When is it Time to Get Help?

Nirmal Purja is an amazing human. He is the definition of an intrepid explorer. He summited all fourteen 8,000 meter peaks in the world in 7 months. This smashed the previous record of seven years.  

Did he do it alone? No, he had a team of sherpas and support staff to help him achieve the unachievable. As a matter of fact, he used his climbs to bring attention to the hard, often overlooked, work of sherpas in the extreme climbing community.

While not as physically exhausting as climbing 8,000 meters multiple times, entrepreneurs are explorers. They boldly go where many fear to tread. They find uncharted territory and figure out ways to successfully navigate to success. Often, they start their ventures alone working hard to achieve their dreams. Inevitably, at some point they start to ask themselves:

Is it time to hire someone to help out?

It can be a difficult question to answer. When businesses are starting off, it can be all about operating on a shoestring and saving capital for product or service development. The entrepreneur keeps slogging along trying to do as many jobs as possible to save money.

As things get busier, there is that nagging sense that something has to give, but when do you actually take the plunge and hire staff?

We work with a lot of entrepreneurs who are facing this question. It can feel a little bit like you are taking a step into the abyss. You may be hesitating, waiting for a sign that a new employee is the answer. G2 Solutions walks our clients through a process that helps them gain clarity.

It involves helping them change perspective regarding their role and use of time.

Role Perception: If you are a business owner you are the CEO of that entity. Many of our clients don’t initially view themselves as CEOs. The CEO mindset is essential to figuring out when to add an employee.

In studying CEOs, Mark Helow found that there is a set of skills that anyone can learn that sets highly effective CEOs apart from less successful ones. He found that highly effective CEOs divide their work into Organizational Hygiene and Business Drivers 

Organizational Hygiene: Activities that may feel good in the short term because you can cross them off your to do list, but they don’t move the company forward. These are things like responding to routine email, paying bills and ordering supplies.

Business Drivers: Activities that improve the long-term competitive position of the company. These include developing a strong business model (how you serve your clients and make a profit), initiating strong business processes (systems that allow you to consistently satisfy your customers) and surrounding yourself with talented employees. 

Highly successful CEOs will spend 20% of their time on organizational hygiene and 80% of their time on business drivers.

When you are at the point that you are spending a lot of time on organizational hygiene and not the business drivers, it is time to consider help.

Use of Time: So how do you figure out how you are spending your time? 

G2 Solutions has a way to do that as well. We are going to share a simplified version of our process.

1. Write down all the things that you are responsible for and categorize them as business drivers or organizational hygiene.

2. Estimate how much time you spend on these activities per week.

3. Track how you actually spend your time for 3-5 days and compare that to your estimate.

What most of our clients find is that they are spending a huge amount of time on organizational hygiene and not on the tasks that will actually move the company toward its goals. They realize that they are spending time doing things that other people could do. Seeing it in black and white often gives them the clarity they need to make the decision to hire.

Our clients have found that having G2 Solutions as a guide to help them navigate this process was essential. Contact us and let us be your sherpa. 

Photo by Jackman Chiu on Unsplash