasks where I'm
like, to me this is pretty straightforward. This is simple. This is just you
paying attention and just like clicking and checking things.
I can usually pinpoint right away if it's going to work out even in
(29:13):
these simple tasks because there are times then
when people, you know, miss a lot of stuff or I can tell
that they didn't do it thoroughly and they just kind of breeze through it
and then there were a lot of mistakes and like you said, then I have
to go back and like redo everything. So that's usually the
process for me. Yeah. And,
(29:36):
you know, like when you do go through that, it's, you soon
learn, actually, if this person is the right fit. And sometimes, you know, people
are great in interviews, but when it comes to the job itself, like,
oh, dear God, like, what have I done?
And I'm careful not to over promise. Like, I kind of say,
look, if we start off with this
(29:59):
small project and see how it goes and if it works out, then, you know,
I'm happy to bring you on to other things, but they have to kind of
prove themselves to me. And
I think it is about attitude as well and really being open to my
feedback. If there's someone that's like, actually, I don't
disagree with you and they've literally got like six
(30:20):
months experience in email marketing, then, you know, you're going
to lose my respect pretty quickly. So,
and actually, you know, respect has to be earned. So
I feel like, you know, there's,
there's a lot to be looking at in terms of the hiring process.
(30:41):
But. What about how we build that relationship once we've hired
them? Like, how does that work? Absolutely I think it's
really important to have consistent communication and to make sure that we're always
on the same page. So for me, what's really helped in hiring
contractors is making sure I understand. And I'm
not the type of person that's like, I need to be over your shoulders. I
(31:02):
need to know everything that you're doing. But if you're, if you're, you
know, if. If I'm paying you for an hourly, on an hourly
basis, it's really important for me to understand what you're getting
done in the time, if there's more time left
that I can give you more tasks, if tasks are taking
long and if they need extra support. So I
(31:24):
use ClickUp in order to, like, track
tasks and to communicate with my
vas about, you know, men being realistic about, like,
the support that they need. And. And I think just telling them, here
are my expectations. Here's when I think, here's how long I think this
should take you, but also understanding that if they're learning it,
(31:46):
obviously it's going to take them a little bit longer. I'm totally fine with that.
But I think sending the boundaries of here's what I expect.
If you cannot meet these deadlines, I then expect you to let
me know via this way or to keep track of things this way. So
I think it's really laying the groundwork of, you know, how do you want
to keep track of your guys's relationship? That's really important. And then
(32:09):
how do you handle when, you know, bumps happen,
when, you know, things need more time or
whatever it is. I think it's really deciding how you create
those clear pathways of communication, which is so important.
Yeah, I totally agree. I think, you know, project management
tools, I think ClickUp is great, but I also use Trello, but
(32:32):
there are tons of project management tools out there. I think it's about communication
as well. Right. I also use slack to speak to my vas,
and I'm not someone that's like, you must respond to me,
if ever. I rarely work on a Saturday, but if I do, it's
my choice to. But I don't expect anyone to respond
(32:52):
to me. And I've heard some horror stories of people
expecting that, you know, a response from slack within
30 minutes of it being sent, you know, regardless of
what day it is, which is crazy to me. That's crazy. We're not in corporate
America, people. Yeah, exactly. So
one of the things I do actually, and I encourage this, if you haven't done
(33:15):
this before, is have a legal agreement
between you. It sounds very formal. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. But actually,
you know what? Things can go wrong. So I have, like a
subcontractor agreement that I get people to sign.
Even if I'm working with people that I've known for a
while, maybe I've worked with them in the past,
(33:37):
I will get them to sign a subcontractor agreement because your business, at the end
of the day, is so important to protect, and you want to make sure that
it's really clearly laid out for the subcontractor. So
you want to be on the same page in terms of what you are both
going to be agreeing to. And it's just
about that communication around expectations as well. Like, what is it you need when
(33:59):
buy, what quality? Like, what standard do you need it to?
What exactly are their roles and responsibilities?
I sometimes struggle with feedback as well. It's like, how do I do it in
a constructive way? But I kind of also just think,
look, you have to give this feedback because
otherwise, why are you hiring someone to, why are you paying for
(34:22):
someone to do a job that you're going in to? Correct? So
I kind of have to just have a chat with myself and say, get over
it. Do it. And actually what you're doing is
you're helping that person understand your standards,
which is really important. So I always try and be constructive. I'm never, you know,
like, my values are to be kind with anyone I work with.
(34:45):
Yeah, but sometimes you have to part ways and,
you know, like, that happens. And, you know, as we touched on earlier, I
did have someone I had to let
go, as you would in the corporate world. And
sometimes it's just down to the fact that it's just not working. You know, like
any relationship, not all of them are going to work out.
(35:08):
I mean, how did you handle your parting of ways?
Angie, you know, we have a contract. I always have
contracts just like you do. And I make sure that
when I expect to be letting go of a person, I'm giving them
the amount of time that they have requested in the contract to
be made aware that we will be parting ways. And then I put it
(35:30):
in an email, I put it in writing again to make sure
to follow the contract and just send them a
nice email. That's, that's like, you know, giving, giving
a reason. I mean, I guess you don't always have to give a reason, right?
