Tag: people

Subcontracting and VAs: Training New Hires

Transcript

I and they were my colleagues, obviously, so I wasn’t training them.

But, like, if I take that kind of person and think, like, how I and no.

Right?

So I think it’s one thing to keep in mind that transparency so that they’re not an expense, of course, in any way.

They’re like, so and it’s like a shoving.

Like, it’s it’s not, make sure that you’re modeling the exact behavior that you want to make sure that you’re not going to be able really to Yeah.

And at what at what point, like, what revenue point would you consider taking somebody on, and roughly how much time would you assume?

Like, is this gonna be two weeks? Is this gonna be three months? Like, is this gonna be two weeks? Is this gonna be three months? Like, is this gonna be three months?

Like, is do it.

You just pay yourself less. It sucks. But, like, you eat ramen for a little bit and not the good stuff. And, you’ve you’ve got them on.

And I have seen people who family. And, you’re going to find the money to pay them and your family. And, you’re going to find the money to pay them and your family. And, you so I need to go in there and be really good at selling them on this ten thousand dollar a month retainer.

Then the next month, what once you hire another person, now your retainer is a twenty thousand dollars a month, and you have to make it work. And, you’re not building an agency. But if you’re not building an agency, then there’s different ways to think about hiring. But if you are, you will need people without question.

For for cheap, especially if you’re gonna be need to put a lot of time into them because you actually do have more time now than you’ll have over the next three years. And then after the three years, then you’ll have more time again. But that’s when you’re at the three million mark, and you have to build a leadership team at that point anyway.

Yeah. Firing.

Firing is so hard.

But do it now. There are juniors out there who are ready to go. Just want a chance and some money, please. They just also want some money.

Cool.

Worksheet

Subcontracting and VAs: Hiring Designers

Transcript

Would you in terms of prioritization, I find that the thing I struggle with most is finding designers because I can’t, like, I can’t write something without having it designed. It just won’t perform. And I need a designer that I can work with because I need a designer that knows something about UX and will listen to me when I have suggestions.

Would it be more reasonable to hire a designer first, or should I continue to search for freelance designers that I can partner with? Because I haven’t I haven’t looked so much, but I’ve found that it’s hard to find people, number one, that are talented and work in the same projects that I do, and number two, that are available in collaborative.

I’ve been watching Nicole here. Nicole is our designer and social media person on our team.

And so I’m sure she’s had lots of opinions over the course of this meeting.

I don’t know, Nicole, if you do have anything to add. I can say because I don’t wanna put you on the spot. Or do you want do you have something to add?

Not much to add necessarily, but it’s it’s I can understand. Like, it’s hard to hire anybody. Like, designers are no different than any other position, I would assume.

But I find that, a lot of designers, like, undersell themselves.

And so that’s why it’s so much like, you might find it is that much harder to, like, say, like, go on Upwork because you might find an excellent designer and they’re only charging, like, you know, fifteen dollars an hour for their work, which is silly. But sometimes, yes, that’s how it goes because it’s there’s an oversaturation. So I can see how that would be difficult.

But I do find that, like, whenever but back when I was freelancing, like, I did like, being given a test project was really, really helpful.

And the people who are willing to do the test project, I find, will be willing to learn more things, and they’d probably be more of an asset to you.

Yeah. Good call. Totally.

Yeah.

And we found Nicole with a LinkedIn job posting.

So designers are looking at job openings as well just like everybody else.

It’s hard to find them maybe in your network, but they are you’d post job opening, and you’ll get a lot of applicants. Put them through a test, and just treat it like I mean, you’re hiring for your business. So that’s just the way it is. Yeah. If you think you need to bring a designer on full time because it’s part of how you sell what you do, then Mhmm. Put a job posting together.

If it’s only a small part of what you do, like, you’re like, well, I always use them at the very end, but I give them all the direction, and I just need them to make sure that they’re implementing what I say, then that might be something where you could find a really good VA, like time etcetera dot com is who we use, and so far so good.

And that if if it is a small amount of work, then a VA could do it. If it’s gonna be a lot you see a recurring need for it, do a job posting for a a designer. Yeah.

Yeah. It’s more like if I wanna take on somebody to do social work, like, there needs to be design. And a lot of times, smaller companies just don’t have the design in house. Or if they do have the design in house, either they’re in new first, they’re in UX because, obviously, you need to keep the product. Like, you need to have design for the product, or they have if they have a marketing designers, there’s only one marketing designer, and they have, like, a hundred thousand things on their plate. And social is the very, very bottom of the list. So I’m left using Canva even for large companies that have millions of dollars in funding.

So that’s why I’m wondering, like, if I’m gonna hire somebody, maybe it would make more sense to hire a designer before I hire a contractor.

It sounds like it. Yeah. It sounds like if it’s if it’s a big enough pain for you and it’s really getting in the way of delivering, hire one. Yeah. You can think about different ways to hire them, but one of the really good things about hiring people is it lights a fire under your butt to make more money. You gotta make payroll, so you gotta do it. I would if it’s it sounds to me like that is the first hire that you need, you’ll probably need to have, like, someone else in your back pocket shortly thereafter to, help actually help you create those assets outside of designing them, some sort of content strategist or a copywriter or whatever that person is.

But, yeah, hire them. And then, like, as a full timer, and then but but make sure you put a plan together for how you’re going to make money and be profitable.

So don’t wing it, but it probably starts by just, like, doubling your rates right now and then watching all the training you can on how to how to sell better. Like, sell like a freaking champ. Not that you can’t, but it does not hurt. Sales is gonna be, like, your best friend as you build out your agency.

Yeah. Mhmm.

Makes sense. Mhmm.

And do you have a sense until the point where I do feel comfortable to hire, maybe you could help. I I have no idea what a designer should earn, like, per project, per hour. No clue whatsoever. Like, I value it. I just don’t know how much is worth to pay for it.

I I mean, it totally depends where they are. But if it doesn’t matter where they are to you, then I’d put the salary low.

People always think that they need to put their salary really high, and it’s I’ve not actually found that a higher salary brings in, like, the same level of higher candidate. It’s just often it’s someone who wishes they could earn that much money.

And then they’re like, no, man. No. And you find really good candidates at the lower salary as well. So don’t don’t leave with it has to be a high salary.

If they can work anywhere, that’s a benefit. If you can add in extra perks, like give them Fridays off, Just do it. Just out of the gate, just do it. Then these are the perks that will attract stay at home parents who have a design background, and then you don’t have to worry about the salary being bananas.

But I wouldn’t know what that salary is. It completely depends. If they’re junior, if they’re right out of school, I know that you can, like, do Glassdoor to see what salaries there are. I don’t know how much I would rely on that, though.

