Building the Right Team for Your Growing Business

As a startup leader, I spend a lot of time reading and learning from others who are on a similar journey. It’s fascinating – and reassuring – to learn how common the challenges we face are, despite often feeling unique to our business or industry. This shared journey highlights the common hurdles every business encounters.

One of the most significant hurdles is hiring the right people. This challenge isn’t exclusive to startups; it’s critical for any business. However, the specific needs in terms of talent can vary dramatically at various stages of a business’s growth.

I recently read a book by Dave Hersh called “Reignition,” which had an interesting section about the risks of hiring the wrong team. A business evolves through many stages: from the idea, to the build phase, to scaling up, and finally becoming an established, profitable business. As we navigate the space between these phases, edging toward the next milestone, we can usually identify where we currently sit, but where we often fail is recognizing the types of talent we need based on where the business is to move us to that next phase.

For all of us, the nightmare scenario is hiring the wrong person. Even more daunting is the prospect of retaining a poor fit. I’m sure many founders can relate. The cost of a bad hire is significant, with estimates suggesting a financial impact of at least 30% of the employee’s annual salary. This doesn’t even account for the time lost managing underperformers – approximately a day per week – and up to 40% of time diverted into recruiting and training replacements. These figures are conservative; the impact on a small, agile startup team is typically much more severe.

Often, there’s a period of denial where we convince ourselves the hire might not be as bad as we think, attributing issues to imperfection. However, frustration mounts as performance continues to fall short, and soon the entire team notices. By the time you decide to address the issue, you’re deep into managing the fallout, which includes difficult conversations, notice periods, and realigning with HR – assuming you have such a department. The frustration of navigating this process can be overwhelming, along with the realization that you should have taken action sooner.

It’s incredibly draining, saps the company of crucial resources including time, attention, emotional energy, and financial resources, as well as potential payouts for contract settlements. And then, there’s the challenge of rebooting the recruitment and hiring process again.

Hopefully, each hiring challenge should help refine your approach, aligning future hires more closely with your company’s culture and needs. However, it’s important to remember, cultural fit is only one aspect. A clear view of the current business environment and your specific needs is crucial for effective talent acquisition. As Dave points out in his book, Reignition, ‘while loyalty is admirable, it’s useless if it leads to a stalled venture’. The right team for the right time is essential to navigate market trends, product development, and channel strategies amid uncertainties. 

So, what does all this mean when it comes to finding the right talent for where your business is now? While it’s tempting to think that seasoned talent from larger, established brands would be a perfect fit, it might not be the right time for that just yet. On the flip side, the jack-of-all-trades creative lead who helped you navigate your early growth phase might not be the best match as you begin to scale. It’s all about aligning talent with your current stage and future goals.

To help guide you, we’ve put together a few scenarios based on common business stages. While every situation is unique and talent can grow alongside your business, these scenarios provide a practical framework to shape your talent strategy and keep it aligned with your growth goals.

Idea Phase: You’re actively testing and tweaking your product offerings to nail the perfect product-market fit.

Build Phase: You’re focused on increasing revenue and fine-tuning your business model, refining everything from sales strategies and distribution channels to market positioning and product offerings.

Scale Phase: You’re committed to building a long-term infrastructure that supports growth, tailored to market demands and your unique strengths. At the same time, you’re exploring opportunities to capture a larger market share. This stage also demands specialized skills in areas like creative, brand, digital marketing and data analytics. 

Established Phase: You’re well established with a strong market presence and stable revenue streams. You’re exploring new avenues for expansion, seeking acquisition opportunities that resonate with your product or mission, and streamlining the company to maximize profitability.

No matter where your business is in its journey, nothing is more impactful than having the right team at the right time. It starts with a clear understanding of your business stage, clearly defining roles and expectations, thoroughly evaluating candidates, and strong alignment with your company’s culture and strategic objectives.

At Sandy, we connect exceptional creative and marketing talent with forward-thinking organizations, offering flexible resource solutions that help teams thrive in today’s dynamic workplace. By streamlining processes and delivering the right talent at the right time, we can help you improve productivity while providing a cost-effective alternative to full-time hires.

If any of this resonates, we’d love to hear from you! Please feel free to reach out, we’d be happy to share our expertise and help you tackle the challenges of building a top performing team to support your business growth.