Hiring Help to Grow Your TpT Store

Whether you're back-to-school and short on time or simply have too much on your plate as a full-time TpTer, hiring help can be exactly what you need to grow your store. Today we’re talking everything you need to know as you get ready to make your first hire. And, we’re continuing the conversation in our Mastermind group. Head over there to share any tips or ask any of your hiring questions: www.growwithusmastermind.com.

This is a topic that people are excited about! There have been tons of questions and inside the group regarding how to hire help. So, we are going to do our best to answer them all. Let's dive in.
What you need to know before you make your first hire
Here's a word of warning—it's hard to hire people. You have spent time and energy building your TpT business and it's hard to hand over tasks to others. Essentially, you have to trust them to be able to continue the work you have started. It can be tough.

Not every person you hire is going to be the right fit. But before you even start looking for your first hire, you have to do a little more work yourself. You need to figure out what you want to hire for. Think about what tasks you are doing that you don't want to do. It might be that you struggle with getting them done or that you just don't like them.

Then, you need to get crystal clear on what tasks you're going to hire someone to do and what your expectations are. It's your job to choose the right person and give them proper training. If you try to rush the process, you'll most likely end up disappointed.

I'll share with you my exact hiring process to show you exactly what I mean shortly. But, just remember that before you jump into the process you have to have a purpose for your hire. What are they going to help you accomplish? If you don't know, they aren't going to know either.
What is a VA?
This is a popular question in the group because it's the common advice that you're probably hearing all over the place. If you are overwhelmed in your business, people will tell you to "hire a VA".

VA stands for Virtual Assistant. These are people that can essentially help you do a lot of those smaller and more time-consuming tasks. A good VA is someone that you can work with to teach them how to do a task and then turn it over to them and they take it from there. This is a person that doesn't necessarily need a lot of specialized skills in one certain area.

For example, a VA may help you reply to a few emails, create some Pins, and respond to a question for you on Facebook Messenger.

Angie recently hired someone to work as a VA. She is in her local area but is going to work remotely. They met and Angie showed her several tasks that she was looking for someone to complete. They include things like creating pins and copying and pasting resource descriptions from her TpT store to her website. They are not necessarily difficult tasks, but they are time-consuming. Angie can do them, but she'd rather not have to.
What a VA is not
A VA is not a mini-me. This can be a sticking point for a lot of TpTers and it was for us at first too. When I first started trying to find someone, I didn't really know what I wanted help with. I just wanted someone that could step in and handle what I do on a daily basis while still being affordable.

That was unrealistic.

However, there are definitely people out there that can take some things off your plate. You just have to know what to look for.
What can I hire help for?
Instead of hiring a VA, you can also hire for specific tasks. Look for the tasks that you don't enjoy doing, or that you aren't great at, and hire someone to handle that exact thing.
Customer service
For example, I recently decided to hire for customer service. It wasn't something that I needed when I first started out and was only getting an email a day. But now I get