I mean, the number that comes to mind for me is fifty thousand. It’s not a lot of money at all, but it’s a good junior salary, and Mhmm. It leaves you room to bonus them based on performance. If they do a killer job, you can give them a really nice bonus, then they’re like, wow.

That’s cool. Also to increase their salary as well, like, six months later if they prove that they’re amazing and you are, like, relieved of so much of the crap you’ve had to do so that you can go bring in more clients and hire more. They’re really proving their value to you, then you can increase their salary. Of course, you don’t have to wait to do it.

You can do that at any point, but I wouldn’t start. I don’t know. I don’t know what fifty thousand if fifty thousand is too low in today’s market or what, but start there and see what you get. You want juniors.

Right? You basically do. You want them to be able to use the tools and have a good design eye, but you’re gonna have to teach them so much.

Mhmm. Yeah. Okay.

Interesting. Thank you. Alright. Cool. Cool. Bye.

Worksheet

Subcontracting and VAs: Hiring and Paying

Transcript

Katie, were you gonna add something?

No. I have a kind of related question just on subcontracting, if it’s okay.

Okay. Cool. Yeah. Thanks, Naomi. Yeah. If you have a win by chance to share, Katie?

I have a new well, so we we talked before about the agency first steps, and I’ve sold my first project where I bundled in design. So I am project managing, and I’m, like, leaving with the designer. So that’s that’s exciting.

Amazing. But I’m not, like, I’m not making it’s a little bit of a caveat because I’m not make I didn’t I didn’t mark up the design.

Hence, my question now is, like so the agency first steps that I did, I put out, like, a call for collaborators who work with a similar audience. And now I have thirty people who, like, filled out my form. I have a mix of designers, tech, like, tech experts, OBMs, other copywriters.

So that was kind of my, like, seeding the agency, like, getting interested people to come out of the Woodwork.

But I’m I don’t know how to make money off of it. Like, I don’t I’m like, okay. So, like, I know that I could refer out to these people, and, like, it’s great to have this, you know, network for to refer my clients to. But I’m kind of stuck on, like, you know, even when you were giving Naomi the about whether or not she wants to work with an agency because they’re limited in how much they can pay, I’m now like I’m like, well, how do I make this profitable while also being, like, an appealing person to work with for these people who filled out, like, who come out to who’ve shown up for it.

Yeah. So I would are the people that are currently subcontracting for you, are they charging a reduced rate to you or their standard rate that they charge you.

So currently, they haven’t like, I ask people to share their signature offer, like, what the main thing that they do and if they have a date.

And everybody has shared their standard prices so far, but I did kind of, like, leave the door open. Like, I’ll be in touch with next like, so the people that I like, I wanna reach back out to and, like, open the conversation about what it would look like to white label their services.

But I just I didn’t like, basically, I’ve been leaving them hanging now for over a week because I didn’t know what I was gonna go with in terms of my next offer.

So you’ve got designers as subcontractors. Who else?

What I really need is, like, OBMs who will take the emails I write and put them into the email marketing platform, like, set up the automations for me, help people clean up their tags and stuff like that. Or, also, because I’ve been pitching these, like, post sales sequences for people to, you know, set up the triggers within the program and the conditional, you know, blah blah blah. Like so design, obviously, like, for front end stuff and then back end implementation.

Yeah. Cool. Yeah.

Okay.

You won’t make money as an agency if you don’t control those expenses.

Yeah. And that’s just the reality of it for every single agency.

And that’s why it can be, you know, very hard to hire the person you really want to hire.

So markups are a thing, definitely.

You’re not marking up at all right now.

No.

I mean but, like, this one, I was kind of like, okay. This is like a training wheels project, and then I’ll like, from now on, it is definitely gonna be marked up.

So Okay. And it’s a project or a routine?

This is a project.

Okay. Is there room because it sounds like it’s performance based or it’s measurable, you can sell it into a retainer afterward?

Yeah. Probably. Okay. Cool. Yeah. I would encourage that.

What were you gonna say before I cut you off? Sorry.

Oh, well, just this is the one where I I did pitch her. I gave her the option of taking the performance based, but then she she was just like, it’s just easier for me to know, like, what I’m gonna pay upfront.

So she we went with that and so on.

And you can still do an upfront, like, a flat rate regardless of how it performs. It’s just your job as part for this retainer is to keep measuring and reporting on how it’s going. So especially if you’re doing email. Like Yeah. What like, my gosh.

So so when it comes to the subcontractors, you need to start by figuring out what profit you need for this to work. So that means you come to the contractor with the budget that you have for it, and they have to decide if they can do it for that low cost.

And it should be low. It should be, like, much lower than they would charge if they were to go out into the world because, obviously, you’re doing all the work. Right? Like, it’s all on you. Every bit of this is actually on you.

So because they could flake out on you. There’s too much risk. So you’ve got to get their rates way down, uncomfortably, but a lot of people are like, well, at least I didn’t have to sell. Like, I didn’t have to go get a client, so that’s okay.

That’s the that’s like, step one is put together a budget to get you to profitability.

How how much do you have to charge clients for this to work? How hard do you need to work to get them into a retainer? Like, is it really important for your business? I would say, yes. It is. And it’s also a no brainer too for that retainer retainer, again, being a flat rate, but you keep measuring every month how you’re doing and how it’s affecting the business, so that they see the value, but they’re always paying the same amount. So really obvious one, you start off with a project for twenty thousand dollars, then you move into a ten thousand dollar a month retainer.

Adjust those prices however you see fit.

But if you were doing a twenty thousand dollar project with two subcontractors in there and your time in there as well, let’s say this works out over a six week or eight week period, you wouldn’t wanna spend with those two subcontractors.

They don’t get more than five thousand dollars. Right? Like, you got twenty thousand. Two of them take up half of your of your revenue already and leaving you with only ten thousand for your time, for all of the client management you have to do, for you continuing to build the business going forward, you need at least ten thousand dollars for you. So five thousand would become, like, that’s the top end of what I can pay for this person to work with me for eight weeks. So twenty five hundred bucks a month for them to get these things done.

But if you know that, then good. The number is based on the number that you need for this to be a viable agency for you. Does that make sense?

Yes. I just I feel like I guess that is assuming a certain level of standardization in the projects that we’re doing, whereas I haven’t got that far yet in terms of, like like, right now, it’s just me being, like, okay. On the call, instead of saying, well, I can introduce you to somebody who does that being, like, I have a test, you know, I have somebody who can do that. So it hasn’t been, like, I don’t really have a standardized offer yet. So figuring out, like, the numbers is a is has been more hypothetical. But I can see I see what you mean about, like, starting with the profit like, starting with the profitability versus starting with somebody else’s price.

Total. That’s exactly it. It will be hypothetical too. It’ll feel uncomfortable. Like, isn’t there an easier or better way?

Have you read I would encourage you. This won’t help you figure out what to pay people, but, Pricing Creativity by Blair Enns is a good book for this.

