When I started my firm at around a hundred thousand dollars in revenue, I made a hire that made me shake in my boots a little.
Looking back, it’s one of the decisions I’m most grateful I pushed through.
In this episode, I’m sharing exactly what that was, why I did it, and why I think it applies to where your firm is right now.
Listen below.
0:44 Back at my old firm, Xen Accounting, my first hire was an experienced CPA from PwC. My second was another experienced CPA. Right out of the gate, before the firm had proven itself, I was building with senior people.
2:21 Senior doesn’t mean a few years of experience. I’m talking five to ten years minimum — senior enough that the salary makes you a little uncomfortable when you see it.
3:44 A Senior Manager in CAS could cost forty to fifty percent more than a manager — which means numbers that might push past a hundred and thirty or a hundred and forty thousand dollars depending on your market.
5:21 Many firm owners calculate the cost of a senior hire but never calculate the cost of not making one. That’s the gap worth closing — and it starts with an honest question: what is staying stuck as the bottleneck actually costing you?
6:31 Junior hires aren’t the enemy. But if you’re stuck as the bottleneck and grinding through fifty-plus hour weeks, adding more junior capacity is unlikely to change the equation.
7:41 You don’t need everything figured out before hiring senior. But you need enough clarity about what you’re building that a senior person can hit the ground running.
8:55 The cheaper, more junior hire would have been easier. But hiring senior is also the reason Xen Accounting grew the way it did — those people could hold client relationships and handle complex work without me in the room.
