8 People You Should Hire to Grow Your Startup Fast By bringing on these key people, you'll be able to scale quickly without losing your ability to provide great products and excellent customer service.
By Sujan Patel Edited by Dan Bova
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
Every entrepreneur wants to reach the point where a business is ready to scale and grow as quickly as it can. Growth hacking is a great way to do this, but you need to have the right people on the bus to put these principles into action. By hiring these key people, you'll be able to scale quickly without losing your ability to provide great products and excellent customer service.
Here are eight hires to get started with once you're ready to start scaling:
1. Project manager
As your company grows, your pipeline needs to stay full. Someone needs to be in charge of your company's timelines and all of its moving parts to make sure everything runs according to plan. As a result, the project manager you hire must be a great communicator who is able to hold key staff accountable for tasks and milestones. This manager will also be in charge of regularly scheduling meetings with stakeholders and of communicating with your company's leadership when there's a problem.
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2. Campaign strategist
The campaign strategist's goal is to understand what types of marketing campaigns will have the biggest impact on your brand, relative to their cost. Since growing your company quickly will involve increasing your marketing presence significantly, you need a campaign strategist who will tell you where to invest. This person must be able to balance competing priorities and should be given the authority to say "no" for the greater good of the company.
3. Marketing representative
Marketing representatives are your "meat and potatoes" employees -- the ones that implement the strategies chosen by the campaign strategist. These employees should be able to build out marketing campaigns and measure results according to the key metrics you've set for your company. Hiring experienced marketing reps will ensure these employees are able to see where campaigns can be optimized, as well as work directly with your campaign strategist to suggest useful shortcuts and provide alternate options.
4. Social media manager
This person is in charge of your social media outreach and updates. Social media is a complex platform with variables that change every day. As a result, the person you hire into this position should be responsible, levelheaded and able to think outside the box when it comes to social media promotions. These days, social media is not an optional part of growing a company, making your social media manager an important part of monitoring and controlling the online conversation surrounding your brand.
5. Content strategist
Working closely with your campaign strategist and social media manager will be your content strategist. This person is responsible for shaping your inbound marketing strategy through the development and deployment of exceptional content.
Good content strategists make it a point to know who your customers are, what their needs and desires are, and how your company meets those needs. Using this information, your content strategist will help you create content aimed at different marketing personas, at different stages of the buying cycle, making them instrumental in helping create your marketing assets and drive sustainable growth.
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6. Analyst
In marketing, as in so many things, nothing can be understood and evaluated until it is measured. The measurement, analysis and interpretation of your data is the domain of the analyst. This employee will help make sure you properly segment your customer base and target appropriate demographics. He or she will also measure the performance of your marketing campaigns, helping to create the process of continuous testing and optimization that will fuel your ongoing growth.
7. Web designer
Your web designer, who should also have some level of coding knowledge, will keep your website up to date and implement the best practices you've discovered through your analyses. This person will work with the content strategist on landing pages and email marketing, and can help you customize the ready-made templates that come with many marketing systems. This ongoing customization will help your company stand out and give your prospects a reason to take notice of your marketing, driving further growth.
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8. Copywriter
It may seem redundant to hire a copywriter along with content strategist, but it isn't. The copywriter is an implementer, writing sales-driven copy for the emails, landing pages and calls to action that drive your overall marketing strategy.
A great copywriter knows exactly how to appeal to your prospects' needs, and can hit on the exact pain or pleasure-seeking points needed to move the prospect forward in the sales funnel. Copywriters realize they only have a few seconds to get someone's attention, and they know how to use this time to compel people to act.
Hiring for growth means finding specific talent to fill the key roles that are needed to propel your company forward. By finding these eight types of people and adding them to your team, you'll position your company well for successful growth -- both in the immediate future and over time.
