Posted by geoffyoung101 on March 21, 2016 at 5:16pm
Another topic troubling me, which is somewhat linked to my post on ways of finding work, is how to get some additional help - an extra pair of hands.
There are many tasks I know I could delegate, particularly some of the mechanical tasks: marketing activity, research, testing, helping me develop services and propositions .... I should mention that I am very blessed that my partner looks after my bookkeeping - what a boon that is ! And she keeps me in check too ;-)
If I can drive more business then I can pay for these services - I get that. But as a small business I feel a little trapped between needing help on the one hand and driving revenue on the other. They feel like two sides of the same coin.
Any thoughts ?
Comments
That doesn't get any easier
That doesn't get any easier as you get bigger! ;-)
There's 15 of us "permie" and another half dozen fairly permanent sub-contractors, and we (the management) still find ourselves doing a lot of the admin stuff you'd think we shouldn't be doing.
The only thing I can think of here is when it was just me at CMS Pros, I actually found some like-minded freelancers and we kind of worked together - a couple of other developers and a freelance project manager. That worked because we all did a bit of marketing, research, business development, but we kind of did it in a way that benefited us all. E.g. if one of the other devs worked out how to automate testing with Jenkins, they'd show the other two - if the project manager came across an interesting piece of work, we'd pick the business that had the most sensible portfolio and pitch for it together - and so on.
It was sort of a loose co-op, but all of us still remaining totally autonomous. I think I found these people simply via Drupal meet-ups, which are already being discussed in another thread - so maybe thinking along similar lines and seeing if there's anyone you gel with at Drupal meet-ups that you think "I could work with this person!" and take it from there. :-)