When you are a lone business owner, working by yourself to grow your business, things can be tough. Sometimes you need the benefits of hiring experts to help you grow. Having the right experts for your business can really make a difference.
It’s not that it’s hard to get started; that’s something that most people are able to do when they put their minds to it. What’s hard is growing the business.
This is what many people have trouble with, and what causes a lot of small businesses to fold before they really have a chance to get anywhere. That’s why you need to know the benefits of hiring experts to help you with your business.
What’s the key to a productive employee who stays with your company for the long haul? It’s how you onboard them. New hires are an organization’s most significant potential for future growth and success.
They bring fresh ideas, new perspectives, and untapped potential—if properly nurtured.
If the problem happens to be that you just don’t have the expertise to do all the jobs within your business, hiring the right experts can save you and your biz.
Here are tips to supercharge your onboarding process, so you have happier, more productive employees from day one:
Table of Contents
Make The Onboarding Process A Priority
First, you’ll have to make it a priority. This is a critical time for your new hires, but it’s also essential for the rest of your team.
With new employees coming on board, other employees will feel extra pressure to pick up the slack.
A Gallup survey found that about 26% of new hires achieve when onboarding is a priority. This shows that it’s not enough to have an onboarding plan.
Managers must follow through on those plans. What is successful onboarding?
Successful onboarding is taking care of all the practicalities of registering a new employee within your company and ensuring they have everything they need to succeed.
Whether you do this in person or via onboarding software, successful onboarding can determine how well an employee starts at your company.
Assign A Buddy
When you hire new employees and set them up for success, assign them a buddy. A buddy can be someone from inside or outside their department who is trained to act as a guide, mentor, or reference.
A buddy can highlight the best ways to navigate your office culture while avoiding potential pitfalls.
Buddies can also be a source of encouragement and inspiration when a new hire might need it most. Furthermore, buddies can help new hires feel more connected to the organization and ready to tackle their work.
Buddies can also help new hires develop relationships with other employees that can last for years. If you want to provide an environment of support and collaboration, assign a buddy to each new hire.
Provide Clear Guidelines
Provide clear guidelines for your new hires. This includes an introduction to each team member, the company mission, company and department culture, and company values. If you have a company handbook or similar resource, refer to those.
However, if not put together a written onboarding guide outlining all the critical information your new hires need to know. This will help them feel connected to the organization and get up to speed more quickly.
It will also help them understand what is expected of them on the job, giving them a sense of security and confidence. This is also an excellent opportunity to discuss what’s not expected of them
You can address potential misconceptions they might have or address concerns they might have.
Show Them, Don’t Just Tell – Benefits Of Hiring Experts
Show them, don’t just tell, not only your new hires but also your team members. Lead by example and demonstrate how you want things done.
Let your employees know that you don’t expect them to follow a set of rules that you don’t follow yourself.
Show them how you respond to various situations, so they know how to react when facing a similar problem.
When onboarding your new hires, show them how you do things by taking them to meetings, walking them through your workflow, or bringing them to the front lines of your work. This will help them get their bearings more quickly and make the most of their time at the company.
It will also make them feel like they’re an extension of your team, making it easier for everyone to get along.
Be Responsive – And Make Your New Employees Feel Safe To Ask Questions
Make yourself available to your new hires and make them feel safe to ask questions. New employees often feel anxious at work, unsure of how to navigate their office culture or expectations.
They may be afraid to speak up about their concerns for fear of appearing incompetent. Help them feel more comfortable by being available to answer questions and make it clear that it’s OK to ask questions.
In fact, it’s expected. Introduce your new hires to employees from various levels of the organization. This will help them better understand the company’s overall culture and ease their anxiety about fitting in.
Let your employees’ questions be an open dialogue and encourage them to ask questions as well. This will prevent misunderstandings and miscommunications from occurring later down the road.
Discuss Employee And Workplace Culture
Discuss employee and workplace culture early on in the onboarding process. The quicker you discuss this, the better. It’ll let your new hires know that their job may be different than they imagined.
It’ll also help them feel more at ease if they find that their expectations don’t match up with the job.
You can discuss workplace culture at any time, but bringing it up early will help new hires feel more comfortable asking questions and navigating the company. Discuss culture in many different ways. Bring it up in casual conversations with various employees.
You can also bring it up during one-on-one meetings with your new hires, when you’re putting together an employee handbook, or when you are issuing the print ID cards for identification and security.
Also, mention it when you’re conducting onboarding training to give new hires a 360-degree view of workplace culture.
Ensure Complete And Thorough Training Is Given
Ensure your new hires are thoroughly trained before being sent out into the wild. This includes training on the tools they’ll be using, their job expectations, and their manager’s expectations.
If you have a formal onboarding process, use that as a guideline for how much training is needed.
