Who Should Your First Hire Be - Junior Designer, VA, Or Copywriter?
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You are a website designer with many things on your brain. Juggling clients, trying to market your biz and stay consistent on social media, sending emails back and forth, and… phew… that’s all just very exhausting.
I feel you! The more successful you get, the more work, headaches, and back-breaks. It can become hard to get that design work done on-time. Perhaps you wonder whether to cut something out of your schedule, like email clients less or post less on social media.
Or perhaps you are thinking about…
Outsourcing and delegating some tasks to someone else - someone who can help relieve your workload, give you more time, and help you get off work on time. Hiring someone else means:
You can still scale your online business while having more time
You can concentrate on the more important business matters
Your business will continue to grow and expand without you having to bend over backwards to get great results
So you may be thinking about hiring someone. Maybe a junior designer, a VA, or a copywriter to relieve you of some tasks. There are plenty of them out there (not just me!) who would be willing to work with you and help you continue to build a successful, profitable website design brand.
But the question is, who? Who should I delegate to? Who should I hire first?
That’s a good question, and the answer will vary depending on the following:
Your circumstances
Your priorities & goals
The position that corresponds with your business
Let’s dive deep into those three points and see who will be your first hire: A junior designer, a VA, or a copywriter.
First of all, let’s look at those three positions and see what they provide for any business.
THE 3 HIRES - WHO ARE THEY?
The Junior Designer
A junior designer will help take on perhaps those smaller website design tasks that you just don’t have much time for. They will work as your website design assistant to produce on-point work under your name, so make sure you hire well!
Hiring a junior designer will help loosen up your work schedule and help you balance out your clients instead of dropping some. You will be able to earn more while, well, basically doing less! And while you will be paying a junior designer to help you, your brand will benefit and expand, meaning more earnings and profit.
Not bad at all!
The VA
A virtual assistant will storm through those must-do tasks that, to be honest, you may hate doing.
Is your inbox full of inquires? They’ve got that covered.
Your busy schedule? They are pros at organizing that stuff.
Small but time-consuming tasks like answering comments and responses on social media? They will answer with smiles and hearts and more while you sit back and focus on the design work - the work you actually like.
Pro tip - while it may seem like hiring a VA can be the answer to all your problems and also handle the jobs of both a junior designer and a copywriter, sometimes it’s best to hire multiple people who can all stick to their zone of genius instead of having one person do a mediocre job across the board.
The Copywriter
The importance of writing copy and content that will reach the hearts of your target audience is of high priority. However, it can sometimes take time away from your design work, which, ultimately, is more important.
That’s when the copywriter comes in! Not only will they take the task of writing emails, captions, blog posts and ads off your hands, they will also do it well - perhaps better than you could!
Now that we’ve reviewed the people you could hire, it’s time to make a decision!
Wait, wait!
Hold on there, not just yet!
While it would be nice to choose one quickly or perhaps jump in and hire all three, let’s examine which one would be your perfect first hire, and why.
Now it might seem weird that I’m including this in the list, but lots of times I see brand and website designers hire their first team member as a junior designer or a VA and give them tons of tasks that span multiple different zones of genius. The problem with this is that instead of this taking your business to the next level, you’re just getting things done and checking them off the list, not necessarily putting an expert on the job. Hiring a long term copywriter on a three or six month contract will allow you to outsource copywriting tasks to a professional who focuses specifically on writing content so that your business continues to thrive, not just get by. And now you probably know what’s coming next — a shameless plug telling you that yours truly specializes in helping brand and website designers with their content and copywriting so that you can focus on the tasks that you enjoy and offload the others to an expert. Click here to learn more about my copywriting retainers!
WHAT ARE YOUR CIRCUMSTANCES?
Before figuring out who your first hire should be, you need to evaluate your circumstances. Taking a look at your circumstances and thinking about where your website design business is will help you come to the best conclusion on who to hire first.
So, what are your circumstances?
Consider the following…
How much are you currently earning? How much could you pay someone, and how much work will they be able to do within the budget you set?
What are you struggling most with? Do you find you don’t have the time to answer replies and questions on social media or inquiries that come through your mailbox? Or perhaps you are struggling to meet your clients’ deadlines?
Knowing your budget and knowing what is draining your energy will help you select the perfect first hire!
Have someone in mind already??
PRO TIP - When analyzing your circumstances, be brutal. Think about what you could delegate without feeling the need to micromanage. If you are protective over your social media captions, maybe hiring a copywriter won’t be the right fit for you just now.
WHAT ARE YOUR GOALS & PRIORITIES?
It’s time to cut through your wants and look at what you need as a website designer. What are your biz priorities? What are your brand goals right now? What does your business need?
For example, you may see that you need to market consistently on social media and build up more engagement. Or it could be that a few days go by and emails aren’t being answered. Once you have targeted what you need to work on - what your priorities are - it will help you narrow down your decision and choose the perfect hire.
PRO TIP - Be honest with yourself. Are you good at writing content, or is your approach when it comes to writing blog posts a little weak? A copywriter might be the perfect hire for you! Do you want more clients, or are you struggling with all the clients you have? Maybe a junior designer would help you with that struggle.
WHAT POSITION CORRESPONDS WITH YOUR BUSINESS THE MOST?
Now it’s time to narrow it down. You may find that you need a little bit of all three, and you may wish you could just hire them all!
But remember - this is your very first long-term hire. You don’t want to put pressure on yourself, and hiring someone else isn’t always that simple. The best thing to do at this point is to see what position corresponds with your business the most.
Are your brand and web design business more about sharing tips and helping others with their brand? Then maybe your focus will be on developing the perfect copy and content for your target audience.
Or perhaps you enjoy building a rapport with your audience but you don’t have the time to do it. If that’s the case, then maybe hiring someone who will help communicate with your audience and act as your very own PA will free you up and allow you to concentrate some more on client work.
It could be, though, that you enjoy those things. And, maybe, just maybe, you have a little more work than you would like. If that is the case, hiring an awesome junior designer that could work with you would be a great first hire.
While it may seem weird to consider a copywriter as your first long term hire, content writing might be sucking up most of your time (and maybe even your soul). If you need to continuously repurpose and produce content to market your business, think about hiring a copywriter on a retainer who can create blog posts, email newsletters or sequences, and social media captions for your business.
PRO TIP - Finding what corresponds with your business the most isn’t easy. It can be hard trying to figure out who will work well with you and your brand. When deciding, be sure to analyze their brand and see if their business aligns with your own. Do they have similar goals and similar business values as you do? Do they communicate well? How well do they understand your brand and what your goals and priorities are?
MAKING YOUR VERY FIRST HIRE
Making your very first hire can be daunting, but once you know what you need, you will realize who you should hire first.
So to make sure you make a success of your first hire, let’s review!
Before making your first hire, follow these steps:
Understand what a junior designer, VA, and copywriter do and what they could do for you
Scrutinize your circumstances
Figure out your goals and priorities
Analyze what position would best fit your brand
Once you have got those things down, the arrow will be pointing very clearly at your very first hire. Now all you need to do is choose the perfect candidate!
If you’ve decided that you need a copywriter to lend a helping hand, go click on that services tab to view my availability and what we can do together!