Agency Owners Reveal the BEST TIME to Hire & Hiring Strategies for Success
00:00:00 Struggling to get out of day-to-day agency operations
00:00:19 The best takeaways for hiring and training
00:00:33 Alex Rossman on Overhiring
00:03:54 Noel Andrews on Prioritizing Onboarding
00:08:11 Audra Brehm on the Importance of Finding the Right Hires
00:10:38 Kim Lawton on Strategic Hiring to Fuel Growth
Do you feel stuck in your agency’s day-to-day operations? Is now the right moment to consider hiring for key strategic roles? Are you worried about the financial strain of hiring new employees even though it could turn out to be a great decision?
Hiring is a complex and tiring process but one you’ll have to face at some point in your growth. Whether you're a seasoned agency owner or just starting, understanding when to expand your team can significantly impact your agency's growth and efficiency.
I’ve been interviewing agency owners from all over the world for the past decade and now I’m bringing some of the best advice they’ve offered over the years regarding hiring, training, and filling the right roles to get out of day-to-day operations.
Alex Rossman on the Pitfalls of Overhiring
Alex Rossman is the owner of Rossman Media, a socially led digital marketing agency. Like many agency owners, Alex fell into the overhiring trap, where you get a little too optimistic about the amount of salespeople the agency can support.
It’s a balancing act. How many employees should you have according to the amount of clients you have? In his case, he took the agency’s growth as a sign he should start to hire more. However, this is not always the best route and you can end up flying the plane while you’re building it. It not only can hurt profitability, but you also won’t be focused on training the person to get them to the level you need them to be.
Once you realize you overhired, it’s all about how you course correct. Do you take a step back or start investing more in sales to make up for the hiring?
Having gone through this scenario and now running an agency of around fifty employees, Alex is now more intentional about hiring. More recently, he’s been focusing more on the utilization rate and tracks whether employees are dedicating at least 85% of their time to client work, leaving the rest for more high-level company work. Track your utilization rate so you can identify when your team is maxing out and new hires are in order. Also, keep an eye on your sales pipeline. How much business is more likely to close? And prepare based on that.
Noel Andrews on Why to Prioritize Onboarding
Noel Andrews is the CEO of JobRack, a hiring service that helps agencies find great remote talent from Eastern Europe and South Africa. As someone who focuses on finding the best talent and matching them with agencies looking to hire remotely, Noel knows onboarding should be prioritized as a critical step in the hiring process, something many business owners fail to do.
A lot of agency owners breathe a sigh of relief once they’ve made the offer and the agreement has been signed. They figure the hard part in the hiring process is over and their job is done. However, this is not true. The next step now is onboarding and it is a critical stage in the hiring process that is often overlooked, with the most common mistakes being.
Not preparing for it.
Not prioritizing it.
For Noel, proper onboarding is a twelve-week process, where you’ll gradually provide them with the context they need to work in your agency. During this process, you should be preparing people with the background of who your clients are, what your services are, and why you do things the way you do. It’s the sort of detail that will help workers go above and beyond for the company.
Neglecting or rushing through the onboarding process can result in wasted time, money, and effort invested in the hiring process. Just like onboarding a new client, the first few weeks should be about how excited you are about them joining the team and offering everything they’ll need to set them up for success, foster a positive work environment, and ultimately improve retention and productivity in the long run.
Audra Brehm on the Importance of Finding the Right Hires
Audra Brehm is the owner of Brehm Media, a social media marketing agency focused on the beauty and fashion industry. As she struggled to balance motherhood and being an agency CEO, Audra found that one of the biggest game-changers in her work-life integration was finding the right hires, even if it initially represented a financial strain.
Once intimidated by the prospect of expanding her team, she can attest that leaping to bring on supportive talent was one of the best decisions for her agency's growth and her own sanity. Yes, you’ll maybe need to take a pay cut at first, but it’ll make your life a million times better.
With around 15 employees now, Audra can step away trusting her team will handle everything. "Are we the biggest agency? No. But I can walk away and come back without anything going up in flames," she remarks.
Furthermore, like some who had made hiring mistakes in the past, Audra believes that if you have an employee who seemed like a great fit but has not been great in their specific job post you should first talk to them and ask about their goals. You’ll learn a lot to figure out where to place them just by asking this question.
Kim Lawton on Strategic Hiring to Fuel Growth
Kim Lawton is the founder of Inspira Marketing, a 300-employee agency reaching the nine-figure mark, as well as the president and CEO of Enthuse Marketing, a purpose-driven group committed to building brands through effective experiential marketing strategies. As the owner of two agencies, she’s learned to be very thoughtful about hiring decisions since every dollar she had had to go to the right place.
Kim and her partner were determined to avoid the common pitfall of reactive hiring that leads to a cycle of downsizing and expansion. Instead, they focused on strategic, long-term growth and sustainability, ensuring that each new team member added value to the agency.
For this to work, they instilled in their team the importance of considering the long-term effects of their hiring decisions and aligning them with the agency's annual plan and budget. Employees were involved in the decision-making process, fostering a positive work culture and team cohesion, ultimately leading to improved client satisfaction and retention.