Then, if you don’t have an onboarding process, consider implementing one to ensure that training is thorough. For example, if you have a sales team, consider providing the following training:
- Introduction to the company and the product or service you sell – including your company’s mission and values
- Sales process – including industry terminology and best practices
- Product training – including advantages and uses of your products or services
- Sales tools and resources – including CRM and any other tools they’ll need to do their job.
Furthermore, you need to ensure that you provide your employees with opportunities for advancement and career development, which can often include business travel.
Partnering with a corporate travel company, a specialized service provider catering to the unique travel needs of businesses, is what you should consider at this point.
Their primary goal is to streamline the travel process, minimize expenses, and ensure the comfort and convenience of employees during business trips.
Allow Them Time To Find Their Feet
Don’t expect your new hires to be completely comfortable in their role from day one. Instead, allow them time to find their feet and get used to the rhythm of their position.
Remember that your company is different from your previous company and industry.
Your employees will take time to get accustomed to your company’s culture and way of doing things while getting used to your company’s products and services. Even if your new hires have the right experience and education, they’ll still need time to acclimate.
Give them the time to get comfortable with their job and your company.
The sooner you expect them to be completely satisfied, the more pressure you put on them. Provide them with clarity about their role and expectations, and give them time to adjust.
Be Clear About Your Expectations
Finally, be clear about your expectations. This includes your expectations for your new hires but also your expectations for yourself as their manager.
It’s easy to put pressure on yourself to be their best resource, be their greatest cheerleader, and be the one who solves all of their problems.
Let go of the need to save the day and be everything to everybody. Instead, be clear about your expectations and make sure your new hires know what you expect of them.
Make sure your new hires know what’s expected of them in their role and what they can expect from you as their manager.
Let them know when they’ll be getting feedback or the next steps in their career path.
Benefits Of Hiring Experts – You Can’t Do It All Alone
No one should be an island out there in business. No one is self-sufficient; everyone relies on others for something. That can be said for business and for personal as well. Humans are meant to be in harmony with others and interact with each other.
This old saying below comes from a sermon by the seventeenth-century English author John Donne.
However, there will be some things you can do well and to a high standard in your business. There will be some things that you enjoy doing.
However, there will just as easily be many elements of running a business that you don’t enjoy, or that you aren’t good at.
These might be hugely important for your business (such as accounting or marketing, for example) so they are not something that can simply be ignored.
The perfect answer is to hire an expert, either on a full-time basis, part-time, ad hoc, or freelancer. Find someone who can do what you can’t, or do it better than you can, and you will free up your own time to do more of what you are good at.
The Right People In The Right Jobs
At the same time, you will know that your business is running as well as it can, as the right people are doing the right jobs. You may not be able to do it all, but you can oversee those who can, and your business can grow.
The benefits of hiring experts in your business put people around you to toss your ideas to and have them analyzed by others.
Like hiring IT experts, there are specific kinds of experts within this wide field. You can find out how to hire ruby on rails developers through legitimate IT staffing companies.
For example, here at Inspire to Thrive I have several expert writers I can lean on to help with writing blog posts for me. I have a couple of others who can come up with ideas for social media posts.
Furthermore, I have one person that can cover if I’m off for a few days and uses Agorapulse to manage all social profiles.
Get A Good Reputation – Benefits For Hiring Experts
Having a good reputation in business is crucial; without this, customers will be wary of using you (especially if you are new to the scene.) The best potential employees won’t want to work for you.
Trying to grow a business without the right staff or the customer numbers you need is almost impossible.
When you hire experts to help you in your business, in whatever capacity works best for you and them, your reputation will increase in a positive way.
Customers will see that your business is at the top of its field, and those who you are looking to hire will know that they could be working in a professional, highly experienced business with a great reputation. That is tempting for many, and you will be able to attract the very best.
It’s much easier to obtain clients when they know your work ethic and your breadth of knowledge. That’s how I obtained most of my clientele at Inspire To Thrive.
Now imagine being able to multiply that with other experts in your business.
Networking For Your Business
When you run a business, networking is important. Therefore, when networking, you meet with other people in your field, or in tangential fields, who will potentially be able to help you in the future (and vice versa).
When you have experts working for you, they will usually be able to help you in your networking efforts. They will know the right people to talk to and will be able to introduce you to them. This will help you to grow your business as well.
It’s much easier to network when there is more than one of you at local events. This is an area I’d love to grow in the coming years ahead. Having someone nearby that understands the business and someone who I can work with.
Conclusion of Benefits of Hiring Experts
To accelerate the time it takes to transform your vision into reality. Yes, if you have visions for your business and realize you can’t do it all, it’s time to hire some experts to help you along.
Have you hired some experts to help you with your business today? What was the moment that you realized you needed help? What other advantages of hiring experts are there?
I’d love to know more in the comments below.
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Fabulous article Lisa, as always.
I will admit, I am coming from this at a slightly different angle but your advice is still relevant. I partnered with an affiliate marketing programme a few months ago and the benefits of a) establishing culture, b) sharing expertise/networking and c) learning from people who have more experience than I do in certain technical areas especially has proved vital in my progress.
