Posted May 24, 2024
Running a business as an author can be time-consuming and stressful. In this episode, Emilia Rose shares how she has built a team of 5+ incredible folks to help her run her bookish empire that spans audiobooks, comics, book boxes, merch store, and more!
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#81 Episode Transcript:
All right, everyone, and welcome back to another episode of the Storytellers Rule The World Show. My name is Michael, and I’m actually here at an airport now, traveling back home from college, officially done, which means we’re gonna have a lot more amazing episodes for you all. And this one, I think, will be really special.
It’s me and Amelia, Amelia back on the podcast, and Amelia Rhodes is gonna be speaking to us all about how she manages her team of five. Plus, she has more than five. PAs. Personal assistants, author assistants. She really calls them her team members. Whatever you want to label and build your team around, Amelia Rose has built an incredible team that takes her time.
She now spends most of it writing. And also running Ream. So, she’s busy, don’t worry. But when it comes to running her book business, she is a team that does that now. And she’s able to publish in audiobooks, comics, translations, and doing tons of other really amazing things. Running a shop, she has. A merch store for romance readers.
And she’s doing all of this with her team. So I’m going to be sharing with you today how Amelia does that. And how she builds her bookish team. And me and Amelia both have strong opinions on how to build a team. I don’t think there’s one right way to build a team or not. So as you listen to our advice in this podcast, just know that I don’t think this is the only answer.
I think this And answer for you to build a great team. And I hope it’s useful because I myself have spent a lot of my time building a team over the last year reams close to double digits now in terms of our team. And in doing that, I have lots of strong opinions and hopefully some interesting insights on how to build a great team that works for you, that works for your team, and that ultimately works for the people you’re serving, which is your readers.
Now we also have this summit pass, which is live now, um, from when this podcast will be uploaded, it’s live for one more week. The story goes, the world summit pass. And if you join for season one, it’s four summits that you get access to and Poe, a Mastermind CUNY, and virtual co working space for authors.
It’s an awesome, awesome space and we’re going to be going, doing so many amazing summits over the next year. Discovery for Authors Summit, a Craft Summit. Subscriptions for author summit again and a serial summit and if you want access to all of that and to learn more about the Special things we’re doing in Poe just go into the description check out the link there It’ll be live for one more week.
We’d love to have you there with us now in the meantime We’re gonna get right into this episode. Thank you so much for being here. And as always storytellers rule the world
Amelia, this is your first podcast back with us in quite a while. So how are you doing? Good. Just doing work and uh, writing and working on Ream. So it’s been really great. That’s good. Yeah, it feels like we’re like at that point and we’re like, this is my favorite time of the year.
Like right as we head into summer. Oh, we do. But like, there’s so much that can still happen, but we also are definitely into the year. Oh, I’m kidding. Yeah, no, me too. I love this time of year. It just feels like there’s so many more opportunities. I don’t know why, but yeah, it’s really nice just to like, be able to get outside, you know, get some sun and uh, think, right?
Yeah, the sun is important. Uh, yes. And. Yeah, for most folks, at least in the northern hemisphere, we’re headed into a nice time of year. And for Australians, well, it’s, it’s, you know, I feel like have pretty decent whether you’re around if you at least, if you can deal with the heat, but I know you’re headed into winter for Australians.
And I know we have some folks listening in South America as well, which is super, super cool. Today we’re going to be talking about something I think like very interesting because you have such unique insight around this topic and it’s not something we’ve talked too much about. I, I talked about the importance of hiring a team in a prior podcast episode, uh, maybe 10 weeks ago, but I didn’t talk specifically like what that really looks like.
I more talked about like my philosophy around it. Versus, we’re going to talk about how you actually hired a team of now five or six. I think it’s, we’re, we’re like five, six right now. Yeah. Five going on to six. Yeah. That’s, that’s a small army for the Amelia Rose Gay. Yeah. It’s pretty cool. I really love it.
Um, it’s given me a lot of time, a lot more free time now that they have most of the work and it’s giving me more time to focus on writing better stories. Thanks. Thanks. So, yeah, no, I mean, that’s obviously you’re kind of at the point that I think a lot of authors dream of, where not only do you have the business doing well, but you’re not, the business doesn’t own you, you get to own your business and spend time on what you care about.
