The Right Time to Hire an Operator
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When running a business, it can be difficult to determine the right time to bring on additional staff. This is especially true when it comes to hiring an operator. Truthfully, this is because most people don’t really understand what operators do.
In general, operators are responsible for managing the day-to-day execution of the business. Fantastic operators are also strategic translators, helping you think through how high-level goals manifest in low-level actions across your company.
So, how do you know when it's time to hire an operator? Here are a few signs that it may be time to bring someone on board:
😫 Too Much Work, Too Little Time
If you're finding yourself constantly working long hours and struggling to keep up with the demands of your business, it may be time to hire an operator. When you start a business, you’ll find that you are doing anything and everything to make your company function. But if you are successful in growing your revenue, you will need to start thinking about where your time is most valuable, which may not be in operational work.
Bringing on someone to handle the day-to-day operations can free up your time to focus on growing the business and tackling bigger picture issues. Operations roles that fall under this domain are Chief Operating Officers, Directors of Operations, Managing Directors, Operations Managers, or Operations Coordinators. These people tend to come on and be the right hand in the business, so you can focus on growth and innovation.
🚀 It’s Time to Expand and Scale
If your business is growing, or you're ready to take your company to the next level, bringing on an operator is a key component to making this happen smoothly. Expansion and scaling is all about seeing how the dominoes of your business need to be stacked, so they fall into place exactly when you need it. Seasoned operators have honed their aperture to be able to do this in their sleep.
Now depending on how you are expanding or scaling, what you’ll have to decide is if you’ll need someone to manage the end-to-end execution of your business, or an operator with specialized skills to help you hone in on specific aspects of where you want to grow the business. For more generalized operations management, the same roles listed above will work for you. For more specialized skills, check out the next section.
⚙️ Tackling Specialized Initiatives
At some point in your business, you’ll embark on an initiative or project that requires your team to learn a whole new platform, skill, or way of working. Oftentimes, business owners will have everyone learn the new thing from the ground up, and what you end up with is the lost leading the lost. Unfortunately, this results in wasted time, energy, money and effort with a whole lot of frustration.
Instead, this is a great moment to bring on an operator that specializes in that initiative, technology, or platform to help lead the charge. Not only do they know all the hacks to get results faster, but they can train up the existing team in the new way of working, so adoption happens smoothly, and the investment is worthwhile. Operations roles in this realm are — Operations Engineers, Project Operations Managers, Product Operations Managers, or Operations Analysts, or Operations Specialists, to name a few.
👉 Wrap Up
Hiring an operator can be a critical step in ensuring the success of your business. By paying attention to the signs that it's time to bring on additional support, you can make the right decision for your business and take it to the next level.