📺 Develpreneur YouTube Episode

Video + transcript

Scaling with Contractors and Employees: A Strategic Guide to Business Growth

2025-02-25 •Youtube

Detailed Notes

In the "Building Better Businesses" season of the Building Better Developers podcast, Rob Broadhead and Michael Meloche provide strategic insights into scaling with contractors and employees. They discuss key factors involved in hiring, training, and effectively managing talent, highlighting the importance of mentorship, structured delegation, and patience. Their advice aims to help business leaders effectively scale operations, maximize talent, and achieve sustainable business growth by leveraging both internal and external teams.

Read more: https://develpreneur.com/scaling-with-contractors-and-employees-a-strategic-guide-to-business-growth/

*Episode Challenge: Delegating Tasks*

Listeners are encouraged to examine their daily tasks and identify activities that are repetitive or not leveraging their core strengths. Consider delegating these tasks to team members. Reflect on the necessary steps to successfully delegate and assess the potential positive impacts on your efficiency and overall business growth when scaling with contractors and employees.

*Stay Connected: Join the Develpreneur Community*

We invite you to join our community and share your coding journey with us. Whether you’re a seasoned developer or just starting, there’s always room to learn and grow together. Contact us at [email protected] with your questions, feedback, or suggestions for future episodes. Together, let’s continue exploring the exciting world of software development.

*Additional Resources*

* Using Offshore Teams and Resources – Interview With Tanika De Souza (https://develpreneur.com/using-offshore-teams-and-resources-interview-with-tanika-de-souza/) * Be A Better CEO – Interview with Donna Dube (https://develpreneur.com/be-a-better-ceo-interview-with-donna-dube/) * Remote Team Building (https://develpreneur.com/remote-team-building/) * Use Differing Perspectives To Be Better (https://develpreneur.com/use-differing-perspectives-to-be-better/)

*Follow-us on:*

* https://develpreneur.com/ * https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZOuFN_LhczvGyT2KSItH_g/featured * https://facebook.com/Develpreneur * https://twitter.com/develpreneur * http://linkedin.com/develpreneur