You don't have to give a reason. But I feel like that's
for me. I always want to do that, and I always want to be like,
(35:52):
upfront and honest about, you know, this isn't working out for me
or I really need someone who is
more so, has these skills or, and I don't have time
to train. I think that's what it's always come to me,
unfortunately, and not unfortunately, but for me, as a small business
owner, investing in help has been a really hard
(36:14):
step forward. But I've realized if I only
pay someone, if I pay someone a small amount of money,
that's the skills and expertise that I'm getting. You know, it's kind
of like you get what you pay for type thing. And
I've had to learn the lesson that if I want someone
who is more experienced, more skilled, and who knows
(36:35):
stuff and I'm not able to train them, then I need to pay more
for that. And I need to be okay with paying more for that and see
that return. The return is less of my time.
Having to, like, be on top of someone and, you
know, having more trust and being able to depend on that person,
which you find is invaluable in a
(36:57):
contractor. And now I've realized, yes, I am willing
to pay more and invest more in someone that, you
know, has the required, the skills that I really do need
instead of maybe just like trying to hire someone for
a smaller amount of money and, like, kind of get by it. That
has just never worked out for me. So I feel
(37:19):
like that's always been my reason for parting. I'm like, I just kind of realize
I need to hire a copywriter. I just need to spend the
money and hire an email designer, you know, because
I just want someone who knows what they're doing. So it can really be off
my plate. Yeah. And you know what? We haven't covered this, but
for those of you who are new to hiring people within
(37:41):
your business, you know, like, this is your business
for the first time. It can feel like a difficult
position to be in or decision to make because you think, well, actually, I need
to save that money in the beginning because, you know, I maybe
can't afford a contractor right now. And
really I want you to think about how you want to scale your
(38:04):
business, how you want to grow within
your business and how that might happen if it's just you.
One of the best things I've done is actually bring fantastic people
into my business. So I can scale, but also I can take on more
projects. So scale within that one
client, but scale more broadly, it is a
(38:27):
scary decision and paying for a contractor can be quite
daunting. But start off small, maybe
get them to do a small task to prove themselves.
Do your own research as well in terms of how much to
what's a reasonable amount, you might find that someone
(38:48):
for the same task charges you ten times more. Oh yeah.
Do a bit of shopping around, ask your friends for recommendations
because, yeah, you might find it doesn't always equate to
quality, those high prices. So we want to see evidence
of why they're that good. But I'd certainly
experiment with it, particularly if you're new to this and just
(39:11):
see, you know, is it helping you? Are you freeing up
time for yourself? Like is this person taking things off your plate
that ordinarily you'd be working till 03:00 a.m. to
do, you know, exaggerating here, but you get my point.
Yeah. Because at the end of the day, you want the contractor to make you
more money, whether they are directly making you more money by helping you with your
(39:33):
marketing or indirectly making you more money by freeing up your time so
that you can, you know, generate more revenue for your business.
And if you are experiencing that great, hold
on to them and continue to scale and grow and take care of your
contractor, good contractors, you know, you want to
hold on to tightly because, you know,
(39:57):
we, we've just had a lot of instances where we haven't had that,
so. And on the flip side,
again, if you start to give tasks to them
and they're falling short even on those 1st, 2nd
tasks, trust your gut and it's okay
if it's not a good fit. I think in my
(40:18):
experience I've had to go through a few, you know, it's
been a journey to find someone that I, I feel like I
can really, really grow with. So also know that it is a
journey and you're more likely going to be working with some contractors that
disappoint you. Don't let it, you know, don't let it make you
upset or stop you from scaling and hiring. There are good
(40:40):
people out there and we get better at hiring
and we get better at interviewing and, you know, figuring out who's
right for us. The more that we give it a go and the more that
we try it. Yeah, I mean, this is such
a big topic and there's so much more we can say. But
today we've given you some really good pointers and things to
(41:01):
consider either for those of
you new to this or those of you that are
starting to scale your business through subcontractors.
Yeah. So let us know. Email us,
you know, give us a review, send us a comment. Let us know your experiences
with contractors. Has anything helped you, you know, hire
(41:24):
or get better at hiring contractors? Or do you have any questions and want to
know or understand how we would handle certain situations? We would love
to help in any way possible. So don't be afraid to reach out to us
or any of your business and entrepreneur peers who are doing the
same things and, you know, obviously hiring themselves that we
we lean on each other a lot. So definitely encourage you to
(41:46):
lean on, you know, anyone in your space who is going through
the same thing you are. So thank you everyone for
another wonderful episode, and we will see
you next time. Thanks, guys. See you soon.
(42:06):
You've just listened to females across the pond and beyond podcast with your
hosts, Clara and Angie. If you like our content, don't
forget to subscribe, rate and review us on the platform of your
choice. Is there something you want to hear about for our next
episode? Email
us@femalesacrossthepondmail.com to let us
know. Until next time.
Welcome to the females across the pond and beyond podcast. Hi, I'm
Clara. Hi, I'm Angie. We're here to share all things
email and beyond. We go through the trials and tribulations of running your own business,
being your own boss, and sending your own email marketing.
As email marketing experts, we're dedicated to helping small businesses
thrive so they can have more freedom in their business. Ready to get
(00:27):
started? Let's dive into the episode.