But obviously, that’s not like an overnight thing. And I know this because I’ve kind of watched this transition over the last couple of years where, you know. You did not start off with five or five assistants. So tell me about what things were like when you were full time, but didn’t have. These assistants, how did that, what was your typical day in the life like and what kind of started to get you thinking that maybe it’s a good idea to build a team around you?
Yeah, so, um, when I, I quickly hired my assistant, probably like, actually, I was still in college, so I was writing. In college, making a full time income in my senior year. Um, and I had released my first like official book on retailers, like Amazon, um, in September. Um, and then I hired my first assistant in April and like in that in between time, um, there were things piling up like newsletters that I really didn’t want to do.
I didn’t want to write the newsletter. Um, and then a lot of like admin work with. Marketing and retailers and it just wasn’t something that I wanted to do anymore. And I had already, I was already like a full time student plus writing. So it was really difficult, um, to kind of keep that up. Um, so I talked to my husband and he was like, I don’t know if you should, I don’t know if it’s the time.
And I was like, it’s the time I’m going to try it. Um. And basically I ended up finding somebody who is really, really awesome. She worked with one other author before, um, so she knew a little bit about what we do. Um, and she was the first person I hired. And she stayed with me three years before I hired any, pretty much anyone else.
Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And what she was doing, um, like maybe uploading books to some of the retailers for you. She was mostly doing newsletter stuff. Um, yeah. And like, um, newsletter swaps, marketing, social media, Facebook group, stuff like that. Um, and she started at, I think we started her at five hours a week. Um, and then we moved her up to, Uh, we just moved her up throughout the years.
So, um, so yeah, is that autumn? Yeah, that’s autumn. Yeah. Autumn is the first one. Okay. Yeah. Autumn is great. Yeah. So, okay. Very interesting. So when you decided to bring autumn on, like what specifically, like why specifically I’m, I’m, I wanna say it like her autumn because like, I know, I know the person, but, but like, what made you specifically choose her over, like, did you look at like 10 different potential people?
Yeah. Was it just, hey, autumn, maybe already asked to help? Like, how did you land? Like I, I could definitely consider how you landed on needing help, but how did you land on this specific person? Yeah. So, um, one of the things that, um, when I. started looking for people. There were a lot of PAs in the author world, um, and there was PA groups where you can find PAs.
And for me, I didn’t want somebody, um, and this isn’t trying to like put anyone down or anything, um, I didn’t want somebody who worked with a bunch of different authors. I wanted somebody who Um, worked primarily like with just me and that’s just in the beginning. Um, I wanted her to maybe work with one other person, maybe two other people.
Um, but I needed her to know certain things, um, like how to run a newsletter on Miller Lite. Um, and then I also wanted her to. You know, like set aside time in her day for specifically me and not worry about a bunch of other clients. Um, so instead of using those like PA Facebook groups, I went on Upwork, um, and I posted a job for virtual assistants and there were a bunch of people who applied, um, Autumn is somebody who really stuck out to me, there was Autumn and somebody else, um, the other girl was in Australia, um, Autumn lives in the United States.
So that was one of the factors, um, when hiring her, but also I interviewed them like on a video call, both of them. And they were both great, but me and Autumn clicked a lot better. Um, and it kind of was just like, this is the person I see, like running my business with me. Um, I know she’s going to do a great job.
I don’t mind paying her a little bit more. Um, then. Some, like, other applicants who gave me their, um, specific, what, like, per hour rates. Um, Autumn was a little bit higher and I was like, that’s totally fine with me, um, because I know she’s going to do really great work. So that was a bunch of different factors that kind of played into that.
Yeah, no, I think that’s super helpful. I mean, you know, it’s interesting because, You know, there’s this kind of idea of, you know, if you’re a cover designer or book editor, like you’re definitely gonna need a lot of clients. Like there’s rarely like a single author who can produce enough words to be able to, um, actually kind of fill up a calendar.
But when we’re talking about like a PA, it’s actually less of like, you know, um, A sort of service provider and more like they’re truly on your team. Like they’re not doing one task. They’re, they’re sort of owning an area of your business. Ideally, because what I’ve noticed with a lot of authors, and you don’t have this and we’ll get into this for a lot of authors hire a PA and they hire someone who is just getting tasks done, which is really great to get tasks done.
We need that, but you’re still going to have to manage them. And deliver them those tasks in a way that’s much more hands on than a lot of authors are used to. Now some authors come from management background, um, some authors have run other companies or have been, you know, management in companies before.
