The 3 Biggest Mistakes Coaches Make When They Hire a Team

I’ve had my own business now for 17 years and at this point, my team looks a lot different than it did two years ago – let alone ten years ago – let alone seventeen years ago.

But early on, my mindset for hiring was backward.

I looked at the immediate problems my business faced and thought, “who do I know who could fill this need?”

In other words, it only occurred to me to hire someone to maintain the status quo, rather than hire someone who knew more than I did, and could not only solve the problems I was aware of but also new solutions to problems I didn’t even know I had.

Then to add to the mess, I focused on hiring a jack of all trades instead of hiring someone based on individual skill sets.

For instance, there was a point in my business where I was shifting from desk written blogs to video blogs. And guess who was editing them? — Me! Someone with no business in the editing bay.

So bringing on someone to help me edit my weekly blogs was the obvious next step for my business.

Then I realized my team needed additional support with customer service. Plus, we needed extra hands on deck to help with the enrollment conversations for my new programs.

Before I knew it… I was looking for someone who was great at sales, Garageband, iMovie, and customer service…all skills operated by totally different parts of the brain.

I ended up hiring someone who knew Garageband, felt confident about learning iMovie, had a bit of customer service experience, and was open to sales training.

Not ideal to say the least. But it was as good as I could get if I wanted one person to deliver all of those tasks.  The problem was that this team member was only sort-of skilled at each of his responsibilities. This meant that he didn’t feel good about the work he was doing and the business wasn’t benefiting because the work – if we’re being honest – just wasn’t that good.

My fault.  Not his.

Thankfully, I’ve come a long way from my totally inefficient one-size-fits-all hiring and I now have an awesome team who I adore.

I see a  lot of coaches make similar mistakes when they hire support.  Let’s talk about the three most common ones:

Mistake #1: You forget to hire for growth.

Rather than hiring to fix obstacles, hire to create opportunities.

How do you do that?

Ask yourself: What area of my business do I want to expand?

For example, I wanted help developing a thriving social media presence. So I sought out someone who’s zone of genius is social media management.

Then, around the same time, I realized I needed to delegate sales calls so I could have more time for private clients.

Instead of looking at which person on my team was best qualified for this, I sought out a graduate of all my programs who I found to be articulate, on the ball, creative, punctual, and very gifted. He was perfect for the position. In fact, his sales conversion is better than mine!

Mistake #2: You focus too much on how much extra help will cost.

I understand how scary it feels to hire an assistant.  You ask yourself, “Will I be able to afford them?” forgetting about the additional revenue and opportunities their help will provide.

The first time I hired an assistant who already knew everything I needed her to do, my revenue increased 100%.

Mistake #3: You hire for the wrong position.

Think about the tasks you handle in your business that are essential to operations, but not necessarily big income producers.  For example, email management, bookkeeping, billing or tech support are all tasks that need to be handled, but probably not by you.

Then, identify which of these tasks is the biggest time-suck for you.  What could you focus on if someone else took this task off your plate?

Finally, go out and find that person.  If you need help, I’ve got your back.  You can steal my Through the Roof Hiring Process which has worked like a charm for me!

Click here to download the Hiring Guide now and happy hiring!