Hello. Welcome, everyone. Today we are
going to talk about hiring contractors as
small business owners. Clara and I also dabble
(00:47):
into the hiring contractor arts. So
we're going to take a moment and take an episode to talk about
how we hire contractors. Tips and
things that we've learned along the way. Because it's quite a journey, isn't it,
Clara? It really is, yeah. Hopefully
help you as you venture into hiring more contractors.
(01:11):
So before we get started, though, I am going to
kick it off with. I want to hear about a new thing that I want
to do called, like, your bonkers business moment. If you had,
like, a bonkers business moment or like a magical
business moment this week, because we're all business owners
here, and sometimes, like, just crazy,
(01:34):
insane things happen, whether they're good or bad. I'll
kick it off with mine because I am surprising you with this.
So you can take a moment and think about it. But
one thing that I think is really cool or an experience that
I have constantly had as a business owner is anytime
I make a big investment in myself,
(01:56):
somehow that money comes back to
me. And it happened again this week. So
I was thinking about joining a new coaching program. I don't know if anyone
out there hires coaches. I love hiring coaches.
Clara hires coaches. So I was thinking
about hiring a new coach, and it was quite a big investment. It
(02:18):
was $7,000 for six months.
Yeah. Yikes. So. But
honestly, I was like, okay. And it's to really scale my
business and streamline my product offers. And
I decided, you know what? I'm gonna take the plunge. I'm gonna do
it. Amazing. Really scary.
(02:41):
That's amazing. Thank you, Clara.
But what's even more amazing is literally an hour
later, I got onto a sales call, and I made it
all back. Wow. That's spooky. Isn't that
crazy? That's really scary. Like, scary
spooky. What? That. And I'm talking about
(03:03):
pretty much the same amount. Wow.
I love that, though, because it's kind of like the whole kind of manifestation
of, yes, you're putting something out there, and it's coming
back to you in. A good way, I was like, the energetics of
money. And, you know, I do a lot of, like, manifestation, and
I practiced it a lot years ago, more so than now.
(03:26):
And they would talk about this, how you'll start to see,
like, how money, like, flows and, like, it's like a full
circle thing. Like, what you give, you get back.
And I think it's. That's really hard to believe in, especially
when you, like, have fear about spending money or making big investments. But then
to, like, kind of see it all play out, I'm like, oh. My gosh,
(03:48):
that's, that's, that's great. And I think it just shows
everything is linked to mindset. And if you had
decided against that
investment, I wonder if you would have got the sale. Like, it's.
You would never know, but I don't know. Yeah, I don't know.
But at the end, and my husband was like, oh, but it wouldn't it just
(04:10):
been nice to have that money and not have spent it? And I'm like,
well, I'm investing that money to increase
even more, to be able to hire more team members, to be able to really
streamline my products and things like that. So
obviously, the idea is I'm going to scale. So,
yeah, I would rather scale, you know, to even
(04:32):
higher. I love that. It's brilliant, and it just shows
that, and it's kind of linked to the topic of
today's episode, but really it's about, you know, hiring people that can
help you. Yeah. Scale your business, you know?
Absolutely. I love that. I think it's brilliant. I
think it's great. I think it's really positive as well. And I love that.
(04:54):
Yeah, it's just about energy, I think, as well, and putting something positive out
there, and it comes back to you. Yeah, I love
that. Okay, so now it's your turn. What about you? Do you have,
like, a bonkers. But, I mean, you kind of told me before we got on
here, and I really wanted to tell you, like, oh, yeah, me, too. You said
that you landed a big project, but it doesn't have to be about that.
(05:15):
Yeah, I did this week, which I'm delighted about.
But actually, I wanted to share just a quick story about a random
conversation I had this week, which I'm really excited about.
And I guess, like you, unless, you know, I love the saying
fortune favors the bold. I think it is,
if you take the risk, it's about taking that leap
(05:38):
forward, and a lot of people are frightened of doing that, particularly when it comes
to either investing in their business or exploring something new.
Yeah, and I had a really interesting conversation today and it got
me thinking about, well, let me
give you the context. So I'm working on a big client project
at the moment that is linked to a migration. So we're doing a couple of
(06:00):
migrations and I was thinking more
broadly about how I can accelerate and scale the support
I give to my clients without cloning myself a hundred times or
hiring lots and lots of people. Like how do I give good
quality time to these clients, particularly
on some of the aspects that
(06:21):
require a lot of my attention? So I
am specifically talking about when you're signing off on
campaigns, the kind of whole QA process.
And I had a really good chat this week with this, this
guy who has developed this amazing,
(06:42):
I don't even know what it is, like a tool or platform, it's so early
stage and he's developed it just for himself. And
I am so curious to know how this could actually
help me scale my business. And we had a really good chat
about what he's developing. He's actually using for his
corporate job, but he's starting to look at how he can help people like
(07:04):
me and people like you. So it's just
about automating and using AI to
accelerate a lot of the things that might be quite manual. And this is
more in relation to email marketing specifically, but
yeah, so really excited to work with him on this.
I don't even know where it will lead to, but the first
(07:27):
session was really good and you just never know when you put the question out
there what kind of responses you'll get. So I'm excited
to work with this guy to come up with something
really cool that could be quite revolutionary for a lot
of service providers, particularly email
(07:47):
or even social media people as well, anyone that basically works through
a QA sign off process. So watch this
space. Hopefully sharing more about this in the coming weeks.