Transcript Text
[Music]
I hit record I apologize too late
because we were just doing a little
inside baseball about like some of the
brand stuff that we are so now you guys
will never know what our brand is
actually you better know what our brand
is because that's our whole point is to
like figure it out at some
point
uh B no I've told that before so I'm not
going to B I was going to throw some
bonus material out but it's somewhere
else you can find it in the archives
it's basically
um you can go look for it actually and
actually it goes back to the guy that
was I wish I could think of his name
right now didn't interview he was part
of the Blue Man Group so if you look at
probably Blue Man Group or improv or
clown go search that out on develop
andur and uh one of the things we talked
about I think it may not have gotten on
the recording uh because I know we
talked about it but we we talked a long
time afterwards
um is that we used to have a we did I
did an improv years ago one of the most
interesting things and now I'm just
going to tell the story screw
it this what happens when we're like
farther into a day uh one of the things
like my favorite stories from all of
this time is that you got to the end of
this you go like week in and week out
it's like a 12-week course kind of thing
and when you get done all these you've
been working with all these people doing
improv for weeks and the LA one of the
last things we did is that we would pick
a person you went around the entire room
and you picked somebody and then
everybody would basically mimic that
person they would take the stuff that
they had learned about that person going
through improv the previous 11 weeks or
whatever it was and then they would
basically be walking around to you like
they they're pretending to be you and it
is it it is an amazing exercise that
tells you what your brand is in that
situation so it was really cool to have
people like oh that's how I'm known or
and sometimes it was like really good
because you're like cool I'm glad
everybody remembered that and there's
other stuff you're like crap I gotta
take that out of my out of my you know
out of my quiver that Arrow out of my
quiver so there's your bonus material is
your brand better be something this is
like a marketing thing um your brand
better be something that people know
what your brand is like if I say Nike
you know what Nike is I say Coke you
know what Coke is I say Pepsi if I say
Kleenex I mean there's those things
there's these certain brands Amazon like
Michael Jordan I mean there's certain
things that you know the brand and so
that's where you want to go so there you
go there's your little bit of marketing
stuff and hopefully we'll get there at
some point all right topics for today so
we've done the intro we've done the
finan Cal management overcoming barriers
elevator pitch
so kind of to our simar conversation we
had earlier one of
the things with building better
businesses that I think I don't know if
we're quite ready for yet but it would
be a good topic is scaling up your
business and dealing with employees or
contractors all
right well this is gonna
hurt I like that though I
think and then the second one I had to
that was or or could be kind of the
topic for it but is leadership like
leading or building your business
through better
leadership I think that's good
especially with
the with the context of employees and
contractors and stuff like that is how
do you like build that it actually goes
to that first thing like how do you keep
your brand and some of those kinds of
thing culture so let's do that I think
we'll start with like building your
business and bringing in contractors
employees and some of that kind of stuff
because I can definitely talk to that
and we talk about some of the struggles
as well that we're going to have with
all those so oh that's right I don't
have to use this is so nice that like I
can at least spend some while while my
mouse charges before I have to do
anything again so we're going to do our
little three two that's my C I look okay
in the camera there I might get some
stuff straightened out get my
mic just cuz we'll do it again three two
one well hello and welcome back we are
continuing our season of building better
businesses we are actually though
building better developers develop andur
podcast I am Rob Broadhead one of the
founders of develop andur and also a
founder of RB Consulting where we are
what they call Boutique Consulting we
help you Leverage technology and just do
your business better we we get in there
we work with you to understand really
how your business Works what is your
secret sauce what is the recipe that is
needed for you to leverage technology
whether it's through simplification
automation integration Innovation
whether you're buying stuff off the
shelf or building something custom or
even having to build up a team or a
culture within your organization to
utilize and leverage technology we're
there every step of the way to help you
do that build a road map and let you
just basically go on like you know take
you kick you out of the nest and you get
to fly away and not like fall and go
Splat good things bad
things perfect day for it it is again
one of those that is good and a bad
thing is it's snowed and I live in
Nashville area where they don't deal
with snow very well like you get like
three Flakes and they're like boom
school is like closed for a week I had
people like the threat of snow had
businesses closing down yesterday and
it's not a bad snow so that's the cool
thing is like I woke up it was a pretty
white everywhere the bad thing is it
like it disrupts my schedule I play Ice
Hockey and they're canceling the ice
hockey game tonight it's like how can
you cancel a game on the ice because of
snow and yet that's what they do so it's
going to mess up my schedule but it was
sort of cool that I was able to like I
didn't have to commute in today so I got
a lot more work done so it was a good
thing there um I think that we'll do
that and then I'll just go ahead and you
know little ruminate about my good and
bad stuff and pass it over to Michael to
introduce himself thanks Ro hello
everyone my name is Michael masas I'm
one of the co-founders of develop
preneur building better developers I'm
also the founder of Invision QA where we
help businesses and
clinicians really analyze their business
look at their processes look at their
software and help them figure out if the
software is working for them or if they
are working for the software we
essentially walk you through your
processes help you analyze what you're
doing streamline your processes
basically enhance the business
experience so that you spend less time
working on the business or working in
the business and you can actually work
with your customers you know work on the
business or I have that backwards as
always
uh good and bad similar to Rob it's
snowed unlike Rob our roads didn't get
better till about 4:00 this afternoon so
I couldn't even leave my driveway for
most of the day because we actually got
ice first then snow so we had a nice
little sheet of ice uh which made it fun
walking up to the mailbox uh it was nice
slippery
slidy uh the good though is I have
actually changed my routine over the
last week I am almost completely off of
caffeine and I'm starting to feel a lot
better A lot less anxious and if you've
listened to some of the past podcasts
you can see
why I had to start getting off of this
it it's
just if you take too many stimulants of
any kind it is a bad thing so that's my
good and bad well hopefully this is not
too stimulating for you guys and gals we
are going to talk this time about in
basically it's building your business
we're going to really talk about like
employees and contractors it's like at
some point you have to as a guy I work
for years ago refer to it as you have to
be able to scale yourself if you're a
developer there's some point and it
maybe if from the you know from the
entrepreneur side it's something where
you're maybe hiring somebody and whether
it's an employee whether it's a contract
you know Outsourcing a couple things or
even in a company where now you're
moving up and you effectively have
employees that are you know people that
report up to you that you have you know
HR responsibilities and all that kind of
stuff this is a little different from
now a lot of times there will be early
on in a career where somebody is a lead
a team lead or something like that and
they're more of a a leader or maybe a
mentor or something like that but
they're not really managing that person
and it's a lot of companies it's
referred to as like having HR
responsibilities the things where you're
like you're giving reviews and you're uh
providing you know like you're giving
input or possibly even giving them like
raises and talking about rates and stuff
like that all the things that we all
care
about and so there's this is like
getting into more of that side where not
just that you're being a mentor but it
is that you're you're sort of now like
somewhat responsible for this person's
career as well so you're not just
building a better developer in
yourself part of it is that you need to
be building a better whatever that
person is and this is where it can
become it really does change the game a
little bit because it is not a simple
thing and this is not just a developer
issue it's not a simple thing to take
the things that we know how to do
intrinsically that we just like do it
automatically and tell somebody else how
to do it and that's part of what we're
usually going to need to do when we're
bringing on employees is there something
that now we may look out and it's like
hey we're going to hire somebody to do
accounting we don't know accounting
awesome you it's like I'm G to hire
somebody to mow my yard I don't need to
tell them how to mow yard they're going
to mow the yard when we bring them in to
expand our team usually we're going to
have to tell them like what is this
project what are the requirements we
have to direct them in some way form or
fashion and say hey I need you to do X
this is the work I need you to do uh or
for somebody I was talking to recently
that was like this is one of the
challenges I worked with a guy and they
had we just had a like a blanket
agreement of like they're going to pay
me money and which is awesome for me to
some extent but it was also like the the
understanding was they're going to pay
me money and I'm going to have an equal
and equivalent amount of work and early
on that was great they had tons of work
but then as the work started to fall
down the manager sort of come down and
level the manager basically that was
there suddenly had to take on it was
more work for him because he was now
like I got to make find enough stuff to
keep Rob busy enough and he was still
busy doing his stuff as well and that's
some of the what we will run into
because if you take a Contractor on if
you take somebody just a straight up
hourly and there's no you know agreement
to a minimum number of hours or anything
then it if you got five hours of work
you give them five hours of work and
they're done if you got 40 hours of work
you give them 40 hours and they're done
it's it's easy
if there is that expectation expectation
of like I'm bringing on a contractor but
I need to provide them full-time work or
I'm bringing on an employee so I am
paying for them I need them working all
the time because that is how the you
know the everything works out then we're
now stepping into something a little
different because we're not just talking
about there's there's other facets that
I think we need to to take into account
and I'll toss it over to Michael and
sort of get some of his on these as well
but I think one of the things is that
you do have to look at developing that
person because that's part of the value
not only to them but to you because if
you can go it's just like a professional
sports team if you can get a rookie that
turns into be a super super superstar
