10: The Hiring Process

The only thing scarier than making the decision to quit your job to start your full-time business is the decision and the reality behind hiring your first employees. Which is why this week on The Gutsy Podcast, we are talking all about the hiring process.

I can remember those first few years like they were literally yesterday. I remember the very first day that I was a full-time business owner out on my own doing my own thing. And it was just a glorious moment. And while there was plenty to do, I often found myself having to try and figure out how to fill my time. Because when you go from, you know, a regular job that you are responsible for being at during certain hours to being a solopreneur on your own, all of a sudden time becomes a very mystical thing. So while in the beginning there is more than enough to do, I often found myself having to try and fill the time as well. And also to figure out how to productively fill the time.

I mean, I ran Worx out of my house for nine years. So those first few years were definitely a learning curve of understanding the work-life balance between um, answering emails and doing some projects vs. throwing in a load of laundry and washing the dishes and getting ready for dinner.

And then over time, that started to shift a little bit. I was out in the public, more often than not, attending networking events and going to different types of business events and just really trying to get my name out there. Because I quickly learned that just because “If you build it, they will come” – um, not exactly. 

Because if they don’t know that you’re there, they don’t know where to go. And as the business started to slowly grow and people understood who I was and the services that I was offering, I found myself doing a lot of promising and networking throughout the day and a lot of fulfilling and meeting those promises during the evening.

And for the first two years or so, that was really exciting for me because I felt like the fruits of my labor were being noticed. People were interested in what I had to offer them. It was just a really heightened time because it felt like validation that I was doing what I was supposed to be doing and people wanted it. Therefore, I really didn’t mind working around the clock, I was doing exactly what I had set out to do. But even when you’re doing exactly what you want to be doing, that amount of intense time and effort can only go on for so long.

I started not really eating well. I wasn’t sleeping very good because I was constantly thinking about it. My time in the world doing things other than working was very limited, and not to mention the fact that I had a little guy with me at that time.

Around year two I really started to experience some intense burnout, which we’re going to talk a lot more about burnout next week. It went from being really fun and exciting to being very overwhelming and a bit daunting. And it was about that time that I started to think to myself, “What do I really want long term? Do I want to stay a single solopreneur business forever or do I want to grow and expand?” (Continue Reading)

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