By Laurie L. O’Neil

This is a tough question, because you are always trying to find the balance of how to make more money and what you are going to pay yourself. Currently, I am in the process of hiring two more employees, so how do you know when to bring on that next great hire?

Initially, I started out doing all bookkeeping for my clients. I found that when I was stuck in the day to day operations, it was difficult to market for new clients and grow my company. I do not do any bookkeeping anymore.

Here are some things that you want to think about before you hire an employee:

1. Focus on how many new potential client meetings you want to have in a week. Generally, I have five new sales meetings in a week and close about two a week. The ones I do not close I farm or keep in touch with until they are ready to come on as a client.

2. Find ways to manage your time and track time spent in your own company vs. client work. If you are consistently doing between 20-30 hours of billable time and trying to maintain consistent marketing appointments for new clients, it’s a good time to consider bringing on a new staff member.

3. When hiring a new bookkeeper, remember it could take up to three months for your bookkeeper to be up to speed to where you want them to be. A good bookkeeper is hard to find.

4. Keep in mind that when you hire employees you need to start thinking about where you want your focus to be in your company. Relinquishing control is sometimes hard to do. What are you going to do with all your free time?

5. Put procedures in place to measure productivity. Develop a culture that encourages all employees to look for ways to improve the company’s efficiency and productivity.

Growing your company is an exciting time as well as a stressful time. Planning ahead and teaching someone else to take care of your clients with as much care as you did does not always go as anticipated. With a good plan of action and lots of patience you will be on your way to fulfilling your company’s growth potential.
Copyright © 2008 Linda Hunt and Laurie O’Neil, The Bookkeeper’s Referral Network, Inc.

This entry was posted on Friday, May 23rd, 2008 at 9:41 am and is filed under Bookkeepers, Bookkeeping, Business Owners. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.