and you had several years of that rookie
developing into that where you were
paying like you know the rookie prices
then and maybe you even get a discount
as they get into being the Superstar
that's what you want to do in your
business as well you want to bring all
these you know you don't have to bring
all the rookies in but you want to train
people up so that you know from Jan if
they work from you you know all through
the year from January 1 to December 31st
let's assume they're getting paid the
same salary you're getting more value at
them by the end of the year because you
have help them grow so that's one of the
things you want to do you also want to
be able to look at ways to scale
Yourself by pushing some of the stuff
that you would do off to these people
because now it's freeing you up to
hopefully do you know build your
business out and do some of these other
things that are the things the company
your organization needs to do to thrive
uh but also it's going to allow them to
stay busy and you get the most value out
of them I'll stop there and let Michael
go because I don't want to take all our
time up so it's interesting so before I
get into the like hiring people the the
first thing that came to my mind as you
were kind of walking through like the
leading versus managing like the team
leads versus a manager the HR
roles it's a very interesting
distinction because throughout our
career we kind of wear many hats but as
developers as you or even owners as you
slowly build your business or you slowly
build your skill sets up and you move up
within companies you have to take on
more responsibilties so you become a
leader or a team lead and essentially
you're helping to Mentor people or
you're helping to train people helping
people do their job and move the dial
forward with
managing and hiring people it gets a
little more complicated uh the
biggest distinction that I've run into
is when I worked for a company and we
hired on
contractors the HR responsibility wasn't
necessarily mine but I found that I
spent more time managing the behavior of
the contractors in their communication
with the manager because a lot of times
the contractors did not know how to
handle office politics when dealing with
full-time employees or full-time
managers and that caused a lot of
friction and when you move into the role
of being a business owner or a
manager you're actually hiring these
people you're actually looking for
talent to fill in gaps but a lot of the
times for new managers especially is we
wear a lot of hats so by the time you're
you worked your way up through a company
or you worked your way up in the
business you have either bootstrapped
most of the work yourself or you have
come up with some policies or procedures
to fill in the gaps to kind of segment
your time well when you hire an employee
you're going to hopefully carve out one
of those segments and hand it off to the
employee the problem there initially
will be that you don't want to let go
you are going to fight tooth and nail
and I'm just going to do it nope I can
do it better no you have to as not just
a manager but as a leader as a mentor
say look you're here for this position
now the worst thing you could possibly
do is hire that person stick them at
desk and just have them read
documentation well that is beneficial
that does not quickly integrate them
within the company within what it is
you're doing you're essentially giving
them a pass to waste time you are paying
someone to just sit there and read
through something that if you have them
literally like Shadow you monitor what
you're doing or just jump into it and
kind of you know fire to the wheels you
find out if they can one do the job
two you find out hey do you understand
this you you start to build that
personality or co-relationship with your
employee and you can figure out where
their strengths and weakness are now the
big key is if they do have a lot of
weaknesses take a moment or take uh like
one-on ones or even just little times to
sit down with them and spend a little
more of your knowledge don't take the
knowledge you know you have spent a lot
of time doing this you've learned this
well you can't expect your employee day
one to just know what your company does
what your product does now they may know
how to code so yes they can write code
but they don't know your application
they don't know your processes or
procedures so spend it is expensive to
you because you have so much going on if
you had to hire someone it's because
you've reached a maximum workload and
you have to carve off time but you still
need to anticipate that you are going to
have to spend more time upfront to
prepare that employee to get them where
they need to be if you want them to be
successful and if you really want your
business to grow and not just hire
monkeys to sit at the computer type in
keys and just follow procedures you know
AI will eventually eliminate that but
the key here is we want people that are
experienced that can do the job and help
us help our business scale help it grow
and hopefully you know help us improve
our customer relationships and improve
our products what do you think of that
Rob I want there's a couple things you
touched on there one of them I think the
early in that is one of the things you
have to think about and it's very
similar to automation is looking at
where you can take something and you can
peel that off and you can not do it
manually anymore me I think if you if
you go in it with that kind of a an
attitude I guess of hey I'm automating
this by giving this to this employee
then it's going to be now it's a little
bit different because automation you're
like okay it's going to just always do
it the same way employee you're lucky if
they always do it the same way there's
going to be there's going to be
variations but it is conceptually this
the same kind of thing like I'm taking
something that I don't need to spend the
time it is not the best when we automate
it it's not the best use of my time to
walk through these 400 steps to do this
process can I do it yes can I but not
the best use of my time same thing with
an employee so even though you might be
able to do the job that you're asking
them to do faster or even
better you're looking at places where it
is not that doesn't bring enough value
to the the bottom line basically it's
things like yeah I could go in and like
for example let's say You've Got U you
know some sort of a status report that's
basically all you have that all you're
doing is you're taking your notes that
you wrote down and you're writing it
into an electronic
system you can do that and you'll be
able to pull that across but if you
found somebody that you could give them
the notes and they would enter in the
system for you then that's suddenly time
that you get back and it may only be
five minutes or 10 minutes but when you
start looking at like developing stuff
there are things where it's like hey I
can build one screen and here's all the
logic around it and there's 400 other
screens to build well you can go build
give those to somebody else to build
those screens now they don't have to be
identical and you really don't want them
to be what you want and this is where
you want to not only build a better
developer as yourself but you also want
your staff to be better developers scrum
Masters whatever the heck it is you know
even accountants office managers you
name it you want your staff to get
better because that's part of how you
grow you're not going to grow by having
a bunch of people that are just the same
person day in and day out and they never
change because then you always have to
find new people what you want to do is
you want to grow people and grow them
into the positions that your company
needs to for itself to grow and we'll
talk more about that in a future episode
like maybe the next one when we talk
about
leadership but I think this is something
that you need to keep in mind is that
you're doing this it is a it's an
investment as Michael said it's going to
cost you time and it's it can be
frustrating it can be very daunting to
sit there and go okay I know to need to
explain this application that I've built
over the last 10 years to somebody so
they can start maintaining it well first
you don't have to be perfect they don't
have to like you're not going to fall
off the face of the Earth hopefully and
they're not going to have to just take
it 100% from there you're there to work
with them and the one other thing I want
to do is like the sitting somebody down
at a desk and just saying okay go read
for a while it is very useful I found
for myself and I think for a lot of
people uh that I've worked with that
I've brought in over the years testing
is actually a pretty good way to learn
something if you've got an application
and you've got testing to do it's
actually really useful you can take
sometimes very senior developers and
resources and say okay I need you to sit
down and just like walk through test
this application for me here even if
it's just here's a script walk through
it but usually it's like go test it
don't give them much of a script and let
them do it and they're going to break it
they're going to give you all kinds of
information back and they're going to
learn that application the other thing
is support it if you have a support desk
or something like that it's a great way
to bring people in because they're going
to get questions they're going to get to
know your customers they're going to
understand the wise they're going to
understand the problems they're
understand the pain points and suddenly
you've got somebody that really what
they're probably also invested so maybe
the first is they're invested because
they know people they've got these
relationships with people that they've
talked to on you know or through email
or communicated with so now they want to
build a better product they know what
the pain points are they're sort of like
you know they're commiserating with them
and now you have a very driven person to
build your your product or improve your
service thoughts on
that yeah I have one additional thing to
add to that so one of the other things
I've encountered with new hires or even
new teams
is
essentially um not scope creep but
um basically we pivot too often so one
of the problems you have is you you
bring on a new team or a new
employee give them a test and give them
some time to absorve it give them some
time to understand it to figure it out
doesn't necessarily have to be a week or
a month but don't go into a situation
where okay today do this tomorrow do
this oh wait every hour do this do this
you're going to burn them out confuse
the hell out of them frustrate them and
they're going to walk out so please be
very conscious of what tasks you do give
the new hires so that they like Rob said
testing and support are great ways to
figure out the application the trick is
so make sure you give them a workstation
and an application that works the other
thing that's very frustrating is when
I've been handed a project and the code
won't even compile so how the hell am I
supposed to figure like I spent hours
just looking at code and come to find
out that someone forgot to include a
file or someone accidentally um deleted
a file and it's like so I'm trying to
work on something that's already broken
and you're telling me it works so just
be very cautious of what tasks you do
assign a new hire and make sure that
you're giving them something that is
both meaningful something that will help
them learn the business learn what it is
that you're all about what your product
is and spend a little time with them
don't just hire them and ignore them for
a month you want to build that
relationship you want to build include
them within your business culture and
the other thing is make sure
you hand off make sure you give them the
work and give them time to understand it
don't fret over it and don't pull it
back don't say I can do it better I can
do it faster Let It Go one of the things
