If you are at the stage where you are thinking of taking on help, I salute you. It’s a brave step to make and I know how hard you must have worked to get to the stage where you need extra hands.
Amy of Coco Crafts recently asked me how I went about finding people to help me run my business so in this post I’ll talk a little about some of the issues I considered before hiring people and how I went about looking for them.
Issues that I considered before taking the plunge:
- Trust – it’s very scary when you run your own business to give up some of that tightly held control and admit you need help. Of course it’s scary for a good reason; you care dearly about your business and you need to feel that anyone who works for you will consistently pay attention and care as much as you do. Also you need to feel that you can trust them with your ideas (and everything else…) and that they won’t slope off and start up a business based around what what you do.
- Expense – wages do form a large percentage of expense for any business. In the beginning I tried to put off hiring folks for as long as possible because I felt I couldn’t afford to pay wages (let alone a decent wage). So for quite some time I was doing everything myself. About 5 months before I eventually took on help I was getting seriously tired and ratty (Al says I was even scary at times!) Something had to give, I couldn’t manage everything on my own. When I finally hired folks it took about 3 weeks for us to settle into the new rhythm and it’s given me and my business a new lease of life. I should have done it way earlier than I did. The extra expense has proven to be a worthwhile investment.
- What roles – what did I need help with? Did I want help with packing, sewing, production, design, IT, book keeping, website maintenance etc. etc. etc.?
- Personality – when you have a small business I think it’s even more important for a team to get on well with each other. There are less rooms, less departments and less roles and that equals less privacy from each other! Even if you don’t work in the same building it’s still a huge bonus if you get on well with each other so you can more easily communicate roles, duties, how you like your tea and which donuts you all prefer
- I’m sure there are other issues to consider dependent on the type of business you run. Can you think of any to add?
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How I went about looking for my team:
I think I’m very fortunate with my team. I can honestly say we all get on really well, we are happy, enthusiastic, conscientious and we want this small business to do well And we all make a decent cuppa. I’m thinking that most of you folks would be looking for a crafty person to help with production. Here are a few places you could try looking:
- If you have a blog why not ask folks out there (who are local to you) to see if they are looking for some craft work. I’m a convinced that most all crafters are lovely people and far less likely to be weirdos. This belief has served me well so far.
- Look for help on craft forums.
- Do you have any regular customers that you have struck up a nice relationship with. It doesn’t hurt to ask… Actually, this is exactly what I did for one of my team and she’s absolutely flipping wonderful!
- Ask if you can put up a job notice on kindergarten, school or supermarket boards. There could be mum’s and grandmas out there who would love to knit or sew for a bit of money for a few hours a week.
- Try looking for local sewing, knitting, pottery, jewellery making etc etc. classes /colleges in your area and ask the teachers if you can ask the students if they’d like a crafty job.
Good luck in your search!
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Are you at the stage where you are looking for extra help? Or how did you go about employing your team; share your experiences with us
Crissy is the founder of
While many would say “Man, I wish I had done this sooner!”, I think it’s still a good learning experience to learn what you hate doing, at least. And having gone through it, you’ll be more sure about what the expectations are. But yeah, you’ve outgrown doing everything yourself!
(Ever considered cloning yourself and then hire the clones?)
@ Kelvin Kao:
Very good point. It’s definitely useful to have first hand experience of all aspects of running your own business before asking others to help.
I don’t think that cloning myself would be a good idea, I think I would drive myself nuts!
When I first hired for my craft business in Australia, I knew that I wasn’t really willing to let go of control yet, so I wanted someone (part-time) that could help me with some of the easier tasks but grow into larger roles. Cost was also a big consideration.
I called the local high school and talked to the head of the art department. I explained what I did in my business, what the job would entail and what sort of person I was looking for. I asked her if she thought any of her students might be interested.
The teacher excitedly told me “Yes!” and that she would talk to the students and get back to me in a few days with a list of names.
When I spoke to her a few days later, she told me that she did indeed have a list, but felt that she was doing me an injustice if she didn’t highly recommend one particular girl. I interviewed this girl, which included looking at an art portfolio (to make sure that she could work in fine detail and to see how she worked with colour) and hired her on the spot. She was a total dream and after time, when I left the country even managed the business for me.
Sadly, I’ve had some nightmares too, in terms of staff and business partnerships. One day, I’ll try to write it all down in terms of what I’ve learned along the way.
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