Again, it won’t give you that, but it’ll help you just create context around making those decisions for what you pay the subcontractors, how you talk with them about their value, and what they need to contribute. Like, it’s not gonna help you manage them, but you’ll be better, armed, I think, to have a good conversation with them about prices that will feel low to them and should. If it doesn’t feel low to them, there’s probably a bit of a problem there.

But they get to work with you and all of the extra benefits of that.

Yeah. I know. It’s hypothetical. It doesn’t feel as grounded as it ought to. Once you start getting into it and see what the market will bear, for new clients coming in and contractors being paid and what that gap is and how profitable you can be in there, then that’ll help a lot, but you just gotta start throwing numbers out, sadly.

Okay. Okay. Thank you.

I would not pay more than fifty percent of the total budget on subcontractors.

Okay. Okay?

Yeah. Are you near that right now or not at all?

No. Not even I mean, I charge fifteen k, and the designer is gonna charge she’s doing, like, a Showit template plus customization. She so I think her package is four k, and it involves she’ll put the email to ConvertKit and hook up ConvertKit to the site. So, like, I feel like that’s a good package for me to be pointing people to, and I just need to have a conversation with this designer about, like, bundling it into my package. Yeah.

And I’ve had a conversation with this designer in the past. Like, she offered to make me an affiliate for her.

So, obviously, she’s comfortable, you know, knocking the price down for for ease of sale. So I feel like that’s a good first relationship to build out.

Yeah. That’s awesome. Yeah. I know it’s tough.

It’s tough, but Yeah. There is money on the other side of it. It’s just agencies in the beginning don’t feel profitable until you hit that point. Then it’s like, oh, there’s money here.

Yeah. Looking looking forward to that point. Yeah. Yeah. I know.

I’m just letting you know it’s there. It will happen. Cool.

Okay.

Worksheet

What should I expect from a VA starting out?

Transcript

My other question was, like and so, like, I’m I have no idea. Like, the only thing I know about VAs is, like, they do work for you. So, like, I guess, like, in terms of, like, getting people, like, in hiring and training a VA or other people, like, am I also, like, expected to, like, hire a VA to, like, get on a call with the client as well and, like, even do a strategy call or not, like, record the call? I I don’t know. Like Yeah.

Not yet. Not yet. So next week, we’ll talk about the things that you can start expecting to outsource to. The general term is VA, but, that’s very general.

Right? So when you’re working with a different VA provider, like a proper larger agency, like, Time, etcetera is the one that we use, they’re going to have people in there that have different skills, can do different things. So if you’re like, I need a VA who can hop on a call with me, look like they’re part of my team, and take notes, that wouldn’t be a thing because that’s like, no. You outsource that to the fathom note taker.

Taker. Right? Like, that’s not what you do. Oh, you don’t spend money on that. But if it’s something you then you just go and you seek out that VA.

And when I say VA, that’s because it’s the easiest, most natural first step. There’s lots of them out there. They’re easy to access. They track their time.

They’ve got the tools already. You don’t have to build in anything. You just have train them on what you need them to do and then work with a reputable, like, agency so that you get a good one and have all all the things we’ll talk about next week.

That’s what but it doesn’t mean it’ll always be a VA. You might be like you might start with a VA, and in four months go, woah. I’m actually making quite a lot of sales, and I thought I’d only close one retainer project a month. And now I’m doing, like, both.

The two people that I’m selling the ten thousand dollar thing to are always saying yes to the retainer. So I thought I was gonna have slow go there, but now I have, like, a big need. I’m ready to hire someone full time, someone who works in your area. We would talk through what those strategies would be so you have the greatest likelihood of success.

But it might not always be a VA. But it probably shouldn’t. Just as a heads up for next week, I’m not gonna say it should be somebody who would hop on a call. You should still be the frontline, the face that they’re talking to.

Yeah.

Worksheet

Optimizing for a smaller team

Transcript

I guess what my question is is, like, is there kind of, like, a smart way to sort of optimize for, like and and going through the org chart, exercise had me feeling like in my ideal vision, I would maybe have one or two people who I’m I’m working with a lot, who are doing a lot of work, and then, like, everything else would be kind of, like, subcontracted. And so I guess all of this to say, is there a way that I can sort of, yeah, optimize for what I’m describing that isn’t about just about growing, growing, growing?

Yes.

Yes and no. So it it depends on a lot of things. Right? So I don’t think you attended the workshop, Andrew, that most people attended before they joined the intensive slash coffee school pro.

In it, I walked through a spreadsheet of, like, how many retain how many standardized offers you sell a month versus how many, retainers you then build off of that.

And it got to, like you get to half a million dollars a year really nicely, with two people to help you with the work on, like, an almost casual basis. So you can get there, then you could always double your team, double that idea that leaves you with four people.

But you are doing the sales and account management then, so you have to bring in someone for sales, or if you’re happy to do that, someone for account management because you won’t wanna do all those things plus copy, cheaping, and all the stuff that happens. You just won’t. It’s good to have more than one person in a role for the redundancies so that when the copywriter is sick, life doesn’t stop. So that’s that’s what you could do.

You could have four people, three copywriters in there, one account manager slash make stuff happen person, plus you, that could be a million dollar business until you then raise your rates. And as soon as those rates go up for a thing that’s already in place, then that’s another way to get more. So let’s say you could get to a place where you double it. Your standardized offer goes from ten thousand to twenty thousand.

Okay. Your retainer goes from five to ten thousand.

You continue to have a good close rate, etcetera, etcetera, because you’re doing great work, and the that work is leading people saying, yes. Of course. I’ll pay you that amount of money. So now you’re at two million a year with about four team members.

That’s really nice. That’s a healthy dollar figure. You could I don’t know how you stop there, but if it felt right for you to stop there, you could. Then then you figure out at that point if it makes sense to do more.

But there are easy ways to keep things small without having small money at the same time. It’s just if you’re open, if there was a world where you could, you know, grow it to a fifty million dollar agency, that path is achievable. It’s just it’s a it’s it’s an ease I don’t wanna say it’s easier to build a fifty million dollar business than a two million dollar business, but I don’t know how to constrain it that way.

Feels like, oh, and now we scale. Right?

So but that’s cool that that’s where you wanna be. I know a lot of people who are like that. Some for health reasons, some just for lifestyle reasons.

So, yeah, you don’t have to have some massive team with huge revenue goals. You can still do two million, pay yourself a million dollars a year, and have a team that’s happy, decent profit margins, and have a saleable asset in the end too. Yeah. Yeah? Does that help?

Worksheet

Week 6: Hiring & Onboarding Your VA (or first hire)

Week 6: Hiring & Onboarding Your VA

Transcript

Hey. Hello, y’all. Welcome to week six. This is the week where we can start to move closer to having even more leverage by hiring and onboarding your VA.