Weeks. But yeah, we're certainly looking at AI to help
this cool. Yeah, and AI, I mean,
I think a lot of people tend to think like chat GPT but you
(08:10):
know, there's just so many things that AI can do and I know art
is already doing for my business. I really try to lean into it and look
for tools to streamline stuff and there's a lot of good stuff out there.
That's another episode that we need to have. Yeah, yeah, there is. We need to
do an episode on AI. Absolutely. Because it's getting
to the stage where people, there's so much people are
(08:33):
discovering on how AI can help them. And yeah, we're
talking way beyond copy and content generation now.
So I'm excited by that. Let's do an episode on that. We've decided
here, right here. Decided here now. But I'm really
excited. I'm very interested.
So definitely keep us posted because it sounds like something that
(08:55):
I absolutely need as well because, yes, I
am scheduling emails all and Q and a all the
livelong day. Yeah, I will keep you posted because,
yeah, watch this space. Watch this space. All
right, well, let's get into hiring contractors,
you know, but, like, before we even go to hire a
(09:18):
contractor, how do we know that we need a
contractor? What. What might be the signs that, you know,
someone might. Someone might make more money, right?
Because the whole point is we want to hire someone that's going to make things
more efficient for us so that we can spend more
time making our business money. Or the contractor also
(09:40):
helps with, like, our marketing and making us money. Right? So how do we,
how do we know we need one? What do you think, Clara? It's a great,
great question. I think for me it's maybe signs of
burnout. So you might be trying to do a thousand
things and just feel like you're getting nowhere. You might
feel like you're so focused on client work,
(10:01):
you're not promoting your business. And therefore it really
is a sign that you need help. Because unless you're getting up at 04:00
a.m. to try and do everything, we also want to have that balance of a
life as well. And I think with becoming a
business owner, you also want that freedom and flexibility.
And if you're working longer than you did in corporate, then something is
(10:24):
going wrong. Now, listen, I know that there are some startups out there
that are working all hours to launch something, and I get that. And
that sometimes needs to happen. But we're talking about
burnout here that's kind of constant and
you're not seeing any respite and there's no light at the end of the
tunnel. So these are the signs that should
(10:46):
be looking for. Right? In terms of, you know, what kind
of, why would I hire a
contractor? Well, burnout is certainly one
another is looking at, you know, are you falling behind on promoting
your business? Are you actually investing in time to
build your email list and also showing up on social
(11:07):
media, networking, all of the other things you should be doing.
What else is there? Angie, I think my big thing was kind of hitting
on what you just talked about is understanding that you're
one person, and there are some
things that are falling to the wayside that are not working in your
(11:27):
business, and they're most likely just not working because they're not
getting the prioritization and the time and the
expertise or skills that it needs. A lot of that time, a lot of,
a lot of the time that's happening with our marketing, you
know, with marketing our business, that tends to
fall to the wayside because we're so focused, again,
(11:49):
on client work or product creation or
the things that we really do enjoy
doing as business owners. Right.
So I think it's also realizing, hey,
maybe my sales aren't growing or my social media
audience isn't growing or my email list isn't growing
(12:12):
because, you know, somebody, it really
would do a lot better if somebody was actually focused on it.
Yeah, absolutely. I mean,
one of the things I've noticed, actually, with some of my clients is that
they're either trying to upskill in certain areas, like social media,
(12:33):
or like, any kind of aspect of marketing that may be new to
them and the time it takes them to learn a new
skill, it's just not there. Right. You're talking,
they're cutting into their weekends on top of trying to
run a business. And so you've got to ask yourself the
question, what value is there in me learning that skill
(12:55):
versus bringing someone else in to do this
for me and saving me a lot of time
and just learning that skill is not enough. You have to keep up to
date with it. You have to refine. There's things
that you need to build on that skillset once you've learned
it. And also going back to the point around
(13:16):
freedom, how much time do we want to spend learning all these new skills?
Do we actually want to be spending time on doing what we enjoy, what
we love, what we're passionate about within our business, and then spending time with our
friends and family? Or do we want to be learning all these new
things in our business to basically
be doing absolutely everything, there's got to be a
(13:39):
cutoff. Right, Angie, in terms of, I
actually draw the line at doing XYZ, you know,
like, yeah, we can't do everything. Yeah. And I think that it
is important to understand that there are things that you're going to enjoy
doing, like extra skills. Like, I have
clients that are really good at social media, and they do their own social media
(14:01):
and they excel at it and they love it. And that's great. They should absolutely
keep doing their social media. Same thing with email marketing. I have clients that are
really great at writing their own emails and are really comfortable sending their
own emails. Great. You know, so I think it's also
being able to understand what do I enjoy doing? What do I feel good
about doing? As opposed to what do I want nothing to
(14:23):
do with? And I really don't want to learn how to do and being
honest with yourself about that. And it's okay to, like
you said, not want to learn a new skill and not want to do
something. Yeah, exactly.
Okay. So we decide, hey, I don't like doing my social media.
I don't like doing this or that. What do we do
(14:45):
next? Like, what do you think? Where do you
go? Or how do you source, I guess finding
a contractor. I kind of want to talk about that.
