Perhaps you’ve been thriving in your business so far, but you’re starting to notice this plateau in sales. Maybe you’re starting to feel like you’re biting off more than you can chew and work is getting overwhelming. You don’t want to give up on this business, but you need more revenue for it to give you the financial freedom you’ve always dreamed about. At the same time, you’re feeling like you’re on the brink of burnout.

This is a completely natural part of the business cycle, and if you’re going through this, there’s definitely a way out! You probably know what the solution is deep in your heart, let’s say it together: it’s time to build a team.

I know building a team can feel intimidating. You may believe wholeheartedly that you can keep doing this on your own — especially since up until this point, you’ve been building this business by yourself. However, take it from someone who’s been in your shoes and who has grown multiple six-figure businesses: a team is going to help you exponentially grow your business.

Stick around if this is your situation and your thought process because, in this blog, we’re going to cover the three signs it’s time to build a team!

Sign 1: You’re turning away inquiries

This one is quite self-explanatory, but it still needs to be said because I think it’s a sign that can be easily dismissed. Before we jump in too far, I want to pause for a moment and say that if you’re at this stage of business — where you’re turning down clients because you’re consistently booked — this is actually something to celebrate! It indicates that your messaging is working and you’re effectively communicating your value to your potential clients. Before you get too worked up about turning away business, you should be super proud of yourself for getting to this point.

However, we all know that in order to keep growing and scaling your business, you’ll need to bring on more team members so you’re not hindering or delaying this process.

I know that in this stage of business, we often wish we could clone ourselves so we won’t have to take the time to onboard team members. Or maybe the hesitation lies more in not knowing if hiring a team member will give you a return on your investment. If you’re feeling any of these or have other doubts, I highly recommend listening to a recent 1:1 coaching call I did with Olive Street Events. In this podcast episode, we talked in-depth about the benefits of a team and the best practices for going about hiring and onboarding — and it may answer some questions and alleviate some worries you may have!

Sign 2: You’re overwhelmed with tasks

The second sign that it’s time to hire team members is that you’re feeling overwhelmed with tasks — especially the tasks that steal your joy or the ones you don’t do well in comparison to others.

We all get into business to do a craft that we love — but as you well know, you quickly find out that’s not the only thing we can focus on if we want to run a thriving business. We have to wear more hats like social media manager, accountant, client concierge, customer service, etc. There are a lot of tasks that need to get done that have nothing to do with why you started your business in the first place.

Sometimes that’s totally fine because we end up discovering we love learning certain aspects of building a business. For example, I started Blush because I love wedding planning — but as the business grew, I also realized I love budget-setting! On the flip side, there are tasks we absolutely dread. These are the tasks that can make it unmotivating to sit down at your desk every day to keep the needle moving forward in your business. For me, one of those aspects is accounting and taxes. Even though I love setting budgets and analyzing our numbers from previous years to set goals, I despise sitting down to do taxes.

Another drawback of trying to do all the tasks yourself is that the tasks you don’t like doing (or don’t have a lot of expertise in) can end up taking you much longer than a specialist. And that alone can end up costing you more money than if you hired someone to help you.

Let’s put this into a more concrete example. Imagine you bill your company $100/hour for your salary and it takes you four hours to reconcile your QuickBooks. You could have paid someone else way less than $400 to do it for you while you spent time selling and booking more clients.

Sign 3: You’re feeling burned out

Burnout feels like detachment from your business, a loss of motivation, an increasingly negative attitude about the future and present, and decreased satisfaction. This is what we want to avoid at all costs because burnout can quickly zap all the joy you once found in your business.

The best way to avoid burnout? Taking breaks.

But if you’re a solopreneur, it’s going to be hard to take a break from your business. When you’re not at your desk, who’s answering the phone? Who’s planning the events? Who’s talking to the vendors?

The thought of never being able to spend a day away from your business can be overwhelming and can easily lead to burnout because you won’t ever have time for yourself, your family, and the other activities that you love. Building your team can help you take small breaks from your business and allow you to have more space to be creative, dream, plan, and grow!

A healthy-minded CEO is imperative to a healthy business.

Going forward

Ok, so I know that was a lot of information all at once, but I hope that you got some clarity after reading this blog post. We can only cover so much in one day, so if you’re ready to start taking actionable steps towards building your team, I highly recommend applying for the Building Your Team Intensive by my friends at The Abundance Group!

In this comprehensive course, they’ll walk you through each step so that you can go from feeling like everything we just talked about to a feeling at peace because you have a thriving team that’s got your back. Click here to join them and get ready to build the business of your dreams!