Tightrope: Hiring's not a hassle if it helps your business grow

— -- It's that time of the year when we say goodbye to the summer and move full time back into work and school. For those in school it means hitting the books. For those of us who are entrepreneurs it can mean drumming up more business. And, more business can mean that you will need more help.

Hiring can be one of the toughest things facing an entrepreneur, and a lot of people avoid hiring for that reason. I have met many entrepreneurs who will stretch themselves thin by taking on a greater work load than they can effectively handle, instead of hiring additional help. Many of them tell me that hiring is burdensome.

But don't waste valuable time thinking that you can do it all yourself. Most often hiring help when you need it can be the gateway to building a successful company.

Make hiring less of a burden by taking time to identify exactly what you need in an employee. Take the following story as an example:

Paul remembers with horror that when he started his accounting business, he did not have enough staff around when he needed them. "There I was with a client, discussing their financial matters, when the phone would ring or somebody would show up at my office, and I had to repeatedly interrupt my client's time. It was awful!"

"I thought I'd keep costs down by not taking on any additional help, but it wasn't worth the aggravation experienced by me and my clients. I actually lost business, because some of my clients didn't come back."

No, you really can't do it all, even when you want to. Something is bound to break down somewhere, and you don't want that happening in your business!

The flipside of this story is to provide yourself with the maximum amount of support staff that you can, as Paul found out.

Paul went on to say, "I began to hire a few key people I needed around me. First, I found a wonderful woman to come in and answer the phones, do light paperwork, things like that. She was instrumental in freeing up my time so that I could spend quality time with my clients."