Rob has taught me over the years is you
have to let things go sometimes and this
is one of the greatest examples of
wanting to do that is you bring someone
on you give them a task now I will say
this do not give them a mission critical
task as their first
task you are just setting them up to
fail or if they are a genius great maybe
but never never give a new hire
something that is Mission critical very
highend deadline or maybe even your most
uh important client something to do
within a very short deadline if it's
over months sure but please be very
conscious of what tasks you do give your
new employees or your new hire
and make sure you do spend the time with
them to make sure that they understand
what they're doing I think that's very
critical is that you want realize that
one of the things you need to do is you
need to when you're bringing somebody
new in whether they're contractor
whatever they are you need to make sure
they succeed your goal should be that
they s succeed so the early task should
be you know like Michael said not
critical not the kind of stuff that's
like you know that the that you're
expecting so even if they are an expert
don't bring them in and just be like
cool you're going to figure all this
stuff out because that's not going to
help and you're going to have some that
you think as an expert and you're
suddenly going to think they're a
because they can't get it done but it's
not it's because you didn't give them
the opportunity to succeed which is the
other part of what Michael's leaning
towards it's like patience you have got
to be patient and realize they're not
going to pick it up immediately they're
not going to do it as fast as you
especially the first time they do it and
they're going to make mistakes because
there's going to be things that they
don't realize and honestly look back at
it as if they make mistakes it's
probably because you made a mistake and
did not communicate the details that you
needed to beforehand and that is
something that one of the best and worst
things I did is the first actual
employee I had was a son was one of my
sons and so he was more than happy to
say you didn't do this you didn't do
this you didn't and he was right but it
helped me as I was going through this
stuff to be like oh yeah I handed this
off but I didn't do this and I didn't
add this part and I didn't provide this
piece and it part of it was because of
where he was and what I was used to but
part of it was because I was not used to
pulling that crap out of my head and
sharing with somebody it's one of those
things you're like well everybody knows
it well you know what apparently not
everybody because this person does not
and you need to not you know it's not a
personality flaw of theirs or that
they're an idiot or something like that
it's they don't know it's like we all
have things we don't know and you know
how you fix that is you tell them you
let them know and then they're going to
be more successful the next time around
before you do the challenge
darn add to that when you do have new
hires depending upon your work culture
if you're scrum agile whatever or if
you're just a small team make sure you
give time especially the first week or
two or within the first month spend time
in a safe space make sure that you can
sit down with the employee and make sure
that is a calm open conversation that
like Rob said his son was able to tell
him what he was doing wrong set up onein
ones or open meetings where people can
bounce ideas of where are things going
good where are things going bad
essentially a formal or an informal
retrospective essentially in a
one-on-one or maybe in a group setting
but give them a chance to give you
feedback don't just assume they're not
doing their job maybe they need
something from you but are afraid to
ask that is I always hate that the
phrase safe space in a sense because
it's like it's loaded but it's true it's
very much you have to I will say it I
guess in more of the like the Gen X
style of like people need to be they
can't be afraid to fail you've got to
allow the opportunity for failure
because otherwise they're always going
to be too scared to actually take any
risks and then you end up with not what
you want so really good point
the challenge this week is going to be
whether you need to hire somebody or not
whether you need to bring somebody on or
not is look at what you do over the next
few days look at what you do what is
your task list
effectively and what would it mean for
you to be able to what would be a piece
that you could carve off and have
somebody else
do and do so in a way preferably if it's
something where it's like this is not
something that is you where you bring
the most value something that is
redundant or a little beneath you if you
want to call call it that or however you
want to look at it but basically
something that this is not necessarily
the best use of your time and then maybe
it would be useful to find somebody that
didn't cost as much to you to your
company or anything else and have them
do it it's much lice we we always talk
about the 4-Hour Work week and doing
like you know you can offshore stuff and
Outsource stuff and all that kind of
stuff it's that same kind of thing it's
really is is in that Outsourcing
mentality pick something that you would
be able to that you should essentially
you know push off or that you could and
then just like spend a little time
thinking about like what would it look
like to hand that off to somebody else
maybe you wrun a little note card it's
like well I got to tell them this this
and this or I got to teach them that
because I think doing that in itself
going through that exercise will help
you if you have to do it it may also
highlight something that you need to get
rid of and get off your plate and it may
even just help you better understand
what it is that you do because now
you're it's always more educational for
you have to teach this to somebody else
than it is for you to just like know it
in your head just like I'm going to
teach you right now actually I'm not you
should already know this to send us an
email shoot an email to info
developer.com and let us know what is up
what what do you like what don't you
like what are some topics that you would
like for us to cover whether it is in
this this season of how do we build
better businesses what are some things
that we can do to make our businesses
bigger better stronger if you've got
some suggestions or some questions
related to that we would love to hear it
you can also leave us comments at
anywhere at developer.com they got
comment stuff everywhere we've got a
contact us form you can hit us up at X
develop andur we have stuff out there we
are out on Facebook we got a develop
andur Facebook page there's eventually
some other stuff we may do but I'm not a
socials guy so some point we'll get
there for now let's go with those but
wherever feel free to like just search
for developer or this if you're
listening to this 20 years from now you
may find us in the new like whatever the
social site is that being said we're
going to wrap this one up because
probably gone a little longer we need to
but hey you got it for free so hopefully
and hopefully you got more out of this
than just free Hing you got a little bit
of value out of this one go out there
and have yourself a great day a great
week and we will talk to you next
time bonus material
so you mentioned 4our work week and I
forget the r are he was talking about
one chapter in the book he was talking
about the guy that worked for the
magazine where he read some book about
virtualization and he started hiring
virtual assistants so one of the
interesting things about what the topic
we just talked about if you don't have
employees and are looking to hire
employees consider do some little
Googling around look at what a virtual
assistant could possibly bring you as a
trial run before bringing on an employee
sometimes just getting an assistant to
help peel things off what you do every
day is a very good way to help one
figure out if you are a person that is
willing to let go and two if you can
work with the virtual assistant then you
potentially are in a good very good
place to hire someone on and be able to
hand off Tas to someone else if the
reason I say this is working with a
virtual assistant can be challenging up
front especially if you do overseas you
may have to go through one or two but
this is very good practice and possibly
a very cheap way to figure out if you
are in a place where you can hire
someone and actually get benefits from
the new
employee that is yeah that's one of
those that's the nice thing about the
4our work week one of the things that he
brought up is like you should test this
out you should like do it in bite-sized
chunks basically like do it you know go
decide you're going to spend 50 bucks or
100 bucks or a thousand bucks whatever
it is um and and keep it self-contained
so that you can learn how to do that
because it is something that I think
everybody thinks it's like oh I can do
this this a piece of cake until you have
to do it and it's like and every time
like I've talked a lot lot of people a
lot of different ways in different
situations it's like it's amazing how
often people are like I can do this over
here but I can't do it over there you
know it's like it's very different to do
these things where it is
um it's something that like you know
very well and you know like inside and
out the thing that you think would be
the one that's like this is something I
can pass off to somebody else turns out
to be the hardest one you it turns out
to be that's the one that like the thing
that you really don't like like and
maybe it is because you're spending all
the time in your head going I don't like
this I don't like this I don't like this
but then you can tell them do this do
this do this um yeah it's like practice
makes I don't know if it makes perfect
but practice makes you better at least
and so take a look at something like
that do like there's like you may go and
like and it's actually a benefit anyways
we've talked about this before it's a
benefit to go to like upwork or Fiverr
or one of those places not as a provider
but as a uh a seller or a buyer
basically or whatever it is as a
customer and go like have people you
know bid $5 to do or whatever you know
to do whatever your project is or to do
your work or go out and at upwork or or
somebody like that and go hire somebody
in because it's seeing it from the other
side I think gives you much more
information about how to T really to
like win that process if we call it that
and then it also allows you to like it
forces you even to go through the
process of like how do I
how do I really do this how do I take
this from my head and put it down
essentially on paper so that it can now
which is what we do when we automate too
it's like how do I take those steps and
limit you know uh walk through those and
say Here's a you know why out these are
the steps and then have something do
those steps um we can do it I know we
can because we've done it in all these
other places it's just a little harder
to do it but it's worth it to do it in
real
life I think that's enough on this one
we we have gone a little bit we've had
some bonus material on the front and the
back end so hey you guys have been
bonused out uh feel free to shoot us an
email let us know if you've got any
feedback leave comments you know leave
us a review all that kind of good stuff
we do read them eventually uh we get to
them hopefully we get them right away
but sometimes you know mail doesn't
notify us properly that stuff has been
you know that we've been communicated
with so apologies technology is not
always awesome go out there though and
have yourself a great day maybe get away
from your technology for a little bit
now that you have had your your daily uh
you know YouTube session with us good
there and have a good one and we will
talk to you next time
[Music]
Transcript Segments
1.35