What's the next step for you when you're like, okay, I need a contractor.
What do you do next? It's a great question, actually.
And for me, I actually ask other business owner friends. So
(15:07):
I get referrals, recommendations. For me, it's about trust. I'm
bringing someone into my business. I need to feel I can
trust that person, and I'm more
likely to if I've had a recommendation or kind of
referral. So depending on the skill set I need,
it's usually a vA or, you know, depending on
(15:29):
what the requirements are, I will look out
to my friends first and then perhaps go on Facebook
or, yeah, usually Facebook. But within
certain groups, I'll ask the question. And actually, that's how I found
current and previous contractors that I've
worked with in the past or now. So I think depending on
(15:52):
the requirements you have,
it depends on then where you find them. But certainly my first point
of call is our referrals. How about yourself,
Angie? Yeah, same for referrals. I'll reach out to other email
marketers in the space. I think we're in the same Facebook
groups. I think the next step that I would do would be to go into
(16:14):
that women of email marketing, Facebook group that we're in
and post there. A lot of people post there. There's, like, other
marketing groups. So whatever you're looking for, there are definitely groups,
Facebook groups out there of people who are in those groups just to
network and not even sometimes, sometimes to get jobs
and, you know, get contract jobs, but a lot of times so that we can
(16:35):
learn from each other, so that we can ask questions. So I think you can
feel comfortable knowing that the people inside of those, like,
niche down groups really do have
experience and expertise. And I think at the end of the day
passion. Right. If I'm in a Facebook group for something, I'm really interested
in it. I want to learn more about it. That's something that's really important
(16:57):
to me in hiring someone, someone that's dedicated and
passionate and, like, wants to do a really good job. So I think
knowing that they're in groups or that they are, yeah.
If you went to conferences or wherever, you know,
those people are invested in their own
industry and excited to learn more. And I think that's
(17:18):
also important. Definitely. What do you think
about, like, Fiverr and upwork? Have you
had any experience on there? Yeah, I mean,
look, there's a place for everything. And I think when
I launched an app years ago with a friend and we
used people from Fiverr and
(17:40):
upwork, and it was more about we need something designed
quickly. This was like before the days of canva, which is scary
in terms of how long ago this was. But really,
for me, with my specific requirements around the help I need in my
business, I am looking for specific skill sets that
(18:01):
may not exist on upwork or
Fiverr. And I think it just really depends on what you need. I
think Fiverr is great for if you need something quickly created
that, you know, you might be, might be on a particular
budget. But personally, I don't use those
platforms for looking for someone to bring into my business because I'm looking
(18:24):
for not just one project, but looking kind of longer
term. If I really like working with that person, I
will bring them back onto future projects as well. So I
don't, I personally haven't experienced that. On Fiverr
or upwork. Have you experienced that? Yeah.
No, that's why I was asking you, because I've definitely looked on Fiverr and
(18:47):
upwork and thought about reaching out to people. But
as an email marketer, I have redone
so many flows that people had gotten from others
on Fiverr, and they were just so bad.
So bad. So, like, it makes me kind of scared. But I think
if. I think you're right, it depends on what you're looking for. If
(19:09):
you're looking for an email flow that's. That
can make you money consistently
for years to come. You want that to be done well. And
to me, it's totally fine to spend a $1,000
on that because the return is going to be so much
more than that, right? Yeah, absolutely.
(19:32):
You're right. It really depends on what is the task, what is the
ROI of the task. If it's a potential huge
roi, take some more consideration and time
into who you're going to hire for that, right? Yeah. I mean,
it comes down to, like, for example, experience
and, you know, their track record. Like, what is it
(19:54):
that you are looking for? So, for example,
I have quite a technical project I'm working on at the moment, so
I don't have time to train someone up at this point in time.
Maybe in the future I will, but I need someone that can come
in quickly and hit the ground running and really get to
grips with multiple CRM email
(20:17):
platforms that I don't need to therefore
spend time training them. So experience
and skill set is really important, like technical
skills for what I'm looking for. But you might find that
actually I just want someone to come in and run my
social media because I have zero time. And that's a really, really
(20:40):
common one that I think a lot of people need help with.
But really, I guess when we start thinking about hiring someone, like,
the kind of qualities we want to see in a contractor are, for
me, it's passion. It's actually showing up with
enthusiasm. It's someone who has good
(21:00):
communication skills and can, you know, respond to me
in a good time, not take weeks to get
back to me because that's a red flag. But also,
like, you know, how do I know that this person is as
good as they say they are? You know, what are
you, what steps do you take, Angie, to make sure that you're hiring
(21:23):
someone that you think would be a good fit? I usually
do, like, a little grace period for a few weeks,
especially because the people that I have looked to hire, I want
them to stay on for a while. I'm not really looking
on for project based or I haven't really. It's always been, I need, like a
va or I need someone that can do the things like scheduling emails
(21:45):
or, you know, helping me with these little tasks that I'm going to need
for, you know, as long as I have
clients. Right. So for me, it's all about,
you know, I've never done a sort of, like,
project test or, like, paid for someone in the hiring
process. I've always just said, okay, like, I'm going to bring
(22:07):
you on for the, for a month and we'll kind of
test the waters and see if this is a right fit. And typically
within a few weeks, I can tell, you know, if this
person is what I'm looking for or not. Yeah.