The point of being an entrepreneur is not only to gain independence and wealth for oneself but also to enable others to do it for themselves. Entrepreneurship is always the backbone of any thriving economy and opening ourselves up to collaborating with others and maximising everyone’s potential is an honour and a privilege and the details in this article really demonstrate that.
Thank you!
Hi Martin, thank you. May I ask who you had to help you with your affiliate marketing? I’d love to up mine here as well. I like that, enabling others to do it as well. Help them along the way and inspire them. We do need to work together and not think of ourselves as competitors in this online landscape. Thanks for your valuable input Martin. Have a fantastic day!
I’d have sworn I commented on this some time ago, but I guess I didn’t. I think I mentioned elsewhere that I do this type of thing, but it hiring people to do things that I don’t want to take time away from the business to do. Taxes/accounting, lawn/snow removal and someone to clean parts of the house once a month. It all helps to take a load off my mind, and the price is right.
Hi Mitch, That is an excellent point, even things like snow removal or in my case yard work which would take me 3 hours each time. I think it would be helpful for some people to write a list of everything and then see where they can start to hire out for items on the list. Thanks for coming by Mitch and have a great weekend. Stay warm, I think you’ll be getting snow as well!
Thanks for sharing this information.
All your points are valid.
Please, I am a startup, I don’t have the funds to hire an expert with regard to my business. What do I do?
Honestly, for now, I do everything myself. From Content creation, marketing, finance, etc. Kindly advice.
Hi Victoria, welcome to Inspire To Thrive. I’d recommend starting slow, get a small loan if you must. Otherwise you won’t be able to grow the business. You are doing an awful lot – been there, done that. I started slowly with freelancers from $150/mo. I had some help with content creation (and some marketing) and ideas as those take up a lot of time. Good luck with it Victoria!
Well, I have never hired any expert for my business but I do believe that experts can help save a lot of time. I feel the pain. But just as you rightly said, there are some things you just have to do yourself.
I believe I am still at that stage where I still need to do most things myself, lol.
I hope to grow and someday, get the help of an expert to help scale my business. Because I believe experts are there to help 10x your result. Imagine the difference of doing something alone, and the getting ten people put in the same effort.
They help one grow their business, but believe me, working alone can be tough at times.
Hope to get past this stage.
Hi Emmanuel, welcome to Inspire To Thrive! Yes, I believe you will. You could hire an expert freelancer for outsourcing a few things to get yourself started and spend more working working on your business vs. working in your business. One step at a time. Thanks for coming by and have a great week.
Glad to connect with you. Love it when you said “working on your business vs. working in your business”. Hope to connect with you, learn from you and someday, get to network with you.
Have a prosperous day.
Thanks Emmanuel.
Hey Lisa, thanks for sharing these tips. One of the fastest ways to grow your business is to hire experts to do the hard work while you focus on those that you think you can provide the best. Not only that, it helps to archive your goals in a very short time instead of doing everything alone, which can consume time and even money.
Hi Anthony, welcome to Inspire To Thrive. You are most welcome. I agree it is a huge time saver and helps you to do more of what you do best. It can really help grow your business faster and smarter. Thanks for coming by and for your input. Have a great weekend ahead!
Right people in the right jobs – rightly said.
Leaving the hard chores to the experts, let’s do what we are smart in. That saves huge time and stop dissipating time in trial & errors. Ultimately, one should be more productive.
Hi Sathish, thank you. Yes, it also saves you time to do what you do best. It is about being more productive in your business. Thanks for coming by on this one and have a great day.
Lisa, this is a great article and a very important perspective for small business owners. I am a Dentist operating my own practice. I have a big time interest in SEO, online marketing and Reputation Management. I have found that tapping into the knowledge base of an expert can unlock fantastic results. The value of being exposed to new ideas is enormous. I know a lot about SEO and content production but I still learn huge amounts from the fellow who oversees my website and SEO efforts.
You are 100% right that you cannot do it alone. Don’t operate in a vacuum as you will close yourself off to development ideas and opportunities. At the same time, make an effort to learn about these realms so you can properly evaluate the experts that help you.
Your section on Rep Management is very helpful as well. I have witnessed firsthand the massive growth possible when you connect with the right people and build your online reputation. All it takes these days is a handful of thoughtful reviews from your patients and clients.
Thank you Lisa for a great read. Experts like you really help to build the knowledge base for us small business owners!
Kyle Hornby, DDS
Hi Kyle, Welcome to Inspire To Thrive. You are most welcome. Yes, many start out thinking they can build a website or blog and the visitors will come quick and often. But with the competition of websites today that is no longer the case. You can no longer build it and forget it! Work must be continually done to generate interest and traffic. Having reviews are very helpful indeed. Thanks for coming by and for your input on this one Kyle. Have a wonderful day.