[Music]

28.96

I hit record I apologize too late

30.96

because we were just doing a little

32.119

inside baseball about like some of the

35.559

brand stuff that we are so now you guys

37.36

will never know what our brand is

38.68

actually you better know what our brand

39.84

is because that's our whole point is to

41.239

like figure it out at some

42.8

point

44.36

uh B no I've told that before so I'm not

47

going to B I was going to throw some

48

bonus material out but it's somewhere

49.28

else you can find it in the archives

51

it's basically

53.84

um you can go look for it actually and

56.44

actually it goes back to the guy that

58.079

was I wish I could think of his name

59.519

right now didn't interview he was part

61.32

of the Blue Man Group so if you look at

62.719

probably Blue Man Group or improv or

64.799

clown go search that out on develop

67.2

andur and uh one of the things we talked

70.119

about I think it may not have gotten on

72.119

the recording uh because I know we

73.759

talked about it but we we talked a long

75.439

time afterwards

77.36

um is that we used to have a we did I

80.36

did an improv years ago one of the most

82.119

interesting things and now I'm just

83.24

going to tell the story screw

85.52

it this what happens when we're like

87.68

farther into a day uh one of the things

90.079

like my favorite stories from all of

91.479

this time is that you got to the end of

92.88

this you go like week in and week out

94.92

it's like a 12-week course kind of thing

97.119

and when you get done all these you've

99.24

been working with all these people doing

100.52

improv for weeks and the LA one of the

102.799

last things we did is that we would pick

105.439

a person you went around the entire room

107.2

and you picked somebody and then

108.799

everybody would basically mimic that

111.04

person they would take the stuff that

112.92

they had learned about that person going

114.479

through improv the previous 11 weeks or

116.479

whatever it was and then they would

118.119

basically be walking around to you like

120.6

they they're pretending to be you and it

122.68

is it it is an amazing exercise that

125.92

tells you what your brand is in that

128.52

situation so it was really cool to have

130.44

people like oh that's how I'm known or

133.319

and sometimes it was like really good

135

because you're like cool I'm glad

136.239

everybody remembered that and there's

137.599

other stuff you're like crap I gotta

139.2

take that out of my out of my you know

141.72

out of my quiver that Arrow out of my

143.36

quiver so there's your bonus material is

146.2

your brand better be something this is

148.84

like a marketing thing um your brand

151.239

better be something that people know

152.599

what your brand is like if I say Nike

155.28

you know what Nike is I say Coke you

156.879

know what Coke is I say Pepsi if I say

158.8

Kleenex I mean there's those things

161.64

there's these certain brands Amazon like

164.44

Michael Jordan I mean there's certain

166.44

things that you know the brand and so

169.12

that's where you want to go so there you

170.68

go there's your little bit of marketing

172.2

stuff and hopefully we'll get there at

174.239

some point all right topics for today so

177.44

we've done the intro we've done the

179.519

finan Cal management overcoming barriers

182.2

elevator pitch

185.599

so kind of to our simar conversation we

188.56

had earlier one of

190.84

the things with building better

193.08

businesses that I think I don't know if

195.56

we're quite ready for yet but it would

197.879

be a good topic is scaling up your

201.12

business and dealing with employees or

206.36

contractors all

208.599

right well this is gonna

211.36

hurt I like that though I

215.599

think and then the second one I had to

218.4

that was or or could be kind of the

222.239

topic for it but is leadership like

224.76

leading or building your business

226.4

through better

230.879

leadership I think that's good

232.599

especially with

234.519

the with the context of employees and

237.68

contractors and stuff like that is how

239.079

do you like build that it actually goes

241.2

to that first thing like how do you keep

242.4

your brand and some of those kinds of

243.76

thing culture so let's do that I think

246.28

we'll start with like building your

248.519

business and bringing in contractors

251.48

employees and some of that kind of stuff

252.76

because I can definitely talk to that

255.84

and we talk about some of the struggles

257.239

as well that we're going to have with

258.519

all those so oh that's right I don't

261.16

have to use this is so nice that like I

262.88

can at least spend some while while my

264.12

mouse charges before I have to do

266.44

anything again so we're going to do our

267.52

little three two that's my C I look okay

271.96

in the camera there I might get some

273.6

stuff straightened out get my

276.36

mic just cuz we'll do it again three two

280.039

one well hello and welcome back we are

282.919

continuing our season of building better

284.96

businesses we are actually though

286.36

building better developers develop andur

288.199

podcast I am Rob Broadhead one of the

290.52

founders of develop andur and also a

292.84

founder of RB Consulting where we are

295.72

what they call Boutique Consulting we

298.12

help you Leverage technology and just do

301.4

your business better we we get in there

303.759

we work with you to understand really

306.039

how your business Works what is your

308.52

secret sauce what is the recipe that is

310.68

needed for you to leverage technology

313.639

whether it's through simplification

315.16

automation integration Innovation

317.56

whether you're buying stuff off the

318.84

shelf or building something custom or

321.639

even having to build up a team or a

323.52

culture within your organization to

326.319

utilize and leverage technology we're

328.88

there every step of the way to help you

330.639

do that build a road map and let you

332.479

just basically go on like you know take

334.96

you kick you out of the nest and you get

336.4

to fly away and not like fall and go

338.6

Splat good things bad

341.12

things perfect day for it it is again

344.68

one of those that is good and a bad

346.36

thing is it's snowed and I live in

349

Nashville area where they don't deal

351.28

with snow very well like you get like

352.88

three Flakes and they're like boom

354.479

school is like closed for a week I had

357.199

people like the threat of snow had

359.039

businesses closing down yesterday and

361.8

it's not a bad snow so that's the cool

364.68

thing is like I woke up it was a pretty

366.44

white everywhere the bad thing is it

369.039

like it disrupts my schedule I play Ice

371.599

Hockey and they're canceling the ice

373.16

hockey game tonight it's like how can

375.08

you cancel a game on the ice because of

378.599

snow and yet that's what they do so it's

381.12

going to mess up my schedule but it was

383.72

sort of cool that I was able to like I

385.039

didn't have to commute in today so I got

387

a lot more work done so it was a good

389.36

thing there um I think that we'll do

391.88

that and then I'll just go ahead and you

394.56

know little ruminate about my good and

396.28

bad stuff and pass it over to Michael to

397.919

introduce himself thanks Ro hello

400.84

everyone my name is Michael masas I'm

402.319

one of the co-founders of develop

403.56

preneur building better developers I'm

405.8

also the founder of Invision QA where we

408.08

help businesses and

410.199

clinicians really analyze their business

412.96

look at their processes look at their

414.72

software and help them figure out if the

418.56

software is working for them or if they

420.759

are working for the software we

423.36

essentially walk you through your

425.319

processes help you analyze what you're

427.36

doing streamline your processes

429.599

basically enhance the business

431.44

experience so that you spend less time

433.479

working on the business or working in

435.879

the business and you can actually work

437.24

with your customers you know work on the

439.08

business or I have that backwards as

440.96

always

442.56

uh good and bad similar to Rob it's

446.319

snowed unlike Rob our roads didn't get

449.28

better till about 4:00 this afternoon so

451.44

I couldn't even leave my driveway for

453.24

most of the day because we actually got

455.28

ice first then snow so we had a nice

458.08

little sheet of ice uh which made it fun

460.28

walking up to the mailbox uh it was nice

462.52

slippery

463.639

slidy uh the good though is I have

467.84

actually changed my routine over the

470.039

last week I am almost completely off of

472.84

caffeine and I'm starting to feel a lot

475.28

better A lot less anxious and if you've

477.28

listened to some of the past podcasts

478.879

you can see

480.08

why I had to start getting off of this

481.96

it it's

482.919

just if you take too many stimulants of

485.52

any kind it is a bad thing so that's my

488.759

good and bad well hopefully this is not

491.08

too stimulating for you guys and gals we

493.28

are going to talk this time about in

496.52

basically it's building your business

497.639

we're going to really talk about like

498.72

employees and contractors it's like at

500.479

some point you have to as a guy I work

503.24

for years ago refer to it as you have to

504.96

be able to scale yourself if you're a

507.28

developer there's some point and it

509.599

maybe if from the you know from the

511.599

entrepreneur side it's something where

513.399

you're maybe hiring somebody and whether

515.76

it's an employee whether it's a contract

517.64

you know Outsourcing a couple things or

519.56

even in a company where now you're

522.159

moving up and you effectively have

523.959

employees that are you know people that

525.92

report up to you that you have you know

528.12

HR responsibilities and all that kind of

530.04

stuff this is a little different from

532.88

now a lot of times there will be early

535.32

on in a career where somebody is a lead

537.6

a team lead or something like that and

539.48

they're more of a a leader or maybe a

542.88

mentor or something like that but

543.959

they're not really managing that person

547.68

and it's a lot of companies it's

549.48

referred to as like having HR

550.959

responsibilities the things where you're

552.519

like you're giving reviews and you're uh

555.64

providing you know like you're giving

557.399

input or possibly even giving them like

559.36

raises and talking about rates and stuff

561.56

like that all the things that we all

563.2

care

564.36

about and so there's this is like

566.88

getting into more of that side where not

570.04

just that you're being a mentor but it

572.92

is that you're you're sort of now like

575.16

somewhat responsible for this person's

577.68