Oh. Which has been a journey, and
learning how to do that has also been a journey for me. I will
(22:30):
admit I feel like I'm not that good at hiring people
because, I don't know, I
tend to just be really optimistic and hopeful
and I think something to be
wary of or something that I get nervous about is like,
confrontation and feedback, which I need to get over. I
(22:51):
just need to be like the boss CEO of my business
because that's been really challenging for me. Because once I see that someone
is making mistakes and making repeated mistakes, I'm like,
okay, do I need to train them? Is there a
future with them? Or is this just not going to work
out? You know, it's time. So I always say that it's
(23:14):
time to say goodbye. That's another thing. Like when.
So tell me about your process and
how. Yeah. And how you bring people
on. It's really weird, right? Because I know the
questions to ask when I meet people, and it's usually an informal, quick call
on Zoom or whatever. After I've, you know, initially
(23:36):
someone has reached out to me to say they're interested,
but I actually go on gut feel a lot. I actually.
That's always right. Yeah, I've hired, in my corporate
job, I hired. I hired lots of people and I
always followed my gut. I always had a sense of even if the person
didn't do the best job in the test, I
(23:59):
mean, obviously we're looking for good standards here, but like, let's say they
may not have all the experience I need, but their
enthusiasm outweighs that. Then, you know, that for me is a
good thing. But I go on gut feel the mistake
I have made and I'm going to share this, but
obviously protect the person I'm talking about because
(24:21):
I'm not about that. But I guess the mistake I made
was I actually did go on a referral
and I didn't then do my due diligence to check that this person
was actually of the standard I was looking for. So I guess even with
referrals, we still have to be doing our checks.
(24:42):
What ended up happening for me was this particular person
was getting some really basic things wrong
and the client was seeing it.
I was trying to keep up with the mistakes that that person was making,
but it was just a disaster. Like, it. It just
made, it actually made it harder for me because I was
(25:05):
doing more work to correct the mistakes and what have you.
It was just awful. Like, it was a really bad experience. And I remember at
the time feeling like this is actually causing me more stress.
And, yeah, that mistake I've learned from. Like, I still would go
on referrals, but I would still do my checks. I would still look
at what experience did this person
(25:28):
actually have? You know, I think if you've been running
your business, even if, like, let's say you've been running your business for a year
and you've started to hire people, unfortunately, sometimes it
doesn't work out, and sometimes you do have to part
ways because, you know, when I hire, it is for the
longer term. Like, if you're good, I would keep you on. If you want to
(25:49):
keep receiving, you know, work from me, then I
will happily bring you into
many future projects. But you also have to
prove yourself, right? Yeah, absolutely. I have
been through the exact same thing that you went through
on referrals and on me reaching out to people
(26:13):
on Instagram and things like that, where. And
it's funny that you talk about gut because that is absolutely right
with, with every VA or assistant that I've had that it
hasn't worked out. My gut has, like,
always been, this is not going to work out. This is not good, again,
within, like, those first couple of weeks. And I tend to
(26:35):
quiet that because I'm like, no, I just hired this person.
I want to commit to them. I, you know, if they need a little training,
if they need a little extra help, I'm happy to give it to them. But
it's just always turned out that if I have a feeling about
something and it's not good, it's just, it's like that it's
not good, and eventually we need to part ways.
(26:57):
Yeah. And it's the whole red flag situation, isn't it? I mean.
Yeah. Um, like, what, what is your hiring process?
Yeah, so my hiring process is
I jump on a quick zoom call with them,
have a conversation about, you know, what I'm
looking for, and ask them questions about what they're looking for. For me,
(27:20):
for the positions that I'm looking for, everything is trainable, and I'm happy
to train someone. Right. So it's more so about the
passion. It's more so about the work ethic, but I feel like
it's really hard to pin down the work ethic on an
interview. People can tell you and, like, you know, talk to you
all the live long day. And I do find, I don't know,
(27:42):
like, I know that people are, like, really excited about jobs
and things like that, but they, they definitely, like,
give me a lot of compliments and talk me up, and I'm like, I need
to not get, like, in my head about that stuff because it's
not really about, like, how big of a fan they are. Of like my work
or my business, right. It's really about the work ethic and how
(28:04):
they do the doing. So after we do the Zoom call,
then I say, and I'm happy with them and I get a good
feeling just from their, like, energy. Then we,
I bring them on and I usually pay upfront. I've
always paid for a certain amount of hours for the month
because I ask for payment up front for my,
(28:28):
the work that I do. And
then I give them and I will train them. I will send them
training videos. I have training videos now for vas on how to do
everything I need to do. And I always send them the training and start
the training and then give them really simple tasks
like scheduling emails, checking links
(28:51):
of emails. Very simple thing that I think are simple
but might not be simple to somebody else, I guess
because there are times then, even in those tasks where I'm
like, to me this is pretty straightforward. This is simple. This is just you
paying attention and just like clicking and checking things.
