How to Hire for a Growing Company

“If I’m better than our people at accounting or marketing or acquiring properties, I’m not hiring good enough people.”

– Chris Powers

As the company continues to grow, and it’s something I’ve learned, when it’s smaller, I’m not saying I was great at any one thing, but I was good enough at a lot of things to get several things done. The truth of the matter is as this company continues to grow, we didn’t hire Abby because we felt like we were better at marketing but we just needed someone that would listen to what we had to do. You hire someone that’s bringing something to the table that you can’t do. The truth is, as we get bigger, my job is not to be better than anybody at anything.

If I’m better than people at accounting, if I’m better than people at marketing, if I’m better than people at acquiring property, I’m not hiring good enough people. My goal is to be great at recruiting, at raising money, at leading the team, at thinking about where we’re going next. But in any one skill set, if everybody feels like they have to come to me or they have to come to you for that final answer, we’re in bad shape.

Every time the company grows, every new person that comes on, if everybody you keep hiring on that team depends on you for that final answer, all you’re doing really is weighing your own self down. You’re slowing down yourself, which in turn is slowing down the team. If I approach every meeting or every discussion where somebody comes to me with a question, or they messed up and the response is in a way it’s like, “Well I’m glad you came to me because I know way more than you do. I’m going to give you this answer, and I’m not going to make you figure it out”, you’re kind of inviting more and more. So, it’s me understanding when I’m being told somebody’s having an issue or problem, I don’t necessarily know the answer any better than you do.

We’ve talked a lot about that in the past about our egos and because we come from a place where we were willing to make those decisions. We really didn’t have a choice because there was nobody else to go to. Naturally, when problems come at us, we do one thing. We solve them. We take them and we say, “We would do this. I would do this.” You have to recognize that is not beneficial to the growth or getting us into a position where we can actually provide more to them.