Now the title of this is hiring and onboarding your VA, but there are many cases where it won’t be a VA that you’re hiring. So what I really want you to think about is your first hire. That’s what we’re gonna talk about. That’s what we’re gonna get into today.

So we want you to be able to add the right people at the right time so that you can scale for improved profitability.

If you don’t love the idea of a team, we’re gonna talk through, how important it is to have a team member, but I’m not gonna entirely be able to move some people to this idea. So if you feel a lot of hesitation around this, I would, encourage you just to suspend disbelief, just to let go of some of your worries about what it’s like to have a team. Maybe you’ve heard things. Maybe you’ve had a team before.

Maybe you had a bad manager and you don’t wanna be that person ever. Everybody has their own, like, people story, and you definitely do. So that is fair. All I’m asking is that you stick with me and don’t say no out of the gate.

What we’re going to cover may feel like a lot as well, but it’s an entire week of work in something called an intensive, so it shouldn’t be terribly surprising when it feels a little intense sometimes.

We do wanna use this approach to gain leverage so that you can work on the business. There, again, are people who don’t see the value in having people around to help them, but that’s often because those people are poorly trained or they don’t understand your vision or or or. So we can overcome a lot of that, but not if you’ve got a wall up. So do your best to break that wall down or at least just to sit here, close down distractions, listen, look through your workbook, and fill in things as I walk you through them. Okay? Here’s the part of the sunshine growth model that we are working on this week.

This is, of course, where we’re clearing out more of the darker parts of the cloud. So you can start to see that there’s more happening down here around leverage in order to get to that place where you’re ready to build, this thousand dollar a day business. Not just ready to build. You are actively building that business by doing this work. Okay?

If people were not important to this part, to this to this process at all, I wouldn’t include them. I have heard enough enough friction. I’ve heard enough, over the years about how it’s it’s too hard to hire people, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.

If if it wasn’t important, I wouldn’t teach it to you. It wouldn’t be in here because it’s actually it makes my life harder to have to convince you of this. So trust that I don’t like making my life harder. I like making it easier.

And if I could, I would pull this out, but I absolutely can’t. And every time I meet with an entrepreneur who is stuck at one point five million dollars a year, every time it’s because they don’t wanna hire people. So I want you to think. And even if one point five million sounds really good and, like, wow, that’d be so cool, it’s, you can do so much more.

And as I love to say to all the freelancers I work with, like, business loves to grow.

If you aren’t ready to help it grow, you will end up feeling like you are slamming into a wall again and again. And the sad part is you built that wall, and you will be slamming into it, and you will go fudge.

What should I do?

Do I just, like, have a lifestyle business, or do I go ahead and hire people? So you’ll eventually get there. Trust me. I have a seriously clear crystal ball on this thing after so much time working with so many business owners and working alongside them as well.

Okay. So so so so so. I’m really trying to make a case for you sticking with me through this. This is what you’re going to fill in at the end of the week.

Note that this is called CEO notes. We are going to start referring to you as the CEO of your business. Put aside the fact that you’re also the chief garbage taker outer, and you are all of the other things as well. We’re actually gonna talk about all of that this week, but put that aside and allow yourself to just roll with the idea of being the CEO.

Okay. Excellent.

So let’s get started. You will go back. You’ll complete that worksheet afterward. So have a look through it.

Because this is recorded, you can pause. You can take a look at everything right now, but we’ll go through this at the very end. Okay? Cool.

Alright. Let’s move on then to the next page, which is no employee should be an expense. Okay? So every person you hire should help you make more money.

This means you need to hire the right people in order for that to be true. Otherwise, if you’re hiring people who cost you money instead of making you money, it becomes really frustrating to hire people at all. So there are different ways that they can help you make more money. Sometimes they do this by attracting and closing more clients for you, and that’s when you hire someone who is in direct marketing or who is a ghostwriter if a book is a big part of what you’re going to do to grow your business or in sales.

There’s lots of other roles that could be true there, but that’s where they are actively attracting and sometimes even closing more clients for you. Sometimes they’re gonna be freeing you up so you can do the work that clients are paying you for, and that’s where a lot of people start with a virtual assistant because they’re making it so that you’re not managing your calendar, you’re not doing inbox triage, etcetera, etcetera. And then there’s the other ones, who might just come along and be the people that replace you with the work that clients are paying for, which is a really valuable thing.

If you are a freelance copywriter, this is the kind of stuff that you’ll end up training people on, putting them through copy school or whatever it is that you do, and then, of course, actively training them and giving them feedback. These are people who are going to be copywriters.

Maybe if you’re in ads or sell by chat or email, they’re implementation specialists.

They could be researchers, analysts, designers, conversion optimization experts, all of those sorts of things. Okay? So this is what we’re starting to think through.

Your first hire, as I mentioned, does not have to be a VA. So if that has not felt right, if you’ve been like, I don’t think I need an assistant, then don’t worry about it. I have not had an assistant in years, and it’s fine because the business that I’ve built does not require that I have an assistant. I instead hire other people that can free me up.

My inbox isn’t so bananas that I need somebody to come in and take care of it. So, if yours is, if your calendar is, if you find that you’re getting a lot of leads and they’re slipping through the cracks because you were like, oh, did I ever get back to so and so? Then it’s a good idea to add a VA in. But as you’ll see here, what we really wanna think about is your org chart.

That’s the first place to go when you are thinking who should I hire. A lot of people will tell you that you should start with, well, what are the jobs you don’t wanna do? Others will say, well, what are the jobs you love doing that you can train someone else on so well so that you can go learn other jobs? There is a lot of conflicting information out there.

This is what I have found to be most valuable, creating my own org chart, not for the business that I have today, but for the business that I’m building. So you look at it for three to five years from now. And as I note here, this is something that was clarified brilliantly for me when I read The E Myth Revisited. I always loved an org chart, but I didn’t know how far down the road to make it for, what to really do once I had done that.

So we’re going to have you start this week off by creating your own org chart. Okay? So as you go through and watch this lesson, you should be pausing it and doing the work as you go. Cool?

Then after that or, well, basically, alongside that, you’ll be thinking through how you will deliver world class services to clients. So that will affect your org chart. If you decide, hey. I’m gonna do dedicated pods, actually. I think that what I wanna do is have every client gets these three key people, then there’s an account manager on top of that for the client. That’s how I’m going to deliver world class services. I’ll be adding a pod at a time, which means I’ll have these blips in hires, but it also means that I can control how I grow with the number of clients that I have or have in the pipeline.

And that is what we did at Boxcar, and that is the way that it felt perfect, actually. So to think through pods is a really, really nice thing. But we also explored other ways, and that’s the org chart you can see here. So head on over to this short link.