I can usually pinpoint right away if it's going to work out even in
(29:13):
these simple tasks because there are times then
when people, you know, miss a lot of stuff or I can tell
that they didn't do it thoroughly and they just kind of breeze through it
and then there were a lot of mistakes and like you said, then I have
to go back and like redo everything. So that's usually the
process for me. Yeah. And,
(29:36):
you know, like when you do go through that, it's, you soon
learn, actually, if this person is the right fit. And sometimes, you know, people
are great in interviews, but when it comes to the job itself, like,
oh, dear God, like, what have I done?
And I'm careful not to over promise. Like, I kind of say,
look, if we start off with this
(29:59):
small project and see how it goes and if it works out, then, you know,
I'm happy to bring you on to other things, but they have to kind of
prove themselves to me. And
I think it is about attitude as well and really being open to my
feedback. If there's someone that's like, actually, I don't
disagree with you and they've literally got like six
(30:20):
months experience in email marketing, then, you know, you're going
to lose my respect pretty quickly. So,
and actually, you know, respect has to be earned. So
I feel like, you know, there's,
there's a lot to be looking at in terms of the hiring process.
(30:41):
But. What about how we build that relationship once we've hired
them? Like, how does that work? Absolutely I think it's
really important to have consistent communication and to make sure that we're always
on the same page. So for me, what's really helped in hiring
contractors is making sure I understand. And I'm
not the type of person that's like, I need to be over your shoulders. I
(31:02):
need to know everything that you're doing. But if you're, if you're, you
know, if. If I'm paying you for an hourly, on an hourly
basis, it's really important for me to understand what you're getting
done in the time, if there's more time left
that I can give you more tasks, if tasks are taking
long and if they need extra support. So I
(31:24):
use ClickUp in order to, like, track
tasks and to communicate with my
vas about, you know, men being realistic about, like,
the support that they need. And. And I think just telling them, here
are my expectations. Here's when I think, here's how long I think this
should take you, but also understanding that if they're learning it,
(31:46):
obviously it's going to take them a little bit longer. I'm totally fine with that.
But I think sending the boundaries of here's what I expect.
If you cannot meet these deadlines, I then expect you to let
me know via this way or to keep track of things this way. So
I think it's really laying the groundwork of, you know, how do you want
to keep track of your guys's relationship? That's really important. And then
(32:09):
how do you handle when, you know, bumps happen,
when, you know, things need more time or
whatever it is. I think it's really deciding how you create
those clear pathways of communication, which is so important.
Yeah, I totally agree. I think, you know, project management
tools, I think ClickUp is great, but I also use Trello, but
(32:32):
there are tons of project management tools out there. I think it's about communication
as well. Right. I also use slack to speak to my vas,
and I'm not someone that's like, you must respond to me,
if ever. I rarely work on a Saturday, but if I do, it's
my choice to. But I don't expect anyone to respond
(32:52):
to me. And I've heard some horror stories of people
expecting that, you know, a response from slack within
30 minutes of it being sent, you know, regardless of
what day it is, which is crazy to me. That's crazy. We're not in corporate
America, people. Yeah, exactly. So
one of the things I do actually, and I encourage this, if you haven't done
(33:15):
this before, is have a legal agreement
between you. It sounds very formal. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. But actually,
you know what? Things can go wrong. So I have, like a
subcontractor agreement that I get people to sign.
Even if I'm working with people that I've known for a
while, maybe I've worked with them in the past,
(33:37):
I will get them to sign a subcontractor agreement because your business, at the end
of the day, is so important to protect, and you want to make sure that
it's really clearly laid out for the subcontractor. So
you want to be on the same page in terms of what you are both
going to be agreeing to. And it's just
about that communication around expectations as well. Like, what is it you need when
(33:59):
buy, what quality? Like, what standard do you need it to?
What exactly are their roles and responsibilities?
I sometimes struggle with feedback as well. It's like, how do I do it in
a constructive way? But I kind of also just think,
look, you have to give this feedback because
otherwise, why are you hiring someone to, why are you paying for
(34:22):
someone to do a job that you're going in to? Correct? So
I kind of have to just have a chat with myself and say, get over
it. Do it. And actually what you're doing is
you're helping that person understand your standards,
which is really important. So I always try and be constructive. I'm never, you know,
like, my values are to be kind with anyone I work with.
(34:45):
Yeah, but sometimes you have to part ways and,
you know, like, that happens. And, you know, as we touched on earlier, I
did have someone I had to let
go, as you would in the corporate world. And
sometimes it's just down to the fact that it's just not working. You know, like
any relationship, not all of them are going to work out.
(35:08):
I mean, how did you handle your parting of ways?
Angie, you know, we have a contract. I always have
contracts just like you do. And I make sure that
when I expect to be letting go of a person, I'm giving them
the amount of time that they have requested in the contract to
be made aware that we will be parting ways. And then I put it
(35:30):
in an email, I put it in writing again to make sure
to follow the contract and just send them a
nice email. That's, that's like, you know, giving, giving
a reason. I mean, I guess you don't always have to give a reason, right?
You don't have to give a reason. But I feel like that's
for me. I always want to do that, and I always want to be like,
(35:52):
upfront and honest about, you know, this isn't working out for me
or I really need someone who is
more so, has these skills or, and I don't have time
to train. I think that's what it's always come to me,
unfortunately, and not unfortunately, but for me, as a small business
owner, investing in help has been a really hard
(36:14):
step forward. But I've realized if I only
pay someone, if I pay someone a small amount of money,
that's the skills and expertise that I'm getting. You know, it's kind
of like you get what you pay for type thing. And
I've had to learn the lesson that if I want someone
who is more experienced, more skilled, and who knows
(36:35):
stuff and I'm not able to train them, then I need to pay more
for that. And I need to be okay with paying more for that and see
that return. The return is less of my time.