And if that’s you, then you might be very comfortable with the idea of, I’m going to be author and a manager. But most authors don’t want to be author and a manager. You want to be author and you’re trying to help this person take away the other stuff for you. But what I see oftentimes happen His authors will bring that person on and then sure they might not be drafting the newsletter But they now have this other form of work that’s like managing.
Yeah person and it sounds like in the case Of who you brought on for two reasons. One, because they, um, they are awesome. Like, that’s the first thing. And, you know, paying someone who’s awesome is, is great. And also, there’s a type of thing too, where if you pay someone better, they might, they will give you something that’s more awesome too.
Um, so that’s totally a thing. Um, but then the other thing, I think is that you, you know, the fact that they were able to focus on, you gave them ownership of what they were doing for you versus just running around in a bunch of different tasks for everyone. Yeah, and that’s 1 of the, um, so when people say assistance, I don’t really view my team as a team of assistance.
I’ll sometimes call it that because it’s easier for people to understand. Um, but as I built my team, I basically. Everybody I bring on, I give them ownership of a specific, like, part of my business. So, for example, I have a, like, quote unquote, assistant for my comics. Um, but I call her a director of comics.
And so she does everything for comics with me, or for me, um, or for the team. Um, and then I have somebody for audio, who just does All audio stuff, um, and she makes decisions. She reaches out to people and it’s off my plate because I’m not delegating her tasks. What I’m doing is I’m giving her like ownership of a specific part of this business and telling her go.
I trust you. I’m not going to like micromanage you or anything. I. Brought you on for a reason. I know you’re capable of, you know, like thinking and, um, making decisions and figuring out what’s working, what’s not. So you have ownership of this. Go, go do it. Um, and be successful with it. And I’ll give you the tools to be successful.
I’ll give you advice. Um, but yeah, so I don’t necessarily think of my like team as assistants, more as like owners of products in my business. And that, yeah, that’s like a really key mindset shift. And I’ve heard a lot of, um, you know, this is just something I think prevalent in the digital business space is like a lot of digital businesses start off hiring, um, you know, people who are legally contractors before they’re full time and many businesses only hire contractors because they’re not, you know, The workload of a full time employee just isn’t needed to own a specific role, which that’s not a bad thing.
That’s like, you know, it’s a great thing. Um, in many cases, you know, being a contractor can give people more freedom, et cetera. But 1 of the kind of things I’ve heard, and, you know, this is in many conversations with people, um, is people almost kind of like, Treating their team as if like, um, like, oh, I’ll just kind of like, throw this on them and like, like, it’ll almost like, like, be a checkbox.
Right. And then like, oh, they’ll check, check off this task. Right. And how cheaply can I check off this task? How quickly can I do it? And they’re not thinking long term about, like, you’re getting a, like, a real person who’s filling a role for you. It can be creative, who can take the lead and make it better than you think.
But that takes time to invest in, which I’m curious for you. Now that you have five people working on your team going on six, um, you know, you don’t just like hands on a password and say, okay, here are my audio books go. What does that look like in terms of how do you set someone up? Let’s assume that you found the right person.
How do you set them up for success when working with you is that, you know, you can achieve your goals as an author, write more and hopefully, you know, continue delivering great books to more readers, but then they can achieve their goal, which is, you know, you know, Doing a great job with that, that area that they own and not being confused, not being stressed, because, you know, you don’t want people on your team to constantly like running around like a chicken their head cut off.
So how do you kind of onboard them slash bring them onto the team? Yeah, so, um, first I start them off. I don’t start them off with a lot of tasks. Usually when people start with me, they start like a couple hours a week, max. Um, and I will slowly give them tasks until, like, I’ll give them a task. And I, when I know that they’re really good at the task, I’ll give them another task.
Um, and then we’ll slowly move them up to higher and higher hours per week. Um, something else is. You know, getting on calls with them, video calls specifically, um, and. Answering all their questions. And usually my team and I will have like one call a month where we’re all together and, and we can all bounce ideas back and forth on each other.
Um, but there’s a couple other things to this. Um, one of them is I was talking to somebody in RPG, his name’s Wallace. Um, and he is like a business. Manager type of guy, um, and he was talking and telling me like, Hey, you have to start thinking of your business as a business. Like you’re running, like, basically a company.
Um, and so what you need are like standard, like operating procedures that you put in place. Um. Where you write out step by step every single task that you do. So when somebody new comes into your business, you can just give them those, like, documents and be like, Hey, um, use these documents. This is the exact, um, exactly what I do for these tasks.
