Assembling A Dream Team: the Three-Step Process

Last month I spoke about scaling and the importance of making sure you have the professionals you need as your business begins to grow.

With your Dream Team in place, you can begin exploring adding contractors or employees as support staff. Here’s how to get started.

1. Get organized internally

I highly recommend taking some time to write out the areas in your business that need support. Note down which departments are hindered or unable to keep up with growth and the types of tasks that are falling through the cracks. Develop work flows and air-tight training manuals so if a candidate doesn’t work out, you aren’t investing substantial time in training the next candidate because the work flows and training materials are there.

Take your time to draft position summaries that outline the responsibilities of the role and who the employee or contractor will report to. Later on, you can use this as a template for your job description or advert, but initially this will be a guiding document to use internally.

This is where a cannabis business advisor will speed up the process.

2. Seek experienced legal counsel

Whether you’re hiring employees or contractors, labor laws are serious and can get complicated. You need to speak with a licensed attorney before you begin the hiring process to ensure that you’re in compliance with federal and state laws.

If you’re going the contractor route, your attorney can advise on contract creation as well as the company policies to put into place. If you decide to hire employees, your lawyer can advise on the legal implications, federal and state requirements, as well as company policies to implement before you add a team member to your business.

Clearly, a cannabis attorney will be monumentally critical in every stage of the process.

3. Review your business budget

While you certainly need to invest in quality talent in order to scale a growing business, overextending yourself can have just as many negative ramifications.

Review the books to determine how much comfortable wiggle room you have after operating costs. Be sure to consider more than just annual salary; the average cost of recruiting, hiring and training a new employee at close to $4,000. And remember, due to the current tax restrictions, consider that the added expense of a new employee may not be deductible from your tax liability, so be sure to crunch the numbers.

This is where a cannabis tax advisor can help you avoid costly mistakes.

In need of a cannabis attorney to take the next step in scaling your business? Schedule a free informational call to see if we’re a good fit.