Having to, like, be on top of someone and, you
know, having more trust and being able to depend on that person,
which you find is invaluable in a
(36:57):
contractor. And now I've realized, yes, I am willing
to pay more and invest more in someone that, you
know, has the required, the skills that I really do need
instead of maybe just like trying to hire someone for
a smaller amount of money and, like, kind of get by it. That
has just never worked out for me. So I feel
(37:19):
like that's always been my reason for parting. I'm like, I just kind of realize
I need to hire a copywriter. I just need to spend the
money and hire an email designer, you know, because
I just want someone who knows what they're doing. So it can really be off
my plate. Yeah. And you know what? We haven't covered this, but
for those of you who are new to hiring people within
(37:41):
your business, you know, like, this is your business
for the first time. It can feel like a difficult
position to be in or decision to make because you think, well, actually, I need
to save that money in the beginning because, you know, I maybe
can't afford a contractor right now. And
really I want you to think about how you want to scale your
(38:04):
business, how you want to grow within
your business and how that might happen if it's just you.
One of the best things I've done is actually bring fantastic people
into my business. So I can scale, but also I can take on more
projects. So scale within that one
client, but scale more broadly, it is a
(38:27):
scary decision and paying for a contractor can be quite
daunting. But start off small, maybe
get them to do a small task to prove themselves.
Do your own research as well in terms of how much to
what's a reasonable amount, you might find that someone
(38:48):
for the same task charges you ten times more. Oh yeah.
Do a bit of shopping around, ask your friends for recommendations
because, yeah, you might find it doesn't always equate to
quality, those high prices. So we want to see evidence
of why they're that good. But I'd certainly
experiment with it, particularly if you're new to this and just
(39:11):
see, you know, is it helping you? Are you freeing up
time for yourself? Like is this person taking things off your plate
that ordinarily you'd be working till 03:00 a.m. to
do, you know, exaggerating here, but you get my point.
Yeah. Because at the end of the day, you want the contractor to make you
more money, whether they are directly making you more money by helping you with your
(39:33):
marketing or indirectly making you more money by freeing up your time so
that you can, you know, generate more revenue for your business.
And if you are experiencing that great, hold
on to them and continue to scale and grow and take care of your
contractor, good contractors, you know, you want to
hold on to tightly because, you know,
(39:57):
we, we've just had a lot of instances where we haven't had that,
so. And on the flip side,
again, if you start to give tasks to them
and they're falling short even on those 1st, 2nd
tasks, trust your gut and it's okay
if it's not a good fit. I think in my
(40:18):
experience I've had to go through a few, you know, it's
been a journey to find someone that I, I feel like I
can really, really grow with. So also know that it is a
journey and you're more likely going to be working with some contractors that
disappoint you. Don't let it, you know, don't let it make you
upset or stop you from scaling and hiring. There are good
(40:40):
people out there and we get better at hiring
and we get better at interviewing and, you know, figuring out who's
right for us. The more that we give it a go and the more that
we try it. Yeah, I mean, this is such
a big topic and there's so much more we can say. But
today we've given you some really good pointers and things to
(41:01):
consider either for those of
you new to this or those of you that are
starting to scale your business through subcontractors.
Yeah. So let us know. Email us,
you know, give us a review, send us a comment. Let us know your experiences
with contractors. Has anything helped you, you know, hire
(41:24):
or get better at hiring contractors? Or do you have any questions and want to
know or understand how we would handle certain situations? We would love
to help in any way possible. So don't be afraid to reach out to us
or any of your business and entrepreneur peers who are doing the
same things and, you know, obviously hiring themselves that we
we lean on each other a lot. So definitely encourage you to
(41:46):
lean on, you know, anyone in your space who is going through
the same thing you are. So thank you everyone for
another wonderful episode, and we will see
you next time. Thanks, guys. See you soon.
(42:06):
You've just listened to females across the pond and beyond podcast with your
hosts, Clara and Angie. If you like our content, don't
forget to subscribe, rate and review us on the platform of your
choice. Is there something you want to hear about for our next
episode? Email
us@femalesacrossthepondmail.com to let us
know. Until next time.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Cardiac Cowboys
The heart was always off-limits to surgeons. Cutting into it spelled instant death for the patient. That is, until a ragtag group of doctors scattered across the Midwest and Texas decided to throw out the rule book. Working in makeshift laboratories and home garages, using medical devices made from scavenged machine parts and beer tubes, these men and women invented the field of open heart surgery. Odds are, someone you know is alive because of them. So why has history left them behind? Presented by Chris Pine, CARDIAC COWBOYS tells the gripping true story behind the birth of heart surgery, and the young, Greatest Generation doctors who made it happen. For years, they competed and feuded, racing to be the first, the best, and the most prolific. Some appeared on the cover of Time Magazine, operated on kings and advised presidents. Others ended up disgraced, penniless, and convicted of felonies. Together, they ignited a revolution in medicine, and changed the world.