By Emily Grey

Like many small business owners, I launched my boutique as a one-woman show. The Flourish Market was just a fashion truck at the time, so it was manageable for me—and eventually some hourly staff—to take it to events, ship online orders, and market the burgeoning business.

When we opened our first brick-and-mortar store 13 months later, everything changed. Suddenly, someone needed to be present at the storefront six days a week, on top of keeping things running behind the scenes. I was being pulled in a thousand directions and barely had time to do the basic tasks that would keep my business running, let alone the strategic work to help it grow. I had reached a sticking point where the only two ways to move my business forward would be to hire someone to free up my time, or to magically add more hours to my day.

Since I am not a wizard, it would have to be hiring. And I didn’t want to just keep relying on hourly staff, either—I wanted an experienced store manager who could take the mental burden of day-to-day operations off my plate.

When I looked at our revenue at the time (just over $300,000), I could only afford about three months of payroll for a full-time store manager given other costs—but I decided to take the leap and hire a salaried employee anyway. Let me tell you, it was terrifying. I was paying her more than I was even paying myself. I was worried we would run out of money before I knew it, and that I would end up a failed business owner.

Instead, we more than tripled our revenue within that year—more than enough to pay her salary, to grow mine to where it really needed to be, and to put away some savings for the business. Since then, I’ve found the biggest gains in my business happen when I invest in bringing on help, even when it feels like a bit of a stretch.

Here’s why that hire paid off so much, how I ensured I was making the most of my newfound time, and how I now recommend other business owners think about growing their teams.

It Was an Investment in the Future of My Business

I find that the majority of business owners pick option number two when they’re feeling stretched too thin—they try to magically add more hours to their day. That’s usually what’s talked about in entrepreneurship: Are you willing to put in the work? Are you willing to hustle hard enough?

The question I like to ask at that point is: At what expense? Beyond the mental health implications of working yourself into the ground (more on that in a minute), I don’t think this approach will ever lead to true scalability because there’s only so much you can do on your own.

The mental shift that really helped me was this: Instead of thinking about my new employee as a cost, I started thinking about her as an investment. I …read more

Source:: Buffer Blog

Author: Aaron