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Here's a thread on growing from a solo / freelance gig to a true agency. It's going to be good, bad and ugly. Inspired by @Hoffman8
Hiring your first employee is both empowering and terrifying. You'll immediately raise the complexity of what you do exponentially. You have to think about actual benefits. Small business doesn't have the same requirements as large business, but you'll be compared to large (2/x)
If you didn't start out as a true corporation, it's highly recommended before you hire. We started as an S-corp from the beginning. You'll need all of the elements that come with that. (3/x)
The first employee doubles the number of hours you have available for billables. Unless you're already billing 60+ hours a week, both of you will have some down time. And don't wait until you have 60 hours of billables. (4/x)
Finding the right person is hard. No matter how good or bad they are, they aren't you and don't have the same strengths (and weaknesses). My first "hire" was my co-founder. We were yin and Yang in a lot of things. Much of that was great. Some of it was awful (5/x)
Here's one great that he filled in. I'm not a process guy. I believe in light plans, and adjust as you learn. If you're going to scale, everyone needs process so they know what to do. He tried to order my chaos as much as he could. That's filling in a gap (6/x)
But that doesn't mean everything was roses. He also thinks like a F500 IT professional. I think like a script kiddie. He'd build battleship tech projects, way more robust than needed. There's a project I update for free because it has to be done command line (7/x)
The client wanted a wordpress build. I mean we did build and deliver in wordpress, but a variant that is way more robust and thus less flexible. Stuff was hard coded into the template. And the template was not reachable from the admin. Battleship. (8/x)
Interviewing. This is really hard. A lot of the questions you ask are so overused, that people practice their way out of their meaning. The intent behind the "where in 5 years" is good, but the answers suck. I interviewed like microsoft/google (9/x)
I'd run through a case to see how people think. One I used was trying to assign a value to a license plate surround on a new car. That can tell you if someone is smart, but not if they're going to mesh with you. That's important because you'll be talking a lot (10/x)
They say that the best interviewers get it right half the time. You can't miss with your first. It's worth taking extra time to get it right. Bring in friends to help. They'll see things you don't. (11/x)
Roles: When there are two or three people you'll have to chip in everywhere. Even so, some roles need to be defined. I made massive mistakes here. Still do. Speaking was part of our acquisition and sales process, but was also a major part of contention (12/x)
Those sorts of things take away from billable time. Even though I saw it as my role, we didn't have a great backup plan for crunch times. Without good roles defined, it leads to lots of tension. Roles need to have priority (13/x)
Because without agreed priority things get screwy. Our clients are number one. Easy to say. But that presentation needs to get done, and clients suffer while you're doing it. Or sleep. Or family. Or most likely mental health. (14/x)
If you've been freelancing for a while there's a big key you'll need to learn. Delegation. And I don't care if you hired Hal Varian to run your bidding strategy, who ever you hire won't do it exactly as well as you'd like. Get used to this. Even better relish it (15/x)
Firing. It is the inevitable part of hiring. Nearly all relationships fall apart at some time. I've seen several ex employees flourish as they moved on. In a lot of cases, if you're not happy with them, they're not happy either. Change is hard and that's one way (16/x)
Only a psychopath actually enjoys firing people. Be honest. Sometimes its that business has gone and you can't afford them. Other times it's performance. No matter what be open, and document it. Count on being a reference, and always emphasize the positive (17/x)
Make clear your communication style. I freaking hate flattery. In addition to making me uncomfortable, it adds zero value. Some people love this. We let someone go fairly quickly because they were an inveterate flatterer. (18/x)
Tools: Get stuff that helps admin tasks fast. I'm an enormous fan of gusto. https://gusto.com/r/steve1545 (referral link). Makes payroll simple and helps a ton with benefits. Payroll runs automatically, and no one likes a missed check because you got distracted (19/x)
A couple of my biggest mistakes: I didn't start out with a vision of what I wanted the company to be. "More" is not a good vision. A vision should include what you'll say no to. There's a reason to be an agency, and it's not I'm so damn good there should be 2 of me (20/x)
Another mistake: You have to spend a solid percentage of your time thinking about your employees. I don't do well here. How you like to be managed might not be how they like to be managed. I prefer to be pointed in a direction and have people get out of my way (21/x)
So that's how I'd give out tasks. Things like "build a disavow list for XXX client" That's all I wanted if you gave it to me. 100% of my employees wanted more. With your first hire you might move to half billable / half management (22/x)
And that might be the biggest shift. The moment you move from freelancer to agency, you're now a manager. That's not everyone's best skill. It's likely you're freelancing because you're a great individual contributor. (23/x)
I might have more to add later but I hope this "becoming an agency" thread is useful. I can now codify my vision as trying to deliver a higher level, more strategic marketing service within digital. It's why I'll likely always be boutique, but it also makes clear lots (24/24)