Go to the, if you’re watching this in some other way, you can go to the QR code as well, and check out that org chart. That’s a really basic breakdown of the standard org chart that you’re likely going to have if you’re building an agency that has a product or, like, a service you stand up upfront, and then you follow with the retainer. So exactly the authoritative offers that we’re talking about here. It’s a really good model to start with when you’re looking at your, at at putting together this org chart for you.

You can full on just copy it. You can just say, cool. That’s my org chart and go with it, and then, like, put your name in the right places. But I really want you to understand as you go through and put this org chart together is that you are actually doing every single role that is on that org chart.

It’s not by putting it on paper that doesn’t make you do that role. You’re already doing all of those roles. So if you have a clear a clear, like, view of the org chart for three to five years from now, that can really help you see, what why you often feel burned out, why you feel like, well, I’m such a good copywriter.

Why isn’t my business growing? And you can start to get a better sense for, oh, it’s because I’m spread thin across all these things. I’m doing the job over here off to the side, which is and you’ll see that on the org chart. This little part, one person is a senior copywriter in there.

I’ve got a couple of those roles. I’m I’m focusing on that part, but look at all these other parts that I actually am doing as well. So that’s a really, useful exercise. So that is where you wanna start right now.

Go ahead and pause this video and look at the org chart, make a copy of it. Or if you like starting from scratch from a blank page, you can look at it and then go and make your own. That is your objective out of the gate. If it helps, I find org charts to be very, I find them, like, inspiring.

When I wanna get regrounded and where I wanna take my business, when things feel slightly chaotic or something goes in an unexpected way, I like to go back to my org chart, have a look at where I’m at, and also change the colors of various boxes so that they are a different color if there’s somebody I’m going to hire next. So I start changing the color of the boxes if I’m like, okay. This is me. I’m the only person on this org chart, but here are three other ones that, three other places that I could hire, in the next four months, let’s say.

So you can change the color to a different color. Just like that, go in and, change the color. I know this is a very small view that you’re seeing of the org chart, but look at it in your own view and then go, okay. Well, I think if I’m the senior copywriter I’m everything.

But if I’m the senior copywriter and I’m also kind of doing CRO a lot, like, I’m over here in my skill set, what do I what what will help me have the best leverage to go forward and make more money? So if you really like the copywriting part, then you can stick with that and maybe hire someone over it, like maybe head of sales or your sales lead comes next or your account lead comes next or your CRO comes next.

If on the other hand, you’re like, okay. I I mean, I did copywriting, but I think I like business and entrepreneurship more, then maybe you’ll wanna look over at you taking over more of the VP of accounts, and thus, you’ll be hiring more underneath this VP of services. So the services area might be where you’d go like, okay. If the next person I wanna hire is actually a senior copywriter, then you can look across and say, okay.

I’ll probably need to spend about a hundred and twenty thousand a year on them, which can sound like a like a lot of money. Like, I don’t have a hundred and twenty thousand dollars a year, to spend on other people in particular. But remember, look at the headline here. No employee should be in expense.

So you don’t have to hire this person tomorrow. You just need to have a sense for who you should hire next based on your org chart for the business you wanna build. K? Thinking about how you can make sure you are freeing yourself up to grow the business, not, oh, I think I need a team.

Who do you need to help you grow the business into what you want it to be? And then if you’re struggling at all with, I don’t know what I want my business to be. It could be any number of things. I’ve been thinking a bit about it. Like, we’ve set your, like, financial goal, and you have that, like, money idea in place.

But this is where you start to think through that ideal business that you want. So that’s everything going on here on this page. Okay? Pause this video, do the org chart work, and then come back.

Welcome back.

Hello.

Alright. We are ready to move on. You’ve got your org chart in place. That’s awesome. You should likely have highlighted on your org chart the next person that you want to hire. Okay?

Excellent. We are doing wonderful work, and we’re moving forward with the sometimes boring boring but necessary work, and that is job descriptions.

Every job that you just put on your org chart needs a description.

That sounds horrible. And before ChatGPT, it was horrible. But you can write this very, very quickly. Now if you’re in CopySchool Pro, that means you have been in CopySchool or are still in CopySchool.

So I would say if you’re not sure how to go about using ChatGPT to write good job descriptions for you, go back to master of AI copy. And in there, you’ll see how to prompt ChatGPT for work like this, just following race. You’ll see it. It’s really straightforward.

It’s very hard to miss. It’s right out the gate when you start master of AI copy. So use that to help you.

Now if you’re cool with it, you’re like, I, Joe, I already use ChatGPT. Awesome. Great. We’re going to use it to write job descriptions.

You’re going to tell it what its job is, which is, hey. You’re a, business owner building an agency, and your next hire is so and so. Then go through and just, like, finish that prompt off following r a c e. Okay?

That was just the rule, for you for the Chat GPT. Okay. What we wanna do here is fill this in as we’re going through and doing these job descriptions. So it’s really straightforward.

You will find very quickly that you need to have a place to put all these job descriptions, and there will be other things you’ll need to know as well. Where does my org chart go? Because this is all documentation that you don’t wanna lose. You should print it off, put it in the in the binder that you have going for CopySchool Pro.

But, also, we’re gonna talk about how to start putting together your documentation, like, where you save all your documentation that that could be, on Google Drive or Dropbox or wherever it is, you’re going to need a well organized place. If it’s not well organized, it’s very, very hard for you to have that leverage that comes with being documented like mad. So keep all that in mind as you start looking through through all of these parts and going like, wow. I’m really doing a lot of creation of documents here.

Where do I save them? We’re about to get into all of that. Okay? But we’re gonna start by identifying the next three roles that you should hire in what order.

So you will fill the worksheet in with those with at least three that you’ve identified. You don’t have to say the deadline, but if you want to go for it, add the deadline, add the ideal date to start, recruiting and when you would like to have them hired and working for you. It’s good. It helps you get closer to that goal you have to grow your business, by which I mean to grow your revenue and your freedom.

Okay. So you’ll write those three in, take them from your org chart, and then we’re gonna go through and do this work with which is each of those jobs needs a job description. Now as I said, every single job on your org chart needs a job description.

But if you don’t have five hours blocked off to get ChattGPT to write those job descriptions for you, you should at least start with the first three. What I do want you to do is commit to going back, and that means put a block in your calendar, or just do it right now. What I need you to do is make sure you create job descriptions for all of the other roles on your org chart.

Because ChatGPT makes this so easy, there should really not be a lot of friction.

I have gone through this exercise many times, and I’ve done it without ChatGPT to help me. So trust me when I say you’re in a good position to do all of the job descriptions. What we wanna do, though, is just start working down the list. So step one will be write a first first draft job description for each of the roles listed here.

Okay? When you’ve done first draft, you don’t have to make it better. You can say you can just do the regular prompting, leave the first draft there when you’re signed in the chat g p t, into four. Just save it.