career as well so you're not just

578.88

building a better developer in

580.8

yourself part of it is that you need to

583.36

be building a better whatever that

585.44

person is and this is where it can

587.44

become it really does change the game a

590.12

little bit because it is not a simple

593.56

thing and this is not just a developer

595.76

issue it's not a simple thing to take

597.24

the things that we know how to do

599.6

intrinsically that we just like do it

602

automatically and tell somebody else how

604.36

to do it and that's part of what we're

606.48

usually going to need to do when we're

608.16

bringing on employees is there something

609.68

that now we may look out and it's like

611.399

hey we're going to hire somebody to do

612.56

accounting we don't know accounting

614.04

awesome you it's like I'm G to hire

615.2

somebody to mow my yard I don't need to

616.519

tell them how to mow yard they're going

617.48

to mow the yard when we bring them in to

619.72

expand our team usually we're going to

621.48

have to tell them like what is this

624.04

project what are the requirements we

626.36

have to direct them in some way form or

628.12

fashion and say hey I need you to do X

630.56

this is the work I need you to do uh or

632.88

for somebody I was talking to recently

634.44

that was like this is one of the

636.36

challenges I worked with a guy and they

639

had we just had a like a blanket

641

agreement of like they're going to pay

642.839

me money and which is awesome for me to

645.32

some extent but it was also like the the

648.04

understanding was they're going to pay

648.839

me money and I'm going to have an equal

650.36

and equivalent amount of work and early

653.16

on that was great they had tons of work

654.839

but then as the work started to fall

656.24

down the manager sort of come down and

658.399

level the manager basically that was

661.079

there suddenly had to take on it was

663.959

more work for him because he was now

665.76

like I got to make find enough stuff to

667.839

keep Rob busy enough and he was still

670.079

busy doing his stuff as well and that's

672.2

some of the what we will run into

673.839

because if you take a Contractor on if

676.639

you take somebody just a straight up

678.079

hourly and there's no you know agreement

681.079

to a minimum number of hours or anything

682.8

then it if you got five hours of work

684.36

you give them five hours of work and

685.32

they're done if you got 40 hours of work

686.959

you give them 40 hours and they're done

688.24

it's it's easy

690.12

if there is that expectation expectation

692.24

of like I'm bringing on a contractor but

694.2

I need to provide them full-time work or

697.92

I'm bringing on an employee so I am

700.04

paying for them I need them working all

702.519

the time because that is how the you

704.92

know the everything works out then we're

708.76

now stepping into something a little

710.12

different because we're not just talking

711.639

about there's there's other facets that

714.04

I think we need to to take into account

716.399

and I'll toss it over to Michael and

717.68

sort of get some of his on these as well

719.44

but I think one of the things is that

720.839

you do have to look at developing that

723.12

person because that's part of the value

726.2

not only to them but to you because if

728.279

you can go it's just like a professional

730.519

sports team if you can get a rookie that

733

turns into be a super super superstar

735.839

and you had several years of that rookie

737.8

developing into that where you were

739.639

paying like you know the rookie prices

742.44

then and maybe you even get a discount

744.519

as they get into being the Superstar

746.88

that's what you want to do in your

747.8

business as well you want to bring all

749.959

these you know you don't have to bring

751.16

all the rookies in but you want to train

752.8

people up so that you know from Jan if

755.6

they work from you you know all through

757.16

the year from January 1 to December 31st

760.32

let's assume they're getting paid the

761.44

same salary you're getting more value at

763.48

them by the end of the year because you

764.8

have help them grow so that's one of the

767.16

things you want to do you also want to

768.92

be able to look at ways to scale

773.839

Yourself by pushing some of the stuff

775.639

that you would do off to these people

777.959

because now it's freeing you up to

779.68

hopefully do you know build your

781.079

business out and do some of these other

782.48

things that are the things the company

784.519

your organization needs to do to thrive

787.88

uh but also it's going to allow them to

789.56

stay busy and you get the most value out

791.959

of them I'll stop there and let Michael

793.8

go because I don't want to take all our

795.16

time up so it's interesting so before I

797.959

get into the like hiring people the the

802.68

first thing that came to my mind as you

804

were kind of walking through like the

805.44

leading versus managing like the team

807.04

leads versus a manager the HR

809.639

roles it's a very interesting

811.92

distinction because throughout our

814.6

career we kind of wear many hats but as

817.6

developers as you or even owners as you

819.92

slowly build your business or you slowly

821.639

build your skill sets up and you move up

823.399

within companies you have to take on

826.079

more responsibilties so you become a

828.32

leader or a team lead and essentially

831.56

you're helping to Mentor people or

834.079

you're helping to train people helping

835.56

people do their job and move the dial

838.12

forward with

840.24

managing and hiring people it gets a

843.079

little more complicated uh the

847.36

biggest distinction that I've run into

850.12

is when I worked for a company and we

853.199

hired on

854.32

contractors the HR responsibility wasn't

857.68

necessarily mine but I found that I

860.12

spent more time managing the behavior of

865.8

the contractors in their communication

867.88

with the manager because a lot of times

871.079

the contractors did not know how to

873.759

handle office politics when dealing with

876.16

full-time employees or full-time

877.8

managers and that caused a lot of

879.6

friction and when you move into the role

882.44

of being a business owner or a

884.88

manager you're actually hiring these

887.32

people you're actually looking for

889.279

talent to fill in gaps but a lot of the

892.959

times for new managers especially is we

896.639

wear a lot of hats so by the time you're

899.079

you worked your way up through a company

900.72

or you worked your way up in the

901.959

business you have either bootstrapped

904.44

most of the work yourself or you have

907

come up with some policies or procedures

909.399

to fill in the gaps to kind of segment

912.079

your time well when you hire an employee

914.72

you're going to hopefully carve out one

917

of those segments and hand it off to the

919.12

employee the problem there initially

922.44

will be that you don't want to let go

925.8

you are going to fight tooth and nail

928.399

and I'm just going to do it nope I can

930.92

do it better no you have to as not just

934.36

a manager but as a leader as a mentor

937.68

say look you're here for this position

941.319

now the worst thing you could possibly

944.36

do is hire that person stick them at

947.279

desk and just have them read

950

documentation well that is beneficial

952.24

that does not quickly integrate them

954.88

within the company within what it is

957.24

you're doing you're essentially giving

959.199

them a pass to waste time you are paying

961.959

someone to just sit there and read

963.279

through something that if you have them

965.36

literally like Shadow you monitor what

967.959

you're doing or just jump into it and

970.48

kind of you know fire to the wheels you

973.88

find out if they can one do the job

977.44

two you find out hey do you understand

981.16

this you you start to build that

982.639

personality or co-relationship with your

985.839

employee and you can figure out where

987.88

their strengths and weakness are now the

990.079

big key is if they do have a lot of

992.04

weaknesses take a moment or take uh like

996.44

one-on ones or even just little times to

999.759

sit down with them and spend a little

1001.88

more of your knowledge don't take the

1003.959

knowledge you know you have spent a lot

1006.04

of time doing this you've learned this

1008.44

well you can't expect your employee day

1010.48

one to just know what your company does

1013.56

what your product does now they may know

1015.759

how to code so yes they can write code

1017.92

but they don't know your application

1019.8

they don't know your processes or

1021.519

procedures so spend it is expensive to

1025.6

you because you have so much going on if

1028.199

you had to hire someone it's because

1029.799

you've reached a maximum workload and

1032.64

you have to carve off time but you still

1035.559

need to anticipate that you are going to

1037.88

have to spend more time upfront to

1041

prepare that employee to get them where

1043.679

they need to be if you want them to be

1045.799

successful and if you really want your

1047.76

business to grow and not just hire

1050.2

monkeys to sit at the computer type in

1053

keys and just follow procedures you know

1055.48

AI will eventually eliminate that but

1057.799

the key here is we want people that are

1061.2

experienced that can do the job and help

1064.4

us help our business scale help it grow

1068.6

and hopefully you know help us improve

1071.12

our customer relationships and improve

1073

our products what do you think of that

1075.08

Rob I want there's a couple things you

1077.52

touched on there one of them I think the

1080.32

early in that is one of the things you

1083.039

have to think about and it's very

1084.44

similar to automation is looking at

1086.919

where you can take something and you can

1088.48

peel that off and you can not do it

1090.919

manually anymore me I think if you if

1094.08

you go in it with that kind of a an

1096.919

attitude I guess of hey I'm automating

1099.799

this by giving this to this employee

1103.52

then it's going to be now it's a little

1105.72

bit different because automation you're

1107.039

like okay it's going to just always do

1108.44

it the same way employee you're lucky if

1110.6

they always do it the same way there's

1111.88

going to be there's going to be

1113

variations but it is conceptually this

1116.12

the same kind of thing like I'm taking

1118.28

something that I don't need to spend the

1120.679

time it is not the best when we automate

1122.679

it it's not the best use of my time to

1124.96

walk through these 400 steps to do this

1127.679

process can I do it yes can I but not

1132.4

the best use of my time same thing with

1134.44

an employee so even though you might be

1137.559

