Three Biggest Mistakes Entrepreneurs Make When They Make Their First Hire

Lauren: You’re a high octane business owner. You’ve got a team on paper. It looks like you’re rolling in success, but there’s a voice inside of you. Whisper screaming. This isn’t sustainable, something feels off and I’m gonna lose it off.

Sound familiar. That’s where I come in.

My name is Lauren Goldstein and I’m the CEO at golden key partnership. I help top level executives like you avoid burning out and burning down as you’re scaling up. How. By harnessing your superpowers, finding and hiring your ideal team and then simplifying the heck out of your business operations. That was easy. 

It’s my mission. And the mission of this podcast to help you see operations in a whole new light to help you diagnose the real root cause of your company challenge. And to bring your business back to a healthy flow and profit, they call me the business doctor and. Is The Biz Doctor Podcast.

Welcome back to the show. In today’s episode, I’m gonna dive into the three biggest mistakes that I’ve seen business owners and entrepreneurs make when they hire their first person. But before I dive too far down this rabbit hole, let me take a moment to get on my soap. I’ve heard before things like I can’t afford someone good right now, or I just need someone to take tasks off my list or my favorite.

I just need to cologne myself. If I never hear those things again, I would be a happy person because you know what all of those things have in common, they are all reactive ways to hiring instead of proactive. So bookmark this episode and come back to it often, because if you can take in these mistakes and avoid them, Not only will you save yourself hours of frustration, you will save your business thousands, sometimes hundreds of thousands of dollars, because you won’t be wasting your time and their time with bad hires, which impact more than just the team.

Okay. Let’s dive into the three biggest mistakes I see entrepreneurs make when hiring and be sure to stick with me to the end, cuz I saved the best for last. All right. The first mistake I see that I alluded to moments ago is reactive hiring. I do wanna say a little disclaimer here. This is not me advocating, hiring before your business is truly ready and can support that person because you think you’ll need them in the future.

That’s not what this is. No. This is about having a strategic hiring process that allows you to recognize when it’s time to hire and who that person needs to. Okay. Let’s dive in. So proactive hiring is being able to hire in a calm and strategic way. What it isn’t is saying things like I need. So and so yesterday, and let’s get someone in as soon as possible because that’s so stressful and don’t get me wrong.

There are times when you need someone stat and that is, you know, just a fact of life. This is also why I created our proven hiring made simple process. Because even when you need somebody stat, you still have to do it in a calm and strategic way. And our hiring made simple process cuts out hundreds of hours in the hiring process so that you can hire as quickly as possible, but get the right person.

Because if you are just running around like a chicken with your head cut off reactively hiring, because things are breaking everywhere, you don’t have enough people. That is your first clue that you need to take a step back pause and really get to the clarity you need of where you’re going and the strategy it’s gonna take you to get there.

And that’s why with a lot of my clients, we start at the end goal. So where do you wanna be? How many, seven figures, how do you wanna go throughout your day work with your team, et cetera. Cuz there’s a lot of ways to get from seven figures to multi seven figures or even six figures to multi six figures.

But the question is how does your business wanna run around you? So, what is the strategy of pro active hiring look like? It answers these key questions. What is the mission of this role? Why is it important? How does this role fit in the company? What innate talents or ways of being do they need to have?

And let me just say that one again, what innate talents or ways of being do they need to have? The reason this question is so important is because a lot of people make the mistake of. Really truly hiring for tasks or technology instead of if that person has the true innate talents, which we’ll talk about in a second, but that’s just something I want you to, to listen in for.

And then the last question is what outcomes or accountabilities are they going to be held to? And the reason that this is important is a lot of times I see business owners hire because they just need stuff off their. But there’s not a real ROI. Like we haven’t clarified what this person is really contributing to the business beside being a task bunny

So when you can actually get crystal clear on the outcomes and accountabilities, that is a very clear step to making sure everybody’s on the same page and that you are moving towards a comment. So by asking these questions, you not only see how they fit into your business, but you make sure that that clarity around the goal is as good as it can get.