By which I mean, just leave it there. You can go back to it later and make it better. Then what you wanna do is also draft a salary for each role, and I would push that further to try to calculate the hourly rate, which can help you when you think back to the week where we were talking about your offers in greater detail, and you had in the retainer week, you had the, the calculate really, it would, like, calculate the hours and what everything’s worth and what everything costs, etcetera, etcetera.

This will help you update that better so you can have a sense for the hourly rate and more. You’ll estimate the monthly revenue that you need to generate a bunch of profit on those hires. Thirty percent is okay for an agency.

You might get hired at fifty percent. You might find sometimes that some, team members are not as valuable, quote, unquote valuable, as other team members are. They generate less profit, but they’re critical for overall profit, and that’s okay. What we just wanna do is make sure that you’ve got a sense of how you can afford to do the work of hiring people.

Okay? Estimate what month based on that you will be able to post your first job opening. And this, again, I want I know that some people will be panicked to hear this. Like, it will come off as, oh my gosh.

I didn’t wanna hire anybody. And now I’m, like, thinking I might have to hire someone. I’m gonna have to hire three people all in twenty twenty four or twenty twenty five or whatever year you’re watching this in.

And that’s that can feel scary.

Don’t let it be scary. I know that’s easy for me to say, but we’re just documenting here. We’re just setting business goals.

You get to choose so much of how your business succeeds, and you making the conscious choice to say, here’s the first hire I need and here is when I need them, that is how you turn into a CEO. And who grows a business better than a CEO? You’re not the freelancer right now. You are the CEO.

And the CEO is thinking, who’s coming up next to help me reach these goals? And the CEO is definitely thinking, and with these goals, how are they making me money, which you are allowed to think. It is allowed to be money that goes into your pocket eventually. So keep that in mind.

And if money doesn’t motivate you, translate it to whatever thing you buy with money, whether that’s freedom, whether that’s time with your kids, whatever that is. Okay? So I want you to then add a block to your calendar to post the job opening, but, importantly, I would like you to have a consequence for not posting it. Again, this is the first person you hire.

What are they going to cost you?

When will you be at a place in your business? So thinking of, okay. If I can close my first project for ten thousand dollars, if I can close that this month, get one under my belt, then I close two more next month, and one of those turns into a retainer. That means in three months, I need to have somebody to train to do the retainer work, or I’ll be doing that retainer work myself. So I need to have somebody to train to do these standardized projects. Okay? If that’s true, then I’ll probably wanna hire them the month before so they can, like, watch me do this work.

Allow yourself to believe that you will rise to the occasion and sell these standardized offers. So belief in self goes a long way. We will talk in Copy School Pro about self efficacy and how to reflect on your wins, on other people’s wins, etcetera, and talk to yourself in order to get to a place where you can say, this is what I’m doing. I am the CEO.

So do all of these parts, and then prepare yourself to use LinkedIn to recruit or post job openings. Some people watching this will be ready right away to start recruiting. What I want you to do is get LinkedIn ready for that work. So update your LinkedIn profile so that it has your title, which is CEO.

Create a company page on LinkedIn if you don’t already have one. This doesn’t have to be a lot, and you can get AI to write the first draft for you to make it sound better, and then you do the final version and drop that into LinkedIn as your new company page. Go in Canva, get it designed, etcetera. Make yourself an employee of that page on LinkedIn, and then ensure all of your employees are listed as employees.

So anybody that you may have hired, this is if your mom, your partner, your niece, anybody is working for you, niece, nephew, anybody is working for you or, works for you casually, whatever that might look like, you make sure that they have you listed as somebody that is employing them listed on LinkedIn so that your company page starts to look more like an actual company page, which will help with recruiting.

Do this work?

Okay.

Now we are moving on. So if you haven’t done the work, pause and go do that work, and then I’ll probably see you tomorrow or maybe depending on your when you’re doing this a little bit later today. Okay. So we are back with before and during the hiring process.

Now this is something that I learned from the e myth revisited. I have modified it. There’s a few other people, my coaches, etcetera, who have helped me kind of, like, refine this. We are working on our own video.

I just wanna be really clear about this. If you’re like, Joe, I haven’t seen this video on your job postings.

It’s true. We’re working on it. But by the the time you watch this, we probably will have. It’s just if you’re watching this immediately after I have produced it.

Okay. What we wanna do is this overarching goal that you will have as you start hiring is not just, am I bringing in the right people? Do they know what to do? But are they aligned behind my vision for the business?

Are they aligned behind how I want to be seen as a business, how I want to deliver work as a business, all of the things that come with greater vision, the emotional side of things, and also your brand.

So we’re going to dig deeply now into as deeply as we can in the intensive.

Know that you’ll reflect on this later. It’s a video that you’re going to make. You can you can change that video later. Video is the easiest thing to make right now. There are very few expectations, and everything looks better than it should given how little time it takes to make the thing. So just trust. Okay?

You can go back and change things later. So what we want to do is make sure that we have set out a clear vision for our business. It doesn’t have to mean, like, my vision is this, but it doesn’t hurt to have a vision or a mission for your business to share with people.

This will help you weed out people who are not a good fit and inspire those who might be a great fit. So here’s what I want you to do before we get into this whole video thing I just mentioned. We want a single we want to be able to start scripting how we’re going to talk to candidates, not new hires. This is for candidates about our business and their role in bringing this business to a place where the world reacts wonderfully to it. So this is what you’re going to fill in right now. At this the top here, you’re going to list three words. These are probably going to be adjectives that you would most like your clients to say about working with your team.

What are those three adjectives? They can be, on time. They can be a delight. They can be results driven.

What I would encourage you to do is try to get really honest with it. Don’t say easy to work with because that’s obvious. Like, no one’s gonna say, I hope they want me to be hard to work with. Right?

Unless, for some reason, that’s yours. If yours isn’t obvious, that’s why it belongs here. And if you were if you think about this in the various businesses that you interact with, this is like, if you’re Steve Jobs, you want to come up with three words you want people to say when they have when they use a MacBook.

What are the three words that you want them to say universally?

Those you get to choose. It doesn’t mean everyone will, but those are the ones you get to choose that help you make the best product. And in this case, your product is your business, which is run by people. They are the machine that you’re actually building here.

Okay? So think about your favorite businesses. Think about experiences when you go into your favorite coffee shop. Or if you get your laundry done by a service and it there’s an experience, there’s a feeling there.

Or when there’s not a feeling and you’re like, well, I don’t want that, it feels like there should be more of a feeling there. Like, if your laundry service is not good, what is that feeling? So and it doesn’t have to be it doesn’t have to be a feeling. I said feeling because a feeling is, like, a natural thing.

It’s likely what people will say. But I want you to be really honest for your experience.

What would you most like? What would fill your heart? What would be crazy wonderful for you to hear a client has said about you? Write those down now.

