Tiny Marketing: Marketing and Sales Systems for Independent Consultants Ep 180: Your First Hires as a Solo Consultant: How to Hire, Onboard, and Build Systems Without Burning Out | Expert Guest Sara Nay
On the Tiny Marketing Podcast, host Sarah Noel Block interviews Sara Nay, CEO of Duct Tape Marketing, about making the first few hires as a solo consultant. Nay explains that effective hiring starts before the job post by clarifying mission, vision, and values, then running a culture/fit interview before assessing skills. She recommends choosing a first hire by doing a one-week time audit to identify repetitive, draining tasks to delegate—often starting with an executive assistant or account manager to keep the consultant in a strategic role. Nay advocates hiring earlier than feels comfortable by starting part-time (around 10 hours/week) and scaling up. For onboarding, she emphasizes slow ramp-up, training and shadowing on one client at a time, daily check-ins with small task lists, using Loom videos plus checklists, time tracking from day one (e.g., Harvest), and documenting only critical recurring processes by mapping end-to-end client “flows.”
00:00 Welcome to Tiny Marketing
00:49 Meet Sarah Nay
02:11 Hiring That Actually Works
02:59 Values First Job Posts
05:24 Choosing Your First Hire
07:43 Start Part Time and Scale
11:37 Onboarding Without Overwhelm
15:09 Looms Checklists and Docs
17:33 Time Tracking and Profitability
22:19 Pricing and Raising Rates
25:15 Documenting Core Processes
28:13 Where to Find Sarah
28:36 Booked Out Blueprint Outro
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