Um, use the documents and complete the tasks. Um, from there, people Like the people who you bring on, they might find a better way to optimize what you’re doing or find some things not working. And so they can kind of like, edit those procedures and documentation and, um, kind of make it their own. Um, another thing that I invest in.
I try to invest in, um, a lot is education for my team. I, there’s a lot of different, um, courses or, um, yeah, just courses or summits or whatever it might be that is available. Um, but I don’t have time to listen to it. I don’t want to listen to it. So I will give them to my team to be like, Hey, uh, go. Listen to this thing.
I’ll pay you to listen to it. Um, your hourly rates and yeah, you’ll learn some stuff that you can implement into the business and it’ll be good
at like investing in your team and like the education aspect. Like, I know, too, that you’ve brought, you know, members of your team to conferences with you and plan to do that in the future. Um, and also, like, yeah, like, I know that you’ve also done like courses to like, Hey, like, go take this. Um, that’s. Yeah, that that’s the difference in viewing what you’re doing.
As like some hobby or some like, you know, agency versus like a real company. And like, there’s nothing wrong for the record. If people don’t want to run a company, nothing wrong with that. But like, the truth is that whether you like it or not, you have a business the moment you choose to publish a book and put it on sale, you are operating a business.
And if you choose to not operate your business like a business, then your business will own you. And that is the worst feeling. Yeah, but there’s also nothing wrong with giving tasks to other people. I know there’s a lot of big authors who Don’t really have a team. They just give tasks to somebody But yeah, well depends too because it depends on the scope of what you’re doing, right?
Because if you’re doing a set of focused tasks And it’s manageable for you. That’s great. But you’re doing so many different things. I mean, yeah. Translations, audio. Obviously you have your subscription, what you’re doing in the serial platforms and the retailers you have, uh, like a, like a clothing line for romance readers, like, like there’s so much going on that when you add it all up, like, like, yeah, like you have so much going on, most authors don’t, are not going to need a team like you have in terms of the size of the team, but I still would encourage anyone though.
Like if. It’s great to have people do tasks here and there for sure. Like, like a hundred percent, but like when you work with an editor, right? Like hopefully you have a long term relationship with an editor. Of course these, you know, some editors fall out of business. Some others might not be a great fit over time, but that editor is going to own your editing, right?
Like, like hopefully like, you know, that’s like something that you give to them and they do, and it’s awesome. And there’s obviously a period of learning there. Same thing with cover design, right? You’ll give the cover designer a brief. Um, that’s almost like their form of an SOP, although they already have their own SOPs, but how they make designs.
But, you know, I do encourage people to continue thinking about it, like, like, like, like a business, like, you’re hiring a team, even, even though that’s weird, like, your team is your editor, your team is, you know, anyone you bring on to help you in any capacity, even if it’s just a task, like, um, you’re You know, there’s nothing wrong, like, oh, fundamentally, we all have to do tasks.
That’s what makes up our work is like individual things we do. But when you give someone ownership, even just mentally in your mind, and you’re saying this is what they do. It is beautiful and it helps take the stress off of you. If you kind of plot out, okay, this is me as the author. Here are all the things I do.
Here are all the areas I own. There’s marketing. There’s maybe like communication with my readers. There’s maybe Publishing there’s actual writing. There’s like getting the actual product ready. So there’s like that product development There’s all these different stages and it’s like who owns What? And in the beginning, you own all of it, and that’s really stressful, and I think over time, it’s helpful even for someone who’s like, just getting started to think about, okay, what are all these different areas in my business?
You know, Amelia has translations, comics, audio, like, all your areas, and who’s going to own it? Because for many authors who are full time, you’re right, some authors have a very sustainable practice. Where they have a great life. They work, you know, not 90 hours a week or 80 hours a week incessantly, and they enjoy what they’re doing.
They have, we’ll call it like a great business that works for them. But so many authors are in similar positions. In terms of their have a great income, great readership, but their business doesn’t work for them. And I think if your business isn’t working for you, because it’s working against you, you’re not liking what you’re doing in a day, just plotting out what Amelia’s done and then figuring out how can I slowly give ownership of different areas that are dragging me down to other people or take out other areas, maybe.
You know, you’re like, this whole translation thing isn’t for me, or maybe you work with, I know a lot of authors do this, I’m going to go work with someone like, you know, Podium or Tantor too. They will effectively own the audio for me. I’m not going to hire the team in house. They have a team and they’re going to get a chunk of the revenue, right?
