Who's the most important hire?

At the AMA (Ask Me Anything) call, Jacob asked me who's the most important hire in the company.

My answer?

It depends.

If you're starting out, and you need to grow revenue, I'd want to hire a marketer.

The most experienced marketer you can afford. A good marketer will (obviously) pay for themselves many times over.

That's the point.

For where I'm at, my most critical hire is an Integrator.

If you don't know what that is, check out the book Rocket Fuel by Gino Wickman.

Chances are you're a Visionary and you need an Integrator. I know I do.

But that's actually not my next hire.

My next hire is a recruiter.

Because recruiting top talent is the number one critical skill that any serious business must-have.

If you hire the right people, everything else gets easier.

If you hire the wrong people, you're swimming upstream.

So that's why my next critical hire is a great in-house recruiter.

Because over the next year I want to grow the team and the company dramatically, and it's going to require the best talent we can possibly find.

And the first person I'm going to need the recruiter to find is an Integrator because the Integrator will make the 35 people currently on the team perform so much better and more efficiently.

Marketer. Integrator. Recruiter.

Those are some of the three most critical roles to fill you plan on growing your business.

Love,
–Calvin