Who Should You Hire First? The Decision Most Business Owners Get Wrong

When your business starts growing beyond what you can manage alone, the first question is often: who should I hire first?

And just as often, business owners pause.

You’re over-capacity, work is piling up, and you know you need help. But hiring the wrong person or hiring too soon can create more problems than it solves. So instead of building capacity, you stay stuck: overextended and reactive.

At Baker CFO Advisory, we’ve helped business owners through this exact moment. And here’s what we often tell them:

The Right Hire Solves for Capacity, Not Titles

Your first hire should relieve pressure, not just check a box. In most cases, that means identifying the area where you’re stretched thin and delegating the work that does not require your direct expertise.

For some businesses, the right first hire is:

• Administrative or operations support (to free up your time)
• Sales or account management (to generate or protect revenue)
  
  

It’s rarely a strategist or high-level technical role. Those come later, once there’s more structure and demand.

Forget Fixed Benchmarks: Focus on Role Value

There’s no universal revenue threshold for when to hire. A better question is:
Can this role reasonably generate or protect enough value to justify its cost?

That answer depends on your industry, your business model, and your current demand.
For example:

• In a professional services firm, one billable role might need to produce 2 to 3 times their salary to be viable
• In operations-heavy businesses, the value may come from margin protection, efficiency, or client retention
  
  
  

Avoid These Common Mistakes

1. Hiring too soon, just to “get help”
If you don’t know what success looks like for the role, they won’t either and you’ll end up doing more work, not less.

2. Hiring a peer instead of support
At this stage, you don’t need more people like you. You need people who can take work off your plate and create space to lead.

3. Overcommitting without structure
If you don’t have clear processes, onboarding, or visibility, even the right hire can struggle to succeed.

What to Do Instead

• Track your time for one week. Identify what only you can do, and what could be handed off.
• Tie roles to value. Can this position contribute to cash flow, margin, retention, or growth?
• Think in stages. Your first hire should lay the foundation. Scaling happens after you’ve created room to lead.
  
  

Final Thoughts

You don’t need to hire fast. But you do need to hire with intention.
The right hire gives you capacity, clarity, and control, not just relief. And getting that first decision right sets the tone for everything that follows.