So when you hire, you know, why, and you know who now I know I said those questions kind of fast. So if you want to see all of those in one convenient place, my wish is your command. I created the golden key scorecard to help you do just that. Organize your roles in one simple, easy to use place. This scorecard will help you unlock your team’s potential collaboration and communications.

Your business will blossom, and you can get out of the mountain of busy and more importantly, get on the pattern of proactive hiring. So the link for that will be in the show notes free to you. Just snag it whenever you want. You’re welcome. You will love it. It will change your business. The second mistake I see is searching for unicorns.

Now I actually talked about this a little bit or touched on it in a previous episode, but I’m gonna elaborate on it right now because I want you to lean in close while I burst your bubble. unicorns don’t exist,

but I see a lot of business owners and entrepreneurs go unicorn hunting every quarter, cuz they’re stuck on the higher fire cycle. So if this is you listen close, every person has God given innate talents. This is why I had that question that I mentioned before, about what innate talents does this person need to be successful in the role because every person has a certain Mo or affinity for certain projects or energies over others.

Anybody can learn a new technology, but Lord knows that not everyone is cut out to crunch numbers, code, cell, et cetera. Right. Right. So now that I’ve gotten that outta the way, let me tell you what you can do that will yield you much better results and get you off the higher fire unicorn cycle. Go back to your scorecard and get absolutely clear on what the accountability are for the role.

And my favorite question that I saved just for you is if this person does only one thing in their role, what would it be? Now? Don’t get caught up on this, cuz I know, I know some of my clients are like, but I don’t want them to just do one. That’s okay. Bear with me. This idea came from an amazing book called the one thing by Gary Keller.

Now, granted, he wasn’t talking about hiring a team, but he was talking about how to get extraordinary results. And let me tell you this. If you can figure out the one thing you want your team member to do that would drastically change the business for the better you are, 90% ahead of everyone else, then everything else they do is just icing on the cake.

And I know this might sound too simple. That it won’t work, but trust me, this is the key. Let me give you a real life example in my other business, if you’re new here, I, um, I co-own part of our family business and the way that this business was set up, lends itself to having a pretty sizable amount of AR to chase.

So AR is accounts receivable. Unfortunately, it’s the nature of this particular business and it’s something that I hate, but I knew that when I was hiring a new account, After our beloved one passed away from cancer rather unexpectedly. My one thing for this physician was someone who loves collecting on accounts.

And boy, oh boy, did I strike it rich with Bethany? She loves collecting money personally. I do not get it. I mean, don’t get me wrong. I love getting the money, but the chasing, et cetera, is the equivalent to torture for. But yet she loves it. She gets some sick satisfaction out of it. And this is a perfect example of somebody who is innately wired, because of course, she’s got her Supreme attention to detail and she’s obsessed with closing loops, AKA credits and debits and accounting.

So that makes her the perfect person for the role. And I also recognize that because she’s innately made with these qualities. That she will be successful because you can [00:10:00] always teach someone a tool, but you cannot make someone a different person. So some entrepreneurs wrongly, in my opinion, higher based on resumes alone, I think that’s setting you and them up for failure.

The way that I work with my clients. And when I come in as interim COO is I hear based on who you be as a person. Yes, the resume tells a story, and obviously we check to make sure you have relatable experience, but outside that, the way someone interacts as a developer versus a salesperson versus a project manager, there are certain qualities within them that will be.

Very very beneficial to the right role and very detrimental to the wrong role. So like I said, you can teach any tool out there, but you can’t make a different person. So stop looking for unicorns and really dial into that one thing and who that person is. That’s gonna make the biggest difference. And really the second piece of this puzzle.

And that when you hire that expert, who’s not a Jack of all trades, but rather that master of one, it allows you to work so much more efficiently and strategically. And here’s why when you have somebody who can solely focus on one area that will make the biggest ripple effect, then they can get done more done in one day.