able to do the job that you're asking

1139.76

them to do faster or even

1142.64

better you're looking at places where it

1145.48

is not that doesn't bring enough value

1149.12

to the the bottom line basically it's

1151.64

things like yeah I could go in and like

1154.48

for example let's say You've Got U you

1156.44

know some sort of a status report that's

1158.64

basically all you have that all you're

1160.159

doing is you're taking your notes that

1162.039

you wrote down and you're writing it

1163.32

into an electronic

1165.12

system you can do that and you'll be

1167.6

able to pull that across but if you

1169.28

found somebody that you could give them

1170.559

the notes and they would enter in the

1171.919

system for you then that's suddenly time

1173.559

that you get back and it may only be

1175.36

five minutes or 10 minutes but when you

1177.12

start looking at like developing stuff

1179.44

there are things where it's like hey I

1180.96

can build one screen and here's all the

1183.72

logic around it and there's 400 other

1186.24

screens to build well you can go build

1188.72

give those to somebody else to build

1190.28

those screens now they don't have to be

1192.039

identical and you really don't want them

1193.96

to be what you want and this is where

1195.44

you want to not only build a better

1197.4

developer as yourself but you also want

1199.96

your staff to be better developers scrum

1203.679

Masters whatever the heck it is you know

1205.76

even accountants office managers you

1207.84

name it you want your staff to get

1210.24

better because that's part of how you

1211.679

grow you're not going to grow by having

1213.799

a bunch of people that are just the same

1215.48

person day in and day out and they never

1217.72

change because then you always have to

1219.32

find new people what you want to do is

1221.32

you want to grow people and grow them

1223.48

into the positions that your company

1225.6

needs to for itself to grow and we'll

1228.24

talk more about that in a future episode

1230.52

like maybe the next one when we talk

1231.919

about

1232.88

leadership but I think this is something

1235.44

that you need to keep in mind is that

1237.48

you're doing this it is a it's an

1240.159

investment as Michael said it's going to

1242

cost you time and it's it can be

1243.76

frustrating it can be very daunting to

1246.32

sit there and go okay I know to need to

1248.76

explain this application that I've built

1250.76

over the last 10 years to somebody so

1252.44

they can start maintaining it well first

1255

you don't have to be perfect they don't

1256.36

have to like you're not going to fall

1257.799

off the face of the Earth hopefully and

1259.799

they're not going to have to just take

1260.919

it 100% from there you're there to work

1263.52

with them and the one other thing I want

1265.4

to do is like the sitting somebody down

1268.32

at a desk and just saying okay go read

1270.08

for a while it is very useful I found

1272.32

for myself and I think for a lot of

1273.799

people uh that I've worked with that

1275.799

I've brought in over the years testing

1277.48

is actually a pretty good way to learn

1279.08

something if you've got an application

1280.52

and you've got testing to do it's

1282.559

actually really useful you can take

1284.36

sometimes very senior developers and

1287.679

resources and say okay I need you to sit

1290.24

down and just like walk through test

1291.88

this application for me here even if

1293.44

it's just here's a script walk through

1295.36

it but usually it's like go test it

1297.96

don't give them much of a script and let

1299.52

them do it and they're going to break it

1300.559

they're going to give you all kinds of

1301.48

information back and they're going to

1302.96

learn that application the other thing

1305.36

is support it if you have a support desk

1307.24

or something like that it's a great way

1308.799

to bring people in because they're going

1310.36

to get questions they're going to get to

1311.64

know your customers they're going to

1313

understand the wise they're going to

1314.2

understand the problems they're

1315.679

understand the pain points and suddenly

1317.36

you've got somebody that really what

1319.559

they're probably also invested so maybe

1322.2

the first is they're invested because

1323.32

they know people they've got these

1325.84

relationships with people that they've

1327.48

talked to on you know or through email

1329.48

or communicated with so now they want to

1332

build a better product they know what

1334.24

the pain points are they're sort of like

1335.919

you know they're commiserating with them

1337.919

and now you have a very driven person to

1339.799

build your your product or improve your

1342.64

service thoughts on

1344.679

that yeah I have one additional thing to

1347.12

add to that so one of the other things

1350.96

I've encountered with new hires or even

1354.159

new teams

1356.679

is

1358.24

essentially um not scope creep but

1363.76

um basically we pivot too often so one

1368.799

of the problems you have is you you

1370.48

bring on a new team or a new

1372.679

employee give them a test and give them

1375.24

some time to absorve it give them some

1377.279

time to understand it to figure it out

1379.679

doesn't necessarily have to be a week or

1381.279

a month but don't go into a situation

1384.76

where okay today do this tomorrow do

1387.08

this oh wait every hour do this do this

1389.64

you're going to burn them out confuse

1391.52

the hell out of them frustrate them and

1393.12

they're going to walk out so please be

1396.2

very conscious of what tasks you do give

1399.2

the new hires so that they like Rob said

1403.48

testing and support are great ways to

1406.24

figure out the application the trick is

1408.559

so make sure you give them a workstation

1411.32

and an application that works the other

1414.32

thing that's very frustrating is when

1415.84

I've been handed a project and the code

1417.72

won't even compile so how the hell am I

1420.12

supposed to figure like I spent hours

1422.64

just looking at code and come to find

1424.64

out that someone forgot to include a

1426.679

file or someone accidentally um deleted

1429.52

a file and it's like so I'm trying to

1432.96

work on something that's already broken

1435.24

and you're telling me it works so just

1438.24

be very cautious of what tasks you do

1441.6

assign a new hire and make sure that

1444.84

you're giving them something that is

1446.6

both meaningful something that will help

1448.919

them learn the business learn what it is

1451.84

that you're all about what your product

1453.559

is and spend a little time with them

1456.679

don't just hire them and ignore them for

1459.159

a month you want to build that

1461.88

relationship you want to build include

1464.44

them within your business culture and

1466.64

the other thing is make sure

1468.88

you hand off make sure you give them the

1472.399

work and give them time to understand it

1474.44

don't fret over it and don't pull it

1477.08

back don't say I can do it better I can

1479.32

do it faster Let It Go one of the things

1482.559

Rob has taught me over the years is you

1484.6

have to let things go sometimes and this

1487

is one of the greatest examples of

1489

wanting to do that is you bring someone

1491

on you give them a task now I will say

1493.72

this do not give them a mission critical

1497.039

task as their first

1498.88

task you are just setting them up to

1501.96

fail or if they are a genius great maybe

1505.84

but never never give a new hire

1509.44

something that is Mission critical very

1512.399

highend deadline or maybe even your most

1515.679

uh important client something to do

1518.88

within a very short deadline if it's

1521.12

over months sure but please be very

1524.679

conscious of what tasks you do give your

1526.919

new employees or your new hire

1528.919

and make sure you do spend the time with

1530.76

them to make sure that they understand

1532.36

what they're doing I think that's very

1534.6

critical is that you want realize that

1537.159

one of the things you need to do is you

1538.44

need to when you're bringing somebody

1539.72

new in whether they're contractor

1541.12

whatever they are you need to make sure

1544.039

they succeed your goal should be that

1546.36

they s succeed so the early task should

1549.12

be you know like Michael said not

1551.6

critical not the kind of stuff that's

1553.279

like you know that the that you're

1555.48

expecting so even if they are an expert

1558.32

don't bring them in and just be like

1559.559

cool you're going to figure all this

1560.76

stuff out because that's not going to

1562.44

help and you're going to have some that

1563.96

you think as an expert and you're

1565.76

suddenly going to think they're a

1567.08

because they can't get it done but it's

1568.36

not it's because you didn't give them

1570.44

the opportunity to succeed which is the

1572.72

other part of what Michael's leaning

1574.08

towards it's like patience you have got

1576.48

to be patient and realize they're not

1579.48

going to pick it up immediately they're

1581.12

not going to do it as fast as you

1582.6

especially the first time they do it and

1584.48

they're going to make mistakes because

1585.6

there's going to be things that they

1586.64

don't realize and honestly look back at

1589.12

it as if they make mistakes it's

1591.399

probably because you made a mistake and

1593.159

did not communicate the details that you

1595.6

needed to beforehand and that is

1597.64

something that one of the best and worst

1600.799

things I did is the first actual

1603.64

employee I had was a son was one of my

1605.96

sons and so he was more than happy to

1608.679

say you didn't do this you didn't do

1610.399

this you didn't and he was right but it

1612.64

helped me as I was going through this

1614.399

stuff to be like oh yeah I handed this

1616.24

off but I didn't do this and I didn't

1618.88

add this part and I didn't provide this

1620.399

piece and it part of it was because of

1623.64

where he was and what I was used to but

1625.799

part of it was because I was not used to

1627.919

pulling that crap out of my head and

1630.159

sharing with somebody it's one of those

1631.44

things you're like well everybody knows

1632.72

it well you know what apparently not

1634.6

everybody because this person does not

1636.559

and you need to not you know it's not a

1639.72

personality flaw of theirs or that

1641.6

they're an idiot or something like that

1643.08

it's they don't know it's like we all

1645

have things we don't know and you know

1646.6

how you fix that is you tell them you

1648.279

let them know and then they're going to

1650.039

be more successful the next time around

1652.679

before you do the challenge

1655.559

darn add to that when you do have new

1658.799

hires depending upon your work culture

