Hiring a High-Skill Level Team Member with Daniel Honan

I Love Bookkeeping

After Daniel’s last deployment he was looking to start his own business. He had some experience and education in accounting so that field made the most sense. When he discovered the Bookkeeping Business Launch program, he decided to take the leap.

[3:50] Painters were the niche that Daniel served, mainly due to running a painting business of his own in college and because he knew where to find them and no one was serving the market directly.

[5:10] Daniel planted a lot of seeds early on, including LinkedIn, guest blog posting, and more, that netted him his first few clients.

[7:00] Bookkeeping for the first time was the first challenge that Daniel had to overcome. Once he started taking on clients, finding good people to help him scale his growing business was the major hurdle.

[9:00] Daniel had to get himself out of the business so that it can continue without him due to having to deploy in the near future. This gives him flexibility once he returns to the business when the deployment ends.

[11:30] The value that Daniel’s business provides involves advising clients on their own businesses. Daniel and his staff understand the back end of the painting niche so well that the relationship becomes more than bookkeeping. They provide consulting and advice on growing their client’s business and the technology involved.

[15:30] In regards to feedback, knowing the important KPI’s for the painting business, in addition to the bookkeeping, gives Daniel an edge over his competitors.

[17:10] System building is Daniel’s focus, so much so that he’s going to come out to one of Ben’s events to show other bookkeepers how to do it.

[18:50] Daniel finds meeting with people and having conversations to be very fatiguing, indicating that he’s probably an introvert.

[21:10] Niching is very important. If you figure out your target market first, you will see results earlier on. If you can’t find a niche, find a client and figure it out later. Processes are important before you bring people on, get your processes 80% done before hiring.

[26:00] Daniel’s current bottleneck is that his business needs more advisors in order to scale, and finding the right person with the right personality traits and knowledge base is quite the challenge. He uses the DISC personality test quite a bit to make sure that the team members in his business are working to their strengths. Without his current advisor, Daniel’s business would seriously struggle.

[32:15] One is none, and two is one. Redundancy and cross training can mean the difference between a difficult challenge and a disaster. What Daniel should do is write out the activities that he needs to duplicate with his current advisor and prioritize them. If you’re looking to hire, first you need to define the work that you need to have done.

[40:20] Daniel may actually be looking for two people. The interview process should ultimately represent the way they are going to be serving your clients.

[42:25] Before looking outside, you should look within your organization for people that could potentially take on your new role. If you can promote someone up, it’s usually easier to find someone to take on the simpler role. Once you exhaust your low hanging fruit, it’s time to put your posting out there in as many places as possible.

[47:05] It may make sense to split up the role into its component parts, especially if all together it would be very rare to find a single person with all the necessary skills. For Daniel, that may mean splitting the job up into a sales oriented role and a separate advising role.

[52:10] Sometimes you have to go back to the well and just do the things that worked before. But before you bring someone on full time, you have to really test out the relationship and make sure they are going to be the right one. It may take some time, but it’s easier and less difficult than hiring the wrong person.

[56:50] As business owners, you have to figure out every new challenge that comes your way because the buck stops with you. Beware the anecdote, what works for someone else may not help for you. Take the advice and tailor it to your individual needs.