Some authors want that. I know you definitely don’t do that. Um, yeah. Yeah. And that’s, I think that’s great. But these are all the things you have to think about, like, Oh, like if I’m working with podium and Tantor, so I’m just like some fat bonus they’re giving me, which don’t get me wrong, like. You know, no one, no one doesn’t like some upfront money, but what you’re really doing is what is the cost of taking that area and giving that ownership to someone else?
And if it’s a shitty, frankly, company, um, that you’re working with, like a lot of small presses, don’t get me wrong, I love so many small presses, but there’s a lot of scams out there. They don’t take ownership of anything. They’ll tell you, we’ll take everything off your plate. This is all the off your plate.
Just pass this fee or we’ll. Completely rip you off of everything and they suck at it and, and, and they rip you off. So, you know, talking with other authors too, because fundamentally, like everyone has to do what you’re doing, even if they’re not doing everything you’re doing. Yeah, I agree. Um, yeah, I don’t really have any more to say about that because What do you think though, like, When, when did you decide, like, did you decide, like, I’m doing audio, I’m going to bring on someone who’s owning audio or did you do audio first and then realize I should bring someone on?
Um, so this was actually all last year that we started bringing people on. That was more than just autumn. Um, and there was a couple of factors that came into play. I started to realize like, Hey, if. Something like, if for some reason Autumn couldn’t work or I couldn’t work, um, I, me or Autumn would be left with all this other, like, um, all these tasks.
And all these, like, different areas where, um, we would have to, like, take on each other’s work. And, for me, that was kind of scary because I knew that I didn’t have time, if, if Autumn couldn’t work for an extended period of time, I knew I didn’t have time to do all of her, all the work that I had given her.
Um, so it was at that point, I was like, I need to hire other people in all these different areas. And I also had a lot of projects that I was working on that I had started myself that it was getting hard to manage because we had Reem come into play too. And I was doing some work for Reem or I’m talking to Sean a lot who does the development on Reem about how certain things should look or I’m giving him advice on Whatever it is.
Um, and it was during that, that period, I was like, I need help. I can’t do it. Like, can’t just be me in autumn forever. Um, and so we slowly started to bring on, I think we brought two people on in the spring. Um, and those two people, one of them started handling all my audio. One of them started handling all the comic stuff that I was doing.
Um, Again, it was very slowly at first. I would give them like one or two tasks. And then eventually I wouldn’t want to say like fall of last year, I was like, all right, you guys pretty much know exactly what we need to do. You’re going to handle all of my comic subscription, all of my audio subscription, and you’re going to run it.
And I will give you advice. I will help you along the way, um, approve things, but I trust you guys to go. Do this, run it yourself. Very cool. And when it comes to actually bringing people on, like, would you say, like, because we obviously talked about the importance of it, but you didn’t bring people on until you were feeling like some sort of pain?
Like you, like, meaning like Yeah, it was a little too late. I don’t want to say too late, but it was, I should have hired people sooner. And that’s what I do now. Um, but last year when I started hiring other people who own areas now, um, I was at that point where I was like, I knew if I didn’t hire people, I would either have to shut the projects down, which I didn’t want to do, or I would burn out because I was just doing too much.
Um, so I actually talked to Becca Sime during that time and she gave me some advice, um, cause she’s great. But so yeah, I was like, we are, I’m not shutting these projects down because I want to see them. And we have like, I can afford to like keep them going. Um, and so we hired people now, how I look at it is I want to hire before it gets too much.
So we’re looking at hiring somebody for translations now. Um, I only have three translations out, so it’s not like a crazy amount of work, but I just, it’s work that I don’t want to do anymore. Yeah. Well, I mean, as like the CEO of your author business, you should be spending. Your time, you know, on whatever the biggest bottleneck is or for your business.
And for most, for most businesses that are creator led, it’s kind of like an inverted pyramid where in a, in a typical business, um, the, the CEO is actually like traditionally extremely replaceable. Um, not saying that like they do get replaced often, but they definitely do. Um, because the company doesn’t need the CEO’s day to day.
Activities to function, obviously like a great CEO. Like we can name some of the big ones who created big companies. Like they’ve created a lot of value. They’ve created great companies, but traditionally like the board, when a company’s doing poorly, the first one to go is the CEO traditionally. Um, and, and that’s not as true for like specifically like people who are working in product, but that is inverted in a creator led business, which all authors are like, you know, part of the creator economy where creators.
