Hiring staff can be quite gratifying to the ego. “All these people work for ME!”
Successful entrepreneurs understand the need to keep staff numbers to a minimum. Here’s why:
- HR issues
You want to spend your time building and selling. Not settling squabbles over sick leave allowances and salary advances.
The more staff you have, the more squabbles you deal with.
- Overheads kill companies
More staff = more salaries = more overheads. Overheads kill companies, especially in tough times when you need to rapidly reduce costs.
- Staff slow you down
Jonathan Fields wrote a book, Uncertainty, which talks about how human beings have a built-in gene that determines their tolerance for uncertainty.
The majority of people have a low tolerance for uncertainty, which explains why only a minority of people become entrepreneurs.
Entrepreneurs have a high tolerance for uncertainty.
Any startup begins with a team of people with a high tolerance for uncertainty, which is why there is a lack of rules, policy and bureaucracy.
As a company grows it adds new staff. The law of averages states that the more staff you have the more your company’s tolerance of uncertainty will gravitate towards the population average, in other words: your company will become risk averse.
Your staff will start demanding rules and policies so that they feel comfortable and can minimise uncertainty.
A bureaucracy will be established and your company will slow down, killing you or the company, or both.
Entrepreneurs don’t hire people.