Hit pause in order to write them down and give it some thought. You’re probably gonna end up striking through a couple times, but that’s cool. Get to a place where you feel good. Okay?

So hit pause and do that now.

Okay. Now we’re gonna move on to these three questions down here. We want you to complete the following phrases. When you do read The E Myth Revisited, you will learn about your strategic objective. We’re not talking about your strategic objective here. This is the beginning of this is a part of thinking about your strategic objective.

It’s such a big concept. It’s, a whole book that helps you get there. So I’m not gonna try to cover it in the intensive, especially because I I don’t wanna infringe on any of his copyright. So go and read the book so you have that. And this is what I find helpful. When I am doing when I and I am constantly iterating on my business.

The vision doesn’t really change, but I’m I’m tweaking this stuff all the time, and this is what I find helpful.

So complete these phrases. When it comes to my clients, my team, and the entire experience of working with me, I am hopelessly devoted to the idea that now what is that? Is it to the idea that fill that in with something that’s true for your business. It’s not gonna roll off your tongue likely.

It’s gonna be something you have to think about. What are you hopelessly devoted to when it comes to working with your clients, having them work with you the entire experience of working with you? Are you hopelessly devoted to immaculate attention to detail? If that were true, then you would want to bring immaculate attention to detail to life in your business.

So what would that eventually, you’ll get to a place where you understand what that would look like. You’ll have SOPs that have a heavy focus on attention to detail. So making sure everybody you hire understands what the standards are for great attention to detail. Okay?

It might be something to do with design. It might be something to do with outcomes. It might be something to do with how you make them feel. I don’t know.

But have a thought about what you are hopelessly devoted to, and that could be a reflection of something in your life. If you are meticulous by nature, if you have to make your bed with, like, sharp angles, every morning without fail before eight o’clock, there might be something about discipline in there that you’re hopelessly devoted to the to the idea that people plus discipline equals success. Maybe. Okay?

So start thinking through that. If you’re somebody who likes to chill and roll with it and see what happens and trust in instincts, then you could refine that into something if that’s true for you. So what are you in life hopelessly devoted to? Think about your hobbies.

Think about how you bring yourself to life. And some people are struggling with this right now, and that’s okay.

Try to put something down.

And if you can’t put something down, I do want you to to put a rough draft down, then put a big old asterisk next to this and put a note in your calendar or your to do list, however you get things done. Whatever you don’t bump. It happens in your calendar. It happens.

If it happens in your to do list, you make sure it happens. So if that’s what you want to think through, then, yeah, that’s what we’re talking about here. So give it some thought, but then go back and later on make sure that you refine this. It’s actually a really big strategic question.

We’re moving through it quickly. We could do an entire ninety day program on just coming up with the thing that you are hopelessly devoted to. Or you might finish this in twenty seconds and go next. And whatever that is, that’s cool. So pause right now.

Let yourself have a thought with this. Assign your brain the job of figuring this out even if it’s just a very early draft of that idea.

Okay.

Welcome back. Okay. Next part is filling in this. So, basically, when when you think about that idea and, again, you should have even the roughest draft version of that idea.

When you think about that, how have you brought that to life ideally in work? So if we think back to, this attention to detail question, if that’s something you’re hopelessly devoted to, when did attention to detail really manifest as like, woah. You are so attentive when it comes to detail, and look how awesome that is. I want you to write down the time in your work history when that happened. So think about an example.

What happened for you? When did people plus discipline equal success? When did that happen for you? When did something to do with design best present itself and have a success out of it? Some sort of win, something that felt like you were really laying it on thick that time, and it was great.

Write that out.

Okay. Hopefully, you knew that that pause was for you to go off and write that out. Now comes the final part of this sheet, which is the qualities that helped you best fulfill that idea are. So what is it about you that gives you such incredible attention to detail?

What is it? What are those qualities? So you have a respect for people’s time. You don’t wanna waste people’s time on, on things being wrong, little things being wrong. You wanna make sure that everything is efficient as well. So what are some of the like, just kind of back up to what makes it possible for you to deliver on that idea, whatever your first idea was?

This is the work, by the way, that actually helps you build out a business that is more than just a freelancing business that you dreamt up one day and, surprise, it worked. You need to do more than that to really get ahead. This is the strategy stuff. Why are you doing this so that your brain understands that, your team understands that, your clients see it and feel it and love every moment of working with you because you have this clear idea of what your business is going to do to be an absolute delight to work with. And, again, it doesn’t just mean that it has to be about how you work together, but how you bring to life and exemplify the things that or the thing that matters incredibly to you as a business owner. The example in the e myth revisited is around a hotel, a boutique hotel where they are so hopelessly devoted to the idea that every individual customer deserves incredible attention to detail, I think, or something like that.

That it’s that gets realized for every customer. Every customer coming in the hotel is asked about their newspaper preferences. After dinner, they’re they’re they return to their room and the fireplace is lit. And the next morning, the newspaper they like is waiting for them. This these moments that are critical in making somebody feel like they are working with a professional, and then they feel good about it and keep wanting to come back to you. K? If it feels like no big deal, this is actually what could separate you completely from so many other businesses.

So complete this page. If you’ve struggled with it, give it a pause, and go back tomorrow, later today, after you’ve had a glass of wine or kombucha or whatever it is that’s your drink of choice, come back to it, revisit it, and then move on to the next page.

Alright. Now we take everything that we just did, and we script what I’m calling loosely a recruitment video.

This video is not about recruiting. This video is about making sure that any candidate who is considering working for you can self disqualify or can opt in enthusiastically. And if they haven’t watched the video, when they show up for an interview, you will know they are a terrible fit. So they have to be interested in the business that they’re going to work for.

Okay? I want you to also keep in mind, this is noted as advanced on the bottom of the page. It might feel too far down the road for you. It’s not, though.

It’s not. Just trust me on that one. You need to do this now. You will be surprised at how it helps clarify things for you.

Your values will be part of this, your mission, your vision, all of the work that you’re doing as a business owner, as a CEO will really start coming to life for you. So what I want you to do is everything that you did on the previous page, that’s this page, Everything you did, you can see it’s in this order, but then it’s given one, two, three, four. I want you to take the answers in this order, this answer, then this, then this, then the fourth one. So start with number one, then two, then three, then four, and use those to script out a video, which you’re really is gonna go in the order of one, two, three, four from the previous page.

The objective here is to open by sharing what’s uniquely wonderful about working with you, as in what’s so great about your business, the thing that you completed in question one on the previous page, so that candidates can align with it or at least aspire to it. They’re like, wow. That sounds awesome. I love that you think so much about that.

I love that you are relentlessly, hopelessly devoted to attention to detail, meticulous attention to detail, immaculate attention to detail. If you can open with the thing that makes you that different, then people will understand who you are. From there, we wanna move on to paint a picture of how you make these experience working with you wonderful, the kind of business, the kinds of people who will also help that happen for you. Now we’re not getting into the qualities yet.

