Leveraging For Success: 3 Myths That Could Be Holding You Back

Middleton Elite Coaching recruits talented team members for numerous clients. The one thing that all of these clients once had in common is the need for leverage. Some identified the need for leverage during a transitional growth period in their business plan that was forecasted and mapped out with their Coach.  Others identified the need for leverage to restore balance in their daily lives as their business has grown more rapidly than anticipated.

In both scenarios, there are common themes holding these leaders back from making a hire. We’re here to debunk the top 3 myths that may be holding you back from leveraging yourself for success.

Myth #1 – “I can’t afford to hire.”

Sure, there are costs associated with adding a team member. Paying additional salaries, onboarding/training, and some potential decreases in productivity of the team members in charge of training new hires, are all important cost factors to consider. 

If your business is not in a financial position to make a new hire, then alternative measures might need to be taken to increase the efficiencies of team members or processes. You may look at additional tools and systems to help streamline the work for you or your team. Assuming you’ve worked through those steps and gained as much efficiency as you could AND you still need leverage, AND you have the financial breathing room to consider adding to your team – let’s consider how costly it would be to NOT make a new hire.

Debunking Myth #1 –

The hiring process (for the right people) takes time. On average, you or your recruiting agency (MEC+WizeHire) will spend 4-8 weeks to make a hire, and additional time will be needed to train this team member. If you and your team have found that your current workload necessitates an additional team member, your actual costs of NOT hiring this team member might be:

• Productivity declines, therefore profits are declining, and your cash flow and cash runway (link) is decreasing as a result.
• Projects and tasks go unfinished as a result of the diminishing capacity to handle the workload.
• Your and/or your team’s ability to take on new work is minimal and negatively impacts the projected income for your company.
• Growth halts, revenue halts, and scale decreases.

These four things above have a far greater long-term impact on your business’s bottom line than hiring and training a talented new team member would.

Let’s imagine you hired somebody to do the things you spend a lot of time on and that are less dollar productive for your organization. How many more transactions would you estimate you could do on a monthly basis if you had that help? How many more dollars would those additional transactions add to your revenue for that month? 

Myth #2 – “Hiring is too time-consuming.”

As we covered in Myth #1, the average hiring process takes about 4-8 weeks to complete. If you total the time you spent considering the area of your business that needs the most leverage, we’ll call it 10 weeks. 10 weeks can seem like a long time to be in the throes of applicant filtering and candidate interviewing, which is why Middleton Elite Coaching offers this service to our clients. If you don’t have a relationship with a recruiter and prefer to make the hire on your own, it is understandable that you might think the 10-week time investment could potentially diminish your productivity. 

If we circle back to the lightbulb moment when you realized that the leverage your business needed was a person rather than a system, what were you doing? You probably weren’t relaxing poolside with a summer breeze blowing through your hair. We imagine you were completing a task that you are either too skilled to be doing or is not going to generate revenue for your business in the way that only you can. 

Debunking Myth #2 –

If you find that highly-skilled and highly-compensated team members are spending time completing tasks that they are extremely over-qualified to complete, this can be a productivity and time vortex. The more time that you or these skilled team members are spending away from top-level projects and revenue-generating tasks, the more detrimental this can be to the growth of your business. In order to have the leverage to accomplish the success goals of your higher-level business plan, you’ll want team members in place to whom you can delegate anything that isn’t helping propel your business forward. 

We have a FREE PDF guide called ‘The 4 Points of Recruiting and Retention’ designed to help you recruit and retain top-level talent for years to come. You can find and download your free copy here.

Myth #3 – “I don’t have an efficient onboarding and training program for a new team member’s success.” 

One of the main factors in hiring that causes leaders to stall is not having a strategic onboarding and initial training plan. Middleton Elite Coaching’s founders and coaches have over 30+ years of combined recruiting and training experience. One mindset that holds a lot of business owners back from success is that it will be daunting to coach and train new hires to learn the skills and concepts needed to fill the gaps they are being hired to fill.

Assuming you have the financial ability to afford to hire a new team member (Myth #1 debunked) and are willing to find the time to complete the hiring process (Myth #2 debunked), you might question whether or not you have an efficient and effective onboarding program for training the right team member. There’s the keyword, the right team member. 

Debunking Myth #3 –

There are many advantages to growing your team. A new team member can bring unexpected benefits to your business. If you are working to grow your business, the addition of new skills, ideas, and concepts is likely to accompany a talented new team member.

If you are adding leverage because you or your team lack a particular skill set, a new hire can add expertise to your team in areas that can increase the energy and even the bandwidth of your team. 

Your leadership effectiveness, combined with the work you do at the beginning of the relationship with your new hire, will determine how quickly you can gain the leverage you need. In order to create a training program and measurable goals for your new team member, you will have to create an actionable 90-day plan for their (and your) success.

Here is a guideline for a 90-day plan that YOU as the leader can follow to ensure a great start with your new hire: 

Step 1 – The First 30 Days

This is a pivotal time for setting job expectations for your new hire and accountability measures for monitoring their progress. It is important to have regular reviews of expectations and to make sure your team member’s goals align with those of your company. Assess their talent, their skill level, their habits, and their commitment to getting the job done right.

Step 2 – Days 30 – 60 

This is the time to ensure that you as the leader are setting your team member up for success in their role. Be sure that you have the proper systems in place for them to be successful in their role. Set appropriate goals with your team member for achievement in their role. Offer training on any portion of the role that they lack clarity on, and boost their confidence in their ability to handle the aspects of the role that they are doing very well. This is a crucial step in leading them to own their role in your organization. 

Step 3 – Days 60 – 90

The first 90 days with a new hire is like riding a bike; eventually, the training wheels have to come off. This is an important time to review: 

• The habits they have created for efficiency and success in owning their job.
• Their focus, their goals, and their commitment to their role, and whether or not they are still aligned with you as the leader.
• Any challenges they are currently facing and what, if anything, can be put in place to help them overcome them. 
• Any successes they are currently having in their role and what, if anything, they need to continue to be successful. 

If you’ve successfully debunked Myth #s 1 & 2, and are currently working to develop a training plan for the areas in which you require the most leverage; you can soon have more bandwidth and more energy for those dollar-producing action items that will drive you into your next level of success. 

Final Thought –

If you are considering hiring on your own, we encourage you to take advantage of our partnership discount with the hiring platform, WizeHire. You can take advantage of that discount by following this link. 

When you’re ready, Middleton Elite Coaching has a free PDF guide to phone screening qualified job applicants called ‘The W-E-I-G-H Method’. You can access your free download here. 

If you would like a professional to navigate the recruiting process for you or with you, we’re here to help. Connect with us here. 

Be Elite!

Bill, Debbie, & The MEC Team