It’s time to put your baseball caps, fedoras, and beanies to rest, because the days of wearing many hats are over. You’re no longer a lone business owner, figuring everything out on your own. It’s now time to branch out and trust other others with your business — a difficult, but unavoidable, next step. 

When done right, the people you hire will be major assets to your company. Hiring is something that should be done with care and foresight, which is why we’re here to help you out! Keep reading to find out just how you can set up your dream team. 

But First… Analyze Your Business

Before you delve into hiring, we encourage you to spend a little time pondering over your business and what you want to accomplish. 

Here are some basic questions to consider:

• What are the long-term goals of your business?
• What are your short-term goals? How will they lead to your long-term goals?
• What kind of skills are you lacking? Is there something you need help with right away?
• If you already have a team, what are they best at? How could your team improve?

Remember, adaptability and flexibility are some of the most important skills in your arsenal. No candidate is perfect, so it’s crucial to play the long game and avoid getting lost in the sauce. Similarly, it’s equally in your best interest to not settle for someone that is plainly not the right fit for the job — all that glitters is not gold, and the same can be said for résumés!

Of course, you may very well be a jack of all trades. If you’re getting by just fine, we recommend only making crucial hiring decisions when you feel the time is right. With that being said, let’s get into some possible new hires!

Someone Who’s In Charge of It All

The big dog. The head honcho. The boss man. Known by many names, this role can change depending on your company’s unique set-up. Heck, if you’re reading this right now, it could even be you! Regardless of what you call it, this is (usually) the first hire, and someone who will be setting the tone for the rest of the company, developing business strategies, making executive decisions, and motivating their team members. In other words, they’re more than just a pretty face. 

Someone Who’s Good at Operations

The second-in-command. The right hand man. The Robin to your Batman. If the person in charge of it all has a vision, the operations guy (or gal) is there to make that vision happen. Need better shipping options, optimized fulfillment strategies, or general support for all of your awesome ideas? Then they’re your go-to. Essentially, they’re going to be overseeing a huge chunk of your company and are thus crucial to its success. When hiring someone to deal with the operational side of things, look for a person who is strategic, detail-oriented, and a good team player. 

Someone Who’s Good at Technology

It may be the 21st century, but that doesn’t mean all of us are tech geeks quite yet. If you’re the kind of person who struggles with the technical side of things, it might be a good idea to have someone onboard who’s a little more technologically inclined, especially if you want to build a fabulous website from scratch. Of course, platforms like Shopify and WordPress (which has an eCommerce plug-in called WooCommerce) won’t give you as much of a hard time, so, if you’re not a web developer, you’ve still got plenty of choices.

Someone Who’s Good at Marketing

Manage your social media? Check. Write your content? Check. Market your products to their target audience? Check. It’s pretty much impossible to run a great business without a strong marketing team, even if that team consists of only one person. Marketing assists with your bottom line by getting your business’s name out there, which, in turn, will help it continue to scale. Look for someone who’s dependable, creative, and pretty good at thinking outside the box. In short, there’s no good reason to not have a marketing person on your team. 

Someone Who’s Good with People

As every business owner knows, the purchasing experience doesn’t end at checkout. Instead, it’s a long process that extends far beyond an order reaching its final destination. With so many factors involved in the fulfillment and shipment of an order, it’s wise to have someone on the front lines ready to assist customers if the purchasing experience goes awry. On the flip side, you’ll need someone (probably the same person) to be there when it goes well! Customer retention is not something that should be overlooked if you want to build a loyal and responsive customer base, and a people person might just be the solution for you.

Someone Who’s Good with Numbers

There are two kinds of people in this world: Those who are good at managing money and those who are not. If tracking ROI, overseeing budgets, paying bills, and staying financially afloat sound a bit of your scope, then it might be time to hire someone who can put all of that together. And, when it’s time to file taxes, they’ll take care of that too. Superman could never.

They say it takes a village to raise a child, but how about a village to create a spectacular eCommerce store? Like villages, every business is different. Some are tiny, some are big, but the end result always has the potential to be great. Remember that just because Business 1 has X, Y, and Z, doesn’t mean you need the exact same configuration. Work with what you have and make the best of it.

As usual, if you have any questions, we’re here to help! Simply shoot us an email and we’ll get right on it.