The 20+ People It Takes to Run Our Growing Company
Episode 308: Show Notes
Welcome back to another episode of your favorite podcast! Today we are answering your requests to break down the various roles we currently have at our company. So, just for all of you, we will be unpacking the size and impact of each of these in our beautiful little biz! We have been taking on new people and restructuring lately so what better time than now to do this exploration. We finally have a solid group and each role is pretty clear, which is more than we used to be able to say! We have to admit that for quite a long time certain jobs and departments remained quite a mystery to us, what they were really for and how much we could ask. Building a business is always going to include bringing people on and letting people go and it can sometimes prove quite hard to find the right fit. But we are much more confident right now than we have ever been!
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So at the moment we have a nice mix of new faces and old hands and we have to shout out once again to Traction, the book we have drawn so much inspiration from, for helping us figure out our company structure. We have had to change our mindset from small business owners to the CEOs and founders of a company, which is harder than it sounds! It has taken three years of trial and error and in the beginning we did not even have plans to build a team at all! We are still figuring out how big we want to be; right now we stand at about 20 people working on things. Quite a lot, we know! Some of these are contracted out, some are employees, some are part time, but it is quite crazy to us that there are so many heads together on our little biz! So stay tuned as we dive into our business together.
Content Coordination and Facebook Group Management
Allie was our second ever hire and she was such a natural fit that she has just stuck around! Her job title falls somewhere between blog coordinator and content coordinator with a lot of her time now spent on the podcast. She makes sure that the content is sent out to the right people, manages the editing and formatting, basically she is in charge of the chain of processes for the show. She also makes sure all the scheduling and posting matches up and things are achieved on time. Her role has grown over time, now occupying a more overall management of the things she started out helping out on. Another group who have been with us for quite a while are the trio that help us manage our Facebook Group. Sam, Kit and Molly are not on our payroll, but their work and effort is so appreciated by us and the entire community. Their work includes managing the madness, filtering content and posts and making sure that the group remains a valuable place for all of its members. They started out as just members of our growing tribe and just fell into the role of admins for the group, which makes it so much more easy for us to relax knowing things are not falling apart.
Bookkeeper, Accountant and Financial Advisor
Our work husband, Parker, joined us in January 2017 and most you know he is one of our favorites! He keeps our books in order and we even had him on a show a while ago. He has served such an integral purpose right from the start, helping us with growing pains and very particular hurdles. Further back we would have monthly meetings with him and over the course of his stay we have learned so, so much from all of his wisdom! He still provides us with monthly reviews and reports and is very important to our team as it continues to grow! Amy, our accountant, works with Parker and joined our team at a similar time, she is accountant to the business and both of us individually and helps us with all the tax and legal stuff which can be so complicated! She only comes in about once a quarter and she is another person we have learned a lot from by just listening to her. We would recommend hiring an accountant before looking for a bookkeeper as it seems more foundational to us. Abagail is actually more than capable of handling out accounts but we decided that her energy was more valuable elsewhere and taking that weight off of her shoulders was a great decision for the biz. Our financial advisor, Cameron has a slightly more personal touch, helping us with the future, personal incomes and retirement preparation. He also has helped us prepare for the worst case scenarios and legalities of deaths or injuries. He basically knows everything that is going on and is in our corner for all things money!
Podcasting and Audio
When we started recording this podcast we knew that no matter what we were not up for learning the audio and editing side of that, it just did not appeal to us at all! We wanted to just talk and then hand it over. So we hired a podcasting editing company from the get go, they do all the work on the audio, adding our intro, cutting parts, preparing show notes, everything! The company we hire for this task is called We Edit Podcasts and Allie mostly deals with them, handing everything over and then it magically comes back all ready to go. We do not really know the inner workings of the company but they get the job done and we love them for it. It just makes the whole process so easy!
Director of Operations, Ads Team and Graphic Designer
It is a full time job to interface with everyone and the role of Director of Operations was a hard one to fill. When Abagail got really sick, we realized it was something that had to be done. The job can be hard to define, describe and measure and when we hired Angela we had to slowly find out what was most important for her to do. This entailed a process of constant tweaking and we seem to have now find our way. She handles a lot of the onboarding and day to day team management. Last year in March we brought on some help for Facebook Ads, something that was a lot more work than even we knew. It entails content creation, copywriting and more, there are at least four people on this team who get this done. They focus on strategy, data and analytics and work on these things almost every day! Tara has been with us for a quite a long time now and Abagail has known her since before we started the business. We brought her on as a graphic designer and she works with us and a few other clients. She does almost all of the graphic work for us and it is so fantastic to have someone, on demand, who we can trust.
CFO and Customer Service Specialist
We really did not ever think we would have a CFO! Megan is such a dream and we are so grateful to have her on our team now. As we have morphed we needed a new level of help with our finances and Megan is constantly focused on increasing cash flow and helping us to look ahead to the future. It was only subsequent to hiring her that we could see just how valuable she is and at the moment we meet with her about once a month to break things down. Another newish face is Jordan, who joined us about a month ago. Working with contractors is one thing, but having someone full time, working when we work is great. Jordan is our customer service expert and she deals with all related issues including our overflowing inbox!
Sponsorships Pitcher and Marketing Director
As we have grown we have had to start thinking about sponsorships and paid partnerships and Emily is helping us in this regard, enhancing this process, finding sponsors and more. She has literally just started so we will keep you updated on this! Our newest member has not even really begun work and you might have heard her on a recent episode of the show! Suzi’s interview on the show turned into a job interview! And as our new marketing director she will be taking this department into a new realm! We know about marketing but our heads are so full of details that keeping everything going can be a bit much, so she is here to keep all of our balls in the air!
Quote This
You don’t need to be the person doing all of the things in your business.
Highlights
Content Coordination and Facebook Group Management. [0:08:08.5]
Bookkeeper, Accountant and Financial Advisor. [0:12:10.3]
Podcasting and Audio. [0:20:42.1]
Director of Operations, Ads Team and Graphic Designer. [0:25:23.7]
CFO and Customer Service Specialist. [0:36:10.5]
Sponsorships Pitcher and Marketing Director. [0:42:26.1]
