4 Steps That Prove You Can’t Afford Not to Hire Your First Employee

by Brandon

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For years, I tried to do everything alone in my business. As a house flipper, I would find properties, arrange financing, tile bathrooms, clean old refrigerators, install carpet and do almost every other task needed to make a profit.

I struggled — a lot. But when I started hiring out more and more tasks, I began making more and more money.

Of course, you’ve heard that a million times. But knowing and doing are two different things, aren’t they? Yes, hiring someone else is obvious. But being able to afford that someone is not so easy. After all, you’re probably thinking: “I can’t afford to hire my first employee! I hardly make any money!”

I was there, too. I get it. But here’s my simple answer to that: You can’t afford NOT to. Here’s why.

How an employee will change your business

What is your time worth? If I offered you $10 to stop what you are doing and sit in a dark room for an hour, would you do it? How about for $100? How about $1,000? At some point, I’m going to cross the threshold of what your time is worth, where you’d be making more money sitting in that room than you’d make outside of it.

Of course, that number is different for each person, but let me say something you may find shocking: Every single day, you are making that one-hour trade for just $10. Sometimes for far less.

“No way!” you might insist. But first answer these questions:

  • Do you check your own email?
  • Do you check your Facebook?
  • Do you schedule appointments and meetings?
  • Do you handle tech support?

If you are doing these tasks, you are essentially working for just a few dollars per hour, because this is what it would cost for someone else to do the task for you. Perhaps these tasks are not as bad as sitting in a dark room, but the results are the same: Your real work is not getting done. The real, life-changing work that’s going to propel your business forward is sitting there on the back burner.

Related: #AskBP 058: How Do You Decide Whether to Hire Someone or Do It Yourself?

That’s how an employee will change your life. By outsourcing those simple tasks, you’ll enable yourself to work on only the things that matter, the $1,000- and $10,000-per-hour tasks that you — and you alone — can do. You’ll have the same number of hours in a day as Dr. Oz, Bill Gates, Taylor Swift and Oprah. How do they accomplish so much more? They work only on their $10,000- (or $100,000)-per-hour tasks, while you’re working on your $10-per-hour ones.

Okay, so now you are convinced about needing that new employee. But you still can’t afford to hire one, right? Here are four steps to getting there.

1. Sacrifice for the moment.

How badly do you really want success? If hiring an employee can help turn your struggling/small business into something greater, you will need to sacrifice to make it happen — at least in the beginning.

When my business couldn’t afford an assistant for me, I paid for this addition out of my own pocket, trimming my monthly expenses to make it happen. You can do the same! Make a budget and stick to it. Stop eating out for a few months. Work extra hours to make more income. Hustle.

(click to continue reading on BiggerPockets)

About Brandon

has written 199 Awesome posts in this blog.

Brandon Turner (G+) is the BiggerPockets.com Senior Editor and Community Director and owner of RealEstateInYourTwenties.com. He is also an Active Real Estate Investor (Flips, Apartments, and Buy-and-Hold), Entrepreneur, World Traveler, Third-Person Speaker, and Husband. Come hang out with him on Twitter!

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