Overwhelmingly, media coverage of team building, hiring, training, etc. is often geared towards the issues faced by HR at Fortune 500 sized companies. Even when it’s positioned as advice for small business owners it is often coming from an executive or consultant working primarily with giant corporations. We think it’s far more relevant to hear from small and medium business owners who have successfully grown their businesses – and so we asked some very talented folks to tell us the stories of their initial hires and the struggles and lessons they can share.

Marcie Trivette

When I founded Sweet T Picnics is October of 2021, I started out by myself along with the support of a few family members and close friends. However, I didn’t have any employees or a solid “team” from the get-go. Over the first few months, I learned who my key vendor partnerships were, and who I could count on from that standpoint, but I still didn’t have any employees. At the end of March 2022, I realized I needed to look for talented help to bring aboard and start forming an official team. I knew this would be a process and would take some dedicated time. Read more>>

Briana DeNeal-Findley

When I first started The Bee Network it was a small private practice that I operated part time. I would see about 8-10 clients a week in the evenings and weekends after my full time job. In 2019 I considered hiring my first team member. I talked about it a lot with a colleague about how it would go. The planning stages was very long for me because I was not yet sure if I was ready to take that leap of faith. I brought someone on but with very little structure. Then in September of that year my mom had passed and I stepped back from taking clients. Read more>>

Edie Weintraub

Building a team has been such a joy! Confidence in your abilities, your systems and your energy, is imperative, as you want to ensure the investment in your team allows them to blossom. When I first started my company, I was the only one. Six months in, I started the search to build my team, as I wanted to teach others how they could be independent consultants, but be instrumental in building and connected to the amazing city we live in. Read more>>