Where if you’re an author, it’s an, you know, a normal company, it’s a pyramid with the CEO at the top, right? This is at least how like, you know, org charts are roughly structured. And then coming down from that, you know, the real foundation of like a typical corporation is its base of, you know, employees or whoever’s driving it.
The team. It’s the exact opposite in author led business, but you have your, you have a team, but it all funnels back to you and ultimately what it funnels back to because the biggest bottleneck is your next story and making it better. So that, that is like a very, that’s the biggest difference when people say like that we’re running businesses as authors, we are, but they’ve radically different from normal businesses in a way that is.
Actually quite challenging, um, in a way that I think we’re still learning what that even means because you’re one of the, you know, not few people. But few people in history, because now we have many authors doing what you’re doing, although you’re doing at a very high level, who are actually running their own business full stack.
Because normally, sure, all of the work depended on the author, but the publisher would come in and convince you that’s not true, take everything away from you so that you didn’t have to worry about all that pyramid and that pressure. But you still technically did, um, even though that would be the promise and they take most of your money.
And don’t get me wrong, there’s valuable reasons to work with other partners and publishers, et cetera. And there’s some great people out there, but you’re really You are embodying. Let me build a company from the ground up, but like you are sitting there on the ground holding the company up. That’s a lot.
Yeah, especially for one person. Yeah. Yeah. That’s the nature of a creator led business. Um, it’s very hard to diversify away from. I mean, Mr. Beast is a really good example of this. And I say him because I think everyone knows him at this point. Um, that is a creator led business that if that man can’t show up to be on camera, just like if you can’t write that next book, um, in his case, he has about 400 employees that would be, you know, in a rough spot.
Um, that’s crazy. Normal companies don’t work like that. Uh, so that’s what makes what we’re doing different. But special. So you would have hired earlier. Okay. That’s interesting. I think for a lot of people, though, in the beginning, like, would, what would be your advice? Someone else, like now you’re at a point where you can do that and that, like, you, you’ve learned it, but what would you recommend?
Like, when should another author, you know, think, okay, I have this area. I’m going to bring someone else on to do it. Or should I just not do it anymore? Because you did say like, you want to keep these projects going, but what if you didn’t like, Your advice to another author. How do you know whether to kill a project or to bring someone else on for it?
Yeah. Well, I was Sorry, that was Sorry. That was my first second. That was me reminding us because we both have a meeting coming up. Um, so that was funny. That’s our reminder. Um, so I was, um, I, I’m, I personally believe that if you don’t like doing a project, you shouldn’t do it. Um, uh, at least that’s true in my business.
Like, every project that I do, I love. Um, and even if I’m not the one working on it, I want to see the outcome of it. Um, And so if that’s not you, um, then I would put it away, um, save it for another time. But, uh, on the other hand, it could be making you a lot of money. Um, so you can, uh, I, my advice would be, um, if it’s making you a lot of money and you don’t want to do it anymore, you can hire somebody to do it for you, um, if you want.
Like, if it’s going to keep making you a lot, a lot of money, um, sorry, what was the other part of your question? Like, how do you know, like, how do you know when to bring someone on though? Because, okay, you want to keep it going, but there’s an investment needed in that. And I know, like, in your case, you said you hired too late.
Which, which is, which is interesting. Like that’s, that’s a really interesting insight, but for other people, like you, you don’t want to hire too early either. Yeah. I would say, um, when you’re thinking about hiring somebody, you should know, um, what is needed for that specific. Like area, um, so this is if you’re hiring somebody for the 1st time, um, my recommendation would be, like, understand what is required for that area you’re hiring for.
Maybe it’s newsletters. Maybe it’s newsletter automation specifically. And if you’re hiring somebody for the 1st time, make sure you understand the ins and outs of how to make that newsletter, how to make that newsletter automation. Um, and then when slash, if you do hire somebody, um. You’ll you have to understand they’re not going to be a pro like you are right away But if you give them some of your knowledge and let them kind of run with it They’re going to take a lot of like mental and physical energy off of you in the long run So if you’re at the point where you’re like, I don’t know if I want to hire somebody It’s gonna take a long time to train them I would kind of weigh where you are with your business.