Those qualities are going to come afterward. This is the part where you say, like, this is how we’ve brought that together for clients before. So if it’s a meticulous attention to detail, here’s how we did that previously, and that’s where you’re taking question number two. Great.

So they’re like, got it. Attention to detail you’re into. Here is what that looked like for a client. Then we get into, how you make that or yes.

Yes. That’s no. No. No. No. Sorry. I was, like, wrong there. We’ve already done that.

Then you wanna list the qualities that make you shine. Okay? So here’s how we delivered that for a client. Let me summarize what those qualities are that made it possible for the client to have that great experience with us and then finish with, if that sounds good to you, here are some qualities in addition to those that you’re likely wanna have when you work with us.

And that can just be those additional qualities, again, that you already said here. What are the things you’d most like people to say about your about working with your team? It might be that you guys have an incredible you have a credible attention to detail. Maybe that came up already, so that’s cool.

Then you might just not include that because you’ve already made it really clear, or you might just double down and include that. Whatever you said here, we wanna finish with. Okay? That’ll give you a really short script that I want you to then film.

You have a phone. I know you do. Or you have Zoom. You can go in and film it.

Doesn’t have to be beautiful. Just film the damn thing and then upload it to whatever hosting platform you use and embed it on a page. This is where you will drive candidates when they’re ready to apply. So ready to apply?

Hit this link and watch the video, then submit your details below. Cool?

Do that, and then come back.

Okay.

The next few bits I’m gonna move through really fast because we’ve done the critical strategic work, and a lot of this, what follows here is just like, okay. How do we start getting to a place where we know we know what our org chart looks like for the next three to five years? We’ve got job descriptions for the next three hires. I’ve got a freaking recruitment video.

I’ve got everything that it takes. Now what? Now we’re gonna get ready for when we actually start onboarding the right person. Now the reason we’re not getting into the hiring process in detail is because there are different things that you’ll do for different roles.

So these are the kinds of things where you’ll wanna bring your questions, or your ideas to our group call. So make sure you have the work done in time for us to have a good conversation in the group call about anything you may still be wondering. Okay? So I’m gonna move kinda fast because you’ve been doing a lot already, and this is really straightforward stuff.

What I want you to do is put together a central space for your onboarding materials. Now keep in mind that you’re going to have some links, some PDFs, some Google Docs, some Word docs maybe, some keynote files, a variety of files. So you’ll wanna choose a space that allows you to put those together, video as well. Are you gonna do an online training space?

Are you going to do Dropbox? Are you going to publish all of this stuff in a way, like, on Medium or Substack or anything like that?

And then a preferred medium for onboarding materials. So if you’re like, you know, video is easy or, hey. I only do list created with Tango, the software, whatever it is. That’s cool.

Go through. Choose those really quickly. Give them very little thoughts. Just try not to box yourself into something.

The best thing to do is an online training space because you can upload other materials and because you can lead with video, which can be really good for people trying to understand how to work with you. K? Do that, and then we’ll move on.

Alright. Now you’re going to create the beginnings of a new employee handbook. I would strongly suggest you use chat GPT to help you through this. All All you’re gonna do is go through this checklist.

Okay? You want to be sure you have a central space for your onboarding materials, which we just talked about. You’re going to create buckets or categories for those materials. Those will be the file folders or the course modules or whatever it is for however you put it together.

Those are, like, the names for the file folders or the names for the modules. So it could be getting started at and then your business name, software we use at and your business name.

Create those buckets, then you’re gonna go fill in the following page, and you’re going to select the right software to get the job done. K? From there, prioritize getting a bunch of SOPs ready to go this week, and then make sure you work block three more SOPs every week until they’re all done. Now you’re probably wondering, what’s this following page thing?

Because there’s a lot of quick quick stuff underneath, but what’s going on on the following page? Let’s look at this. This is the documentation that you need to have to help people onboard. So what happens before before somebody even starts?

So you said, hey. You got your job. Congratulations. So you’ll send out a offer letter, then you will what else happen happens after that?

You’ll need an email template for sending out the offer letter. So we have an offer letter template, an email template, and then you’ll have an exchange with them. You’ll need to set up their, email address. You’ll need to get them, maybe well, you get get them invited to Slack.

You’ll need to make sure that they, have access to Zoom, all of the stuff that you might need to do before they even start. Then what happens on day one? Okay. So it’s their first day.

Put yourself in their shoes. It’s morning time on their very first day.

How do they show up? Okay. So they’re going to have a meeting very first thing in the morning. They should already have in the prework stage been set up with their calendar.

So day one, if they’re working remotely, then you’ll have a meeting set up to kick off their day one. What else happens? Well, you’re going to need to have training in these early days, in this early week. Where do they find their employee handbook, etcetera.

And then you’ll start digging into the following weeks. So we’ll do a lot of training upfront here. This is where you will wanna dig into training. Do they need access to copy school?

Do they need specific lessons in copy school? What are you going to do? How are they going to know exactly what to do? How do they know where to find the SOPs?

What to do with the SOPs? What if they don’t know what an SOP is? Like, what what do they need here? Do they need a Thinkific login or whatever tool you end up using?

How are you going to walk them through all of this? So you will need a kickoff call agenda. So that’s some prework that you’ll have to do. Now you don’t have to do all of this thinking here in this page.

You can, of course, go through and just, like, put all of your notes and thoughts along there, and you can also go over and create a spreadsheet. So this is a really simple approach. It’s just filling in the table, but go create a spreadsheet of all of the to dos that you’ll have, and then you’ll wanna get started. Once you’ve got that ready, then you’ll wanna go back and do all of this work that follows.

Okay. That takes you to the end of the week. Lots of work. Well done.

Go back and fill in this opening page, which are your notes. If you have anxieties about hiring people, this is a good time to fill them in. Your hopes for hiring people, add that here as well. And if you’re struggling to balance those or you’re like, I got a lot of anxieties and not a lot of hopes, then bring those questions to our call.

Okay? Make sure you know what your next hire is going to be. Write that in here. Make sure you’ve completed your org chart.

Make sure you know where you’re saving all of this. So document this here. So everything here is your at a glance view of the work that you’ve done this week. Go through.

Do everything. A lot of it’s easy. The LinkedIn profile stuff is easy. The video should be pretty easy.

The new employee handbook is going to take more time, and that’s why we have you chipping away at that over the next couple of weeks into a couple of months.

Okay? You’ve got this. Alright. Make sure you do this. Go back if you watch this whole thing together.

Now you have to go back and do the work. So go do it and make sure you have as much done as you can to bring really good questions to our call. Alright? Thank you.

Resources

Week 6 Workbook

Resources

Week 6 Worksheet