Field Guides / Team

Making your first hire in a video business: the fear, and the maths

The fear is always the same: what if I hire someone and then the work stops? It's a fair question, but staying solo has its own cost. Your income stalls at the limit of your own hours, year after year. Use the profit you already make to buy your time back, and hire once what you're paying contractors starts to look like a salary.

Why it happens

I know this one from the inside. When I ran my production company, I finished within about ten grand of the same number every year. It took me a while to see why. I was terrified of hiring anybody, and I avoided it for three years. My own hours were the ceiling.

Most owners at this stage are running the business like a freelancer. Everything is in their head, and they believe their way of doing things is the only way. That's what makes the first hire feel so dangerous. It's less about the money and more about letting go.

The capacity you free up doesn't sit idle. If you hand off the editing, you won't be twiddling your thumbs. You'll have room to think about strategy, pricing and the next client. That's the work only you can do.

Hiring well is also a skill. The instinct is to grab the mouse and show someone how you'd do it. The better move is to give them the problem, the parameters and an example, then let them work out how to do it. Hire slow, fire fast.

Try this

A trigger we've used in member plans: scale the team when contractor fees exceed what a staff salary would cost. Before then, start with the low-level work that shouldn't be yours anyway: client changes, lower thirds and social cut-downs.

Hold yourself accountable

Which of these have you taken on or put in place recently?

• You know what you paid freelancers and contractors in the last twelve months.
• You've handed off at least one low-level task: client changes, lower thirds or social cut-downs.
• You've briefed someone with the problem, the parameters and an example, then let them work out the how.
• You've used profit to buy back time, rather than waiting until you feel ready.

Your one move this week

What's the one thing you can commit to implementing this week? If you're not sure, start here.

Add up what you paid freelancers and contractors over the last twelve months and put it next to what a staff salary would cost. That one comparison tells you how close the hire really is.

One thing executed every week creates 50 strategic moves a year.