If you’re able to afford someone, that’s great. And that’s definitely a factor. Um, if there’s tasks that you can offload, um, or areas where you can offload, that will allow you to have a little bit more mental energy, more time in your day to do other things, um, I would say go for it just because it has helped me a lot giving tasks and, um, areas to other people where now, after I’ve hired all these people, I have a lot more time in my day and I get very bored and I’m like, Oh, what can I be doing?
Um, and then I’ll go and try to find another project in my business that we can, um, start. Um, but it’s also given me time to like, you know, just sit back and, you know, Think and writes and make like we were talking about before, like those high level decisions. So, um, yeah, I hope that answer the question.
No, no, it definitely does. Yeah, I think there’s like a maximum, right? Like, higher, slow, um, and also the other thing about is fire fast. I think you’re, um. You’ve talked a lot about like how and when to bring people on that I think is helpful. I mean, there’s no like magic science to it. That’s the obvious, the point, and it’s, it’s about building the business that works for you.
So if you find your business working against you, you want to start to try and figure that out. And you know, your business is working against you when you’re just not feeling good. When you, when you are stressed out, when you’re dropping the ball on things, but let’s talk about the fire part. Now, first of all, have you ever had to fire someone that’s worked for you?
Yeah, unfortunately I have, um, and it wasn’t fun, um, obviously, um, but it, the person who I had working for me, she was working for me for a while, um, and at the beginning she was giving me reports, like monthly, about how social media was doing, um, and then, Slowly over time, there was less and less reports, less and less progress, and I was like, I can’t, you know, I can’t keep paying you for not doing the work that you had promised me.
Um, and so, it was very hard to let her go, but after I had let her go, it was Much easier on my business, you know, like, but just like handing money away to somebody who wasn’t doing anything. Um, and I think part of this, um, what will help people fire faster, um, which you never want to fire somebody, but if they’re not working for your business, then you, you have to, um, it’s not personal, it’s a business.
Um, but one of the things is. Try not to hire your fans. And I know that’s really hard because there’s a lot of fans who want to work with you. Um, but what happens when they aren’t doing the work? And then you have to fire them and it’s going to cause a lot of like tension between you guys. Um And that’s what I see happen a lot.
A lot of authors, including myself, I have hired fans before and they still work for me and they do an amazing job. Um, but what if they didn’t and I would have to, you know, fire them, let them go. And that might. Be a little awkward. Um, so yeah, yeah, there’s CUNY or not. Um, it’s interesting. Obviously with Ream, we’ve definitely taken an approach of hiring from within the author CUNY.
And I think there’s. There’s a lot of benefits to it, but there’s also obviously, like, you have to be very careful who you’re working with and why and, um, and approach that, like, and I think, uh, you know, Brandon’s Harrison as well, I think has hired a lot from within his community from what I can see on his team and who he kind of elevates.
So, it’s, it’s interesting, but I think 1 thing to kind of see with something like that is building organic relationship with that fan 1st, but there’s nothing to do with being on your team. And once you get to know them separately from like being a fan, um, then that person might be good for being on the team.
And something that like we’ve done with our community that was like very intentional, um, was we created like a volunteer moderator group in the Facebook group where they would help just run the Facebook group. And it was, they were great and we still have them. They’re called the all stars and. From that pool of people, um, it would kind of be like a slow, like multi month to 12 month process of like getting to know them and seeing like what they’re like.
And then I was always public about the rules that I knew we needed in the future, but the project I knew we needed to have, but I didn’t know when we were hiring, but I was able to slot the right people into the right place. Six to 12 months ahead of time, um, and then start like on ramping them. So, like, that’s like a thing that you can do.
There was an author is in your community, like, what fans are you elevating, giving them a little bit more status, a little bit more control. And maybe there’s maybe from that pool, there’s people that are interesting. But you’ve now vetted them and know them for months and months. You’re hiring like ridiculously slow.
Like people say, hire slow, a couple of weeks of interviews. No, no, no, no, no, no. Hire slow. In my mind is like spend six to 12 months with that person. Um, building like a, you know, a professional, but like relationship that really gets to, uh, to understand, like how do they do something that’s vaguely related to what they’re going to do, like in this case, like if your fans are like engaging in your community, that’s a lot of fundamentally what your team’s going to end up doing, engaging with your community.
Promoting your community, sharing content with them, right? So these, that’s like a tactic, but, but it’s also like definitely, there’s definitely downside risk to it. Um, that’s non, non negligible. So yeah, no, it depends. So yeah, firing kind of stinks, but. No, that’s helpful. But my last question for you is outside of like, obviously, like, okay, you bring out someone on, yay, all cherries and roses, except it’s not right.
