Whether you have a remote local business or are thinking about starting one, the reality is that there are different stages of growth and stages of internal team growth that you should be aware of.
This article outlines exactly what you should expect in different stages of growth — with a focus on staffing.
First Stage Staffing: $0-$150k
You’re just getting started and are likely going to need to recruit one person for your remote team staff. That’s my advice. For franchisees, you should bring on at least one person internally. That person is going to be half operations, half sales. Those are the two major departments that I want you to think about. Eventually, you’re going to have marketing and accounting, but operations and sales are most of what you’re doing when you’re just getting started.
That first hire is going to run both of them.
A lot of times entrepreneurs underestimate just how much a remote team member can take off their plate. Trust me: it will free up your time (and mind) so that you can focus on building and scaling.
Second Stage Staffing: $150k-$500k
Once you start hitting $30-$45k months, you need to start bringing on more team members. Remember that first operations/sales hire you brought on? Now that person will likely excel at one or the other, not both. Both departments require very different personality types. This may be an overgeneralization, but in my experience salespeople aren’t very organized and they usually don’t like admin.
Here, you have the opportunity to take a good look at that first hire to determine what their real strength is. Let’s say that they’re really good at selling so you take them off of operations. You need to replace them with what I call a Daily Operations Coordinator. This is the person who puts out fires and day-to-day tasks that keep the biz running smoothly.
At this stage, you (as the owner) can take a step back in terms of operations. You’ll still be heavily involved, but you’ll have more breathing room to let your team members do their thing. You should also consider hiring an accountant to take care of payroll.
While you may be tempted to task your sales team with marketing, that should be all you at this point. Focus on being a marketing strategist — implementing it, systemizing it, and then you should hand it off to a vendor to execute it.
Third Stage Staffing: $500k-$1M
This stage will require you to look at sales and operations and beef them both up. I recommend that you onboard at least two people for each department. Ideally, you’ll be able to find someone who will eventually become a manager. At $500k you can have this type of structure where you have four people under you. As you move toward $1M, you need to have a manager in place for each department who has at least one or two people under them.
These numbers will change depending on how involved you still are in the business. If you’re still full-time, you’ll need fewer employees and vice versa.
Going Beyond $1M
Full disclosure, my team and I were able to bring my remote local cleaning business MaidThis to $2M in annual revenue. At that stage, we brought on a Customer Happiness Manager. They were dedicated to following up with customers to see how they were doing, handling complaints, and resolving issues. It enabled our sales team to focus solely on sales.
We also brought on another team member who could be there as backup for everyone else.
As with anything else, only you can determine your own specific staffing needs as you scale your business. But, when you bring on more people to help you, you’ll be able to reap the benefits almost immediately. When you have less on your plate in terms of daily tasks, you can focus on what you do best: coming up with ideas.
Most people go into business with the end goal of working less. The only way you can make this happen is with a quality team who is there to back you up.
Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash
This article was written by Neel from MaidThis Franchise, a remote-local franchise opportunity for people looking to escape the rate race and reach financial freedom. Learn more here.
