In this episode of The Smart Agency Master Class, I sit down with Joe Grano who is going to talk to us about who to hire, getting that next level agency, and making the transition from a small, one person agency to bringing on full-time employees.

Joe is the president and founder of Next-Mark, a full-service marketing, communications, public relations, and business strategy solutions company based in Sarasota, FL.

When to hire full-time employees.

Joe once said to me, “I never want to hire employees.” He’s since changed his tune and now has several full-time employees on his team. In fact, he prefers them to contractors.

Here are the questions Joe considered when making the full-time leap:

• Can you really afford to do it? There’s a level of financial stability needed.
• Are you willing to give anything up to ensure your employees get paid? If you’re not, then you aren’t ready yet.
• Do you know how to hire? Bringing on just anyone can be a disaster.

Other considerations:

• You need to really think about how you want to grow your business because hiring full-time staff is a big mind shift.
• Understanding that contractors probably don’t have your business’s best interests in mind. Contractors just don’t have the same kind of loyalty as full-time employees.
• You can do so much more for people who are fully invested in the business, and vice versa.
• Have full-time staff and only bring on contractors whose core competencies are things that you couldn’t afford full-time.

Who is the right first hire?

Okay, you’re making the move to bringing on full-time staff but who is the first hire? Joe and I both brought on people who had been long-time contractors for our businesses. You already know their work style and they’re already familiar with your company.

Joe’s first hire was his Director of Communications; someone who had been with him for awhile as a contractor and who brought along a lot of agency experience. Mine was a designer, but I also definitely recommend hiring some kind of manager – office or project. You need someone to do the operational stuff while you’re out growing the business.

New employees are an investment.

Time is money, and it’s hard to commit to spending a lot of your time teaching a new employee. Joe’s advice for shortening the learning curve is to hire up. Bring in people with good experience and skill sets, so they can come in and start performing quickly.

But remember – like anything else just starting out, new employees need to be nurtured. It takes time to teach them and help them gain confidence in their competencies. Be patient because it will be worth it.

How to put together a great team?

You may think you want to hire people whose working style is just like yours. You’re wrong.  A team made up of a bunch of the same people won’t be productive. Look for people who:

1. Work well in teams. Joe recommends check out this TED Talk about hiring introverts.
2. Have working styles that would compliment yours. Use this helpful quiz.

Why are setting core values so important?

If you don’t have core values, you need to get some ASAP. If you have core values, you need to communicate them to your people ASAP. Make sure you are sharing them with your current and new employees, alike.

Bonus: Want more info on core values? Check out this video from Zappo’s CEO about core values and creating awesomeness.

Important steps toward growth.

Take a good, hard look at where you want your business to go to bring it up to a next level agency. Remember, new employees take time, so it’s important you consider that in your growth plan. Also, think about their long-term fit within the company. If you can only see them around for a couple of projects or for a matter of months, it’s not time for full-time staff.

Finally, be really comfortable with being able to support someone full time. The last thing you want is to have to let them go after only a little while because you can’t afford to pay them.

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Creating a Next Level Agency

Are you holding yourself back from creating a next level agency by ignoring problems or issues you aren’t even aware of that need your attention? Good, this is where I can come in and provide you support.

In all my years, I have more than likely experienced all if not most of the different struggles you have and can help you from what I have learned. From what to do with your bad agency clients, how to develop agency products and how you can build authority for your agency.

If you want to know how to grow your agency even further, I have agency growth hacks, the best ways to improve management of your business as well as why building a remote team of freelancers can be beneficial in the long run.

As well as this, you can learn more about my career as well as tips, tricks and insights by checking out my blogs that cover a wide variety of topics.

I also hear the experience and advice from other successful agency experts in my Ask Swenk series and more of my videos on my Youtube channel.