Sometimes you have to let go of someone. But sometimes there’s just issues that might not be with the person, right? But issues in how you’re working with the team as you learn and grow. What have been some of the big lessons you’ve learned working with your team that allowed you to To help them better and in return them help do a better job.
Is there some things you’ve learned? Like, I know you mentioned standard operating procedures. Um, but other other other things on that note that you’ve been like, oh, like, oh, like. I wish I had that in place earlier. Um, we have a Slack channel, um, or a Slack group, um, and that has helped a lot. Uh. Especially with the team talking to each other.
And I think it’s really important that your team is comfortable with each other. Um, once you have more than one or two people, just because they now can bounce ideas back and forth with each other. Um, and that happens a lot in my Slack, basically, uh, a couple of my assistants or directors, um, they. Well, tell me like, oh, hey, I had a conversation with this other girl, um, yesterday and we talked about XYZ and I was like, oh, that’s so cool.
Like, you guys don’t even need me anymore, but in a good way. Um, so Slack has really helped, um, and then. You know, just being very, um, open and honest and accepting feedback because I’m still, like, growing as, like, a so and so, like, CEO slash manager of, um, my team. Um, and there’s always stuff that, you know, I can do better.
There’s always stuff they can do better. And just being able to communicate openly and effectively is really important.
Yeah, no, it’s so important and there’s a good book. I actually have for people who might want to read a little bit more on this. It’s, um, specifically for someone who was managing a team of designers at Facebook. That’s her experience. Um, but it’s her experience being a manager. Um, and it’s called the making of a manager by Julie.
I think it’s a great book and part of the book actually talks all about feedback as well and how you give feedback to, um, to people on your team. And something that I think is important is to, um, privately offer feedback, um, but to praise in public if there’s ever an opportunity to praise in public. Um, and I think that people, what sometimes people get scared about is like, Oh, my God, should I tell this person?
I really didn’t like this. And it’s like, well, no, you shouldn’t tell me that like this. You should tell them what about it could be better. And what about it was good and why? And like, give them specific action steps, but people actually want feedback. People want to be able to do better at what they’re doing.
And by you not giving them thorough feedback, not just I don’t like this go back, but like, actually sitting down and helping teach them through that feedback. You’re, you’re going to be missing out on it. That’s how your team improves. Yeah. You only improve with feedback. So likewise. Allowing your team to do the same thing for you is important and something that, um, you all might see go live eventually, um, because I think we’re going to do something like this in the next 2 months.
Um, but I’m, I’ve been pretty big on building like an operating system. Underneath a business that helps you run a creative business, and we might just kind of like a notion template for you all to use. Um, because I think notion is a great place to do a lot of this stuff. And 1 of the things I think is most powerful is the issues report where every week your team should be inputting something about their job that can go better because.
Like you ultimately want to know what are their bottlenecks? What are they struggling with? And when you require them to do it, and it’s not like a point of failure as if I need help, but like, no, no, no, you have to tell me what your issues are. There’s some of those issues might be with you. Um, but like, if you take that in every week in a sort of like systematic way, where it kind of takes the emotions out of it in the sense that there’s always emotions there, but like, this is part of our job.
Part of our job is not just doing it, but is like integrating, how can we do better at this and consistently ask ourselves that every week. I think it makes a huge difference. With that said, um, this was awesome y’all. Amelia. Thank you. Thank you. I’m very much looking forward to the next cohort of the accelerator, which if you haven’t joined the wait list for the 6 figure subscription author, look somewhere down below.
Um, created that course now a year ago and. We’re getting into year 2 of the course, which means a huge revamp of the content. So we’re going to be coming out with, like, the actual, um, cohort in, like, end of June slash beginning of July. But for now, just know that there’s going to be a lot of updates to the course.
That’ll be really exciting. And, um. What our goal is with the course is to hopefully help you launch a new project in subscriptions without needing to hire a team or spend a bunch of money at first, but start it in a way that’s simple, start in a way that works for you, so that you can then eventually grow into maybe having audio and translations and all these things.
And maybe one day needing a team, but in the beginning, we want to help you not need any of that. Take a lot of the stress away and make it really easy to start and grow your descriptions. So I want to check that out. Link to the waitlist is down below. Hope you all have an amazing rest of your day. As always, don’t forget, storytellers rule the world.