Then a quote, unquote, unicorn can sometimes get done in a week because they’re not context switching and having their energy drained, going from unrelated task to another. Because as much as I would love to be able to multitask, no human can actually multitask. We can’t scientifically proven and anything that isn’t on our natural innate energies will get deprioritized.

And that my friends is why a lot of resentment is built in teams, mismatched expectations. And so hopefully now you can see why unicorns don’t exist and how trying to hire one will have a negative impact on your team. Whereas focusing on a few things will make all the difference. Now, the third mistake, which honestly I think is the biggest one, hence why I saved the best for last is not hiring to your weaknesses or worse just to get tasks off my plate.

So, let me get real for a moment. We entrepreneurs like to be the captains of our own ships and run the show. But sometimes that means that we have trouble letting go admitting we’re not all knowing and gasp sharing our weaknesses so that we can hire someone who strengths or those weaknesses. So I again have talked a little bit about this in previous episodes about players versus worker BS, which I’m gonna talk about in a second.

When you are able to recognize what your weaknesses are and hire somebody who is an expert and has those strengths, it’s going to create so many dividends because when you find an expert, even a part-time one is better than a unicorn. Trust me. I have some amazing people on my team who are award winning.

And they’re part-time and again, they get more done in one day than a lot of people get done in a week because they’re an expert and they’re really efficient when their strengths are your weaknesses, then you create what I call a well-rounded team and well-rounded teams lead to high performing teams.

And that is bliss because that is where business team magic really happens. And to that point, when you hire a player versus a worker bee. And so if this, this subject is new to you, a player comes with a plan they’re very strategic and they really, truly just need to know where you’re going. The end result the definition of done, and then they can create the plan and execute onset plan.

Whereas a worker bee creates double duty where you have to do your job and you also have to do the job of telling them what to. This creates a blind leading the blind scenario. If you are not hiring people who are experts and smarter than you. And so there’s a tool that we use called wealth dynamics.

It’s your unique CEO profile. And what this helps us narrow down is what your superpower is, what your zone of genius is and where your weaknesses are, so that you can hire that well rounded team of people who can make up for your weaknesses. Cuz let’s be honest. None of us are perfect. We all have weaknesses.

And when you’re able to let that go, which I know, I know it’s hard to let go, but when you can let that go hire for your weaknesses, then it actually starts being more fun. You get to have more time to go do the things you wanna do, make a bigger impact, et cetera. And they also get to do the things they wanna do, cuz here’s the thing with experts versus unicorn.

Experts, truly love what they’re doing. And they’re so good at it. And they’re always getting better, whereas unicorns, because they’re doing so many things, a lot of times they’re burned out, spread too thin. They’re not experts because they’ve too many things to try and wrangle. So you spend a lot of time finding things falling through the cracks or chasing it’s exhausting.

Those are the three biggest mistakes that I see. And if you can really. Become a proactive hirer where you can find the one thing and really get clear on the role and then hire for your weaknesses. Hire those experts who cover your weaknesses. Then you are going to be worlds ahead of everyone else, and so much closer to having a high performing team.

And if you’d like support around building a high performing team, The C-suite is the only advising container of its kind for service based entrepreneurs. I created it to give you the tools to bridge the gap that most entrepreneurs have learning how to be an effective business leader, and also having the essential mental health support that’s necessary to build a world class, business and team admits the highs and lows of entrepreneurship.

So if you wanna know more about that visit golden key partnership.com/c suite. And with that, that’s all I’ve got for this week’s episode. I’d love to hear from you your biggest takeaways. So make sure you’re following along. Tag me on Instagram at its Lauren Goldstein or LinkedIn, or wherever you hang out on the interwebs.

Thank you so much for listening and we’ll see you next week.

So which part of your business needs love and attention? You might be wondering that, Hmm. Here are your next steps. Head to goldenkeypartnership.com. Or the show notes below to schedule your diagnostic, keep diet.

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