In the early days of your business, you need to be planning for the future already. Every decision you make at this stage has repercussions that will echo down the years and affect your business long into its future. There are obvious choices, like where you establish your first branch, but less obvious ones too.
When you first start to grow, you need to hire staff, and it’s easy to do this without thinking about the effect it can have down the line. You’re focused on what you need right then, rather than what you need those employees to grow into in the months and years to come.
Not thinking about your early hires can leave your startup foundering as it tries to grow past the early months and achieve a wider audience and subsequent funding rounds. On the other hand, if you optimize your hiring processes early on, it can supercharge your business down the line.
When you’re first hiring customer service staff, you’ll only need a small number of people – perhaps only one or two, depending on the needs of your business. Bear in mind though, that as you grow and hire more, these people will become managers of your burgeoning population of CS operatives.
They were there at the beginning and will be passing on the information they’ve gathered and the techniques they’ve developed to the less experienced new starters. If you hire people who can’t shoulder this burden, you could bring in a professional manager to lead the team but this leads to its own problems.
If you split authority and experience, you’ll have someone who knows how to lead set against people who feel like they should be more senior based on their long service, which can plunge productivity and cause issues for your customers.
If you’re searching for your executives, it behooves you to look beyond your own professional network. You need fresh perspectives, not someone who shares a similar background and perspective to you. Don’t rely on connections and recommendations.
It’s well worth looking for the Executive Search Companies, UK based or international; they can find a broad selection of candidates for your executive positions, by far exceeding what your own reach could assemble, and all fitting your specifications not just for right now, but with the capacity to grow into what you will need as your business continues to mature and expand.