1661.559

if you're scrum agile whatever or if

1664.44

you're just a small team make sure you

1666.919

give time especially the first week or

1669.919

two or within the first month spend time

1673.24

in a safe space make sure that you can

1675.6

sit down with the employee and make sure

1677.72

that is a calm open conversation that

1681.32

like Rob said his son was able to tell

1683.48

him what he was doing wrong set up onein

1686.48

ones or open meetings where people can

1688.88

bounce ideas of where are things going

1690.799

good where are things going bad

1692.76

essentially a formal or an informal

1695.279

retrospective essentially in a

1696.96

one-on-one or maybe in a group setting

1699.32

but give them a chance to give you

1701.24

feedback don't just assume they're not

1704.399

doing their job maybe they need

1706.96

something from you but are afraid to

1709.72

ask that is I always hate that the

1713.519

phrase safe space in a sense because

1715.679

it's like it's loaded but it's true it's

1717.919

very much you have to I will say it I

1720.399

guess in more of the like the Gen X

1722.76

style of like people need to be they

1724.799

can't be afraid to fail you've got to

1726.559

allow the opportunity for failure

1729.6

because otherwise they're always going

1731.559

to be too scared to actually take any

1733.08

risks and then you end up with not what

1735.039

you want so really good point

1739.2

the challenge this week is going to be

1742.36

whether you need to hire somebody or not

1745.84

whether you need to bring somebody on or

1747.64

not is look at what you do over the next

1751.399

few days look at what you do what is

1753.44

your task list

1755.919

effectively and what would it mean for

1759.72

you to be able to what would be a piece

1761.559

that you could carve off and have

1764.519

somebody else

1765.799

do and do so in a way preferably if it's

1768.72

something where it's like this is not

1770.96

something that is you where you bring

1772.919

the most value something that is

1775.72

redundant or a little beneath you if you

1778.039

want to call call it that or however you

1779.559

want to look at it but basically

1780.72

something that this is not necessarily

1782.44

the best use of your time and then maybe

1784.6

it would be useful to find somebody that

1786.679

didn't cost as much to you to your

1788.32

company or anything else and have them

1789.679

do it it's much lice we we always talk

1791.96

about the 4-Hour Work week and doing

1793.519

like you know you can offshore stuff and

1795

Outsource stuff and all that kind of

1796.279

stuff it's that same kind of thing it's

1797.72

really is is in that Outsourcing

1800.88

mentality pick something that you would

1803.24

be able to that you should essentially

1806.2

you know push off or that you could and

1808.76

then just like spend a little time

1810.399

thinking about like what would it look

1811.679

like to hand that off to somebody else

1813.64

maybe you wrun a little note card it's

1814.76

like well I got to tell them this this

1815.76

and this or I got to teach them that

1817.36

because I think doing that in itself

1819.08

going through that exercise will help

1820.519

you if you have to do it it may also

1823.44

highlight something that you need to get

1824.799

rid of and get off your plate and it may

1826.559

even just help you better understand

1828.64

what it is that you do because now

1830.76

you're it's always more educational for

1833.44

you have to teach this to somebody else

1835.519

than it is for you to just like know it

1837.679

in your head just like I'm going to

1840.279

teach you right now actually I'm not you

1842.32

should already know this to send us an

1843.76

email shoot an email to info

1845.76

developer.com and let us know what is up

1848.159

what what do you like what don't you

1849.799

like what are some topics that you would

1851.96

like for us to cover whether it is in

1854.559

this this season of how do we build

1856.84

better businesses what are some things

1858.279

that we can do to make our businesses

1860

bigger better stronger if you've got

1862.399

some suggestions or some questions

1864.039

related to that we would love to hear it

1866.559

you can also leave us comments at

1869.08

anywhere at developer.com they got

1870.88

comment stuff everywhere we've got a

1872.2

contact us form you can hit us up at X

1875.039

develop andur we have stuff out there we

1877.679

are out on Facebook we got a develop

1879.24

andur Facebook page there's eventually

1881.519

some other stuff we may do but I'm not a

1883.76

socials guy so some point we'll get

1886.12

there for now let's go with those but

1888.519

wherever feel free to like just search

1890.519

for developer or this if you're

1891.88

listening to this 20 years from now you

1893.279

may find us in the new like whatever the

1895.88

social site is that being said we're

1897.799

going to wrap this one up because

1900.039

probably gone a little longer we need to

1901.399

but hey you got it for free so hopefully

1905.32

and hopefully you got more out of this

1906.76

than just free Hing you got a little bit

1908.6

of value out of this one go out there

1910.559

and have yourself a great day a great

1912.159

week and we will talk to you next

1915.399

time bonus material

1918.559

so you mentioned 4our work week and I

1921.76

forget the r are he was talking about

1926

one chapter in the book he was talking

1927.48

about the guy that worked for the

1928.639

magazine where he read some book about

1932.399

virtualization and he started hiring

1934.679

virtual assistants so one of the

1937.679

interesting things about what the topic

1939.799

we just talked about if you don't have

1942.12

employees and are looking to hire

1944.279

employees consider do some little

1947.919

Googling around look at what a virtual

1951.039

assistant could possibly bring you as a

1953.919

trial run before bringing on an employee

1957.559

sometimes just getting an assistant to

1959.76

help peel things off what you do every

1962.559

day is a very good way to help one

1965.279

figure out if you are a person that is

1967.2

willing to let go and two if you can

1970.96

work with the virtual assistant then you

1972.84

potentially are in a good very good

1974.84

place to hire someone on and be able to

1977.08

hand off Tas to someone else if the

1980.6

reason I say this is working with a

1983.44

virtual assistant can be challenging up

1985.919

front especially if you do overseas you

1988.799

may have to go through one or two but

1990.639

this is very good practice and possibly

1992.639

a very cheap way to figure out if you

1996.24

are in a place where you can hire

1997.96

someone and actually get benefits from

2001.08

the new

2003.159

employee that is yeah that's one of

2006.44

those that's the nice thing about the

2008.48

4our work week one of the things that he

2009.919

brought up is like you should test this

2011.48

out you should like do it in bite-sized

2014.96

chunks basically like do it you know go

2017.24

decide you're going to spend 50 bucks or

2019.559

100 bucks or a thousand bucks whatever

2020.88

it is um and and keep it self-contained

2025.159

so that you can learn how to do that

2027.399

because it is something that I think

2029.72

everybody thinks it's like oh I can do

2031.279

this this a piece of cake until you have

2032.76

to do it and it's like and every time

2036.88

like I've talked a lot lot of people a

2038.24

lot of different ways in different

2039.519

situations it's like it's amazing how

2041.159

often people are like I can do this over

2042.919

here but I can't do it over there you

2044.559

know it's like it's very different to do

2046.24

these things where it is

2049.24

um it's something that like you know

2052.919

very well and you know like inside and

2057.24

out the thing that you think would be

2059.639

the one that's like this is something I

2061.56

can pass off to somebody else turns out

2063.04

to be the hardest one you it turns out

2064.72

to be that's the one that like the thing

2066.52

that you really don't like like and

2068.72

maybe it is because you're spending all

2070

the time in your head going I don't like

2071.639

this I don't like this I don't like this

2073

but then you can tell them do this do

2074.48

this do this um yeah it's like practice

2077.839

makes I don't know if it makes perfect

2079.599

but practice makes you better at least

2081.919

and so take a look at something like

2084.119

that do like there's like you may go and

2086.52

like and it's actually a benefit anyways

2088.56

we've talked about this before it's a

2089.679

benefit to go to like upwork or Fiverr

2091.32

or one of those places not as a provider

2094.079

but as a uh a seller or a buyer

2097.28

basically or whatever it is as a

2098.72

customer and go like have people you

2101.72

know bid $5 to do or whatever you know

2104.2

to do whatever your project is or to do

2106

your work or go out and at upwork or or

2108.76

somebody like that and go hire somebody

2110.88

in because it's seeing it from the other

2113.24

side I think gives you much more

2115.52

information about how to T really to

2118.119

like win that process if we call it that

2120.68

and then it also allows you to like it

2123.839

forces you even to go through the

2125.88

process of like how do I

2128.16

how do I really do this how do I take

2130

this from my head and put it down

2132.44

essentially on paper so that it can now

2135.16

which is what we do when we automate too

2136.64

it's like how do I take those steps and

2139.48

limit you know uh walk through those and

2142.56

say Here's a you know why out these are

2144.28

the steps and then have something do

2146.48

those steps um we can do it I know we

2149.52

can because we've done it in all these

2150.839

other places it's just a little harder

2152.48

to do it but it's worth it to do it in

2154.4

real

2155.16

life I think that's enough on this one

2157.48

we we have gone a little bit we've had

2158.92

some bonus material on the front and the

2160.8

back end so hey you guys have been

2163

bonused out uh feel free to shoot us an

2166

email let us know if you've got any

2167.28

feedback leave comments you know leave

2169.079

us a review all that kind of good stuff

2170.839

we do read them eventually uh we get to

2173.119

them hopefully we get them right away

2174.4

but sometimes you know mail doesn't

2175.8

notify us properly that stuff has been

2178.839

you know that we've been communicated

2180.359

with so apologies technology is not

2183.04

always awesome go out there though and

2185.56

have yourself a great day maybe get away

2187.24

from your technology for a little bit

2188.64

now that you have had your your daily uh

2191.24

you know YouTube session with us good

2193.76

there and have a good one and we will

2194.8

talk to you next time

2198.55

[Music]