It’s quite ironic that today’s newsletter is sponsored by MarketerHire, as everything I’m sharing today is about headcount efficiency. It’s never been more important to do more with less.

I’m coming off a nine-day world tour where I hosted two magical events in Nashville and Dallas for the Founders Club and the number one thing founders kept bringing up is how do they hire efficiently, scale their team, and not risk all of their profit. 

As I spent the past five days sleeping on a half inflated air mattress in a tent, waking up to 95 degree heat at Bonnaroo Music Festival, I had a good chunk of time to think about what I was going to write about this week. One of the main things that just kept coming back to me was how stupid 27 year old Chris was. I tell my wife this all the time but sometimes young entrepreneurs need to just be hit in the face. It’s the only way to learn. I just wish I could have taken a few jabs to the ribs, instead of an upper cut from Conor McGregor.

How We Shrunk a Million Dollar Payroll to $150,000

I was working on a presentation and found this old photo of part of our team structure from a few years back. What was I thinking? A team of 5 marketing employees, 3 sales people, an events person, two finance coordinators. We legit were hiring people to do other people that we already were paying’s job?! Working at CROSSNET most of been amazing hahah

So what have we done since? Well button up boys and girls. I’m about to take you into how we’ve legit shrunk a $1,000,000 payroll to less than $150,000 thanks to some strategic freelance hires and most importantly the help of MarketerHire. 

First: Ask yourself this what’s easier? Doubling my revenue or cutting my expenses in half?

The old Chris used to preach about if I can hire somebody for $50,000 and they bring in $100,000 then that’s a good hire and I should do that all day long. In a business with fat margins & no advertising costs that is a great move and still something I preach. However, in the world of consumer businesses like the majority of the people reading, this human capital is expensive and requires us to sell a shit ton of product. 

That $80k salary employee you want to hire doesn’t cost $80k. Depending on your product margins (lets say 20% - aka you make $20 for every $100 you make), you legit have to bring in an extra $400,000 to just PAY FOR THIS PERSON. Now imagine if your margins are slimmer or if it’s “impossible” to increase the business by $400k in revenue you are head underwater. 

We did this with nearly an army of 20 employees in 6 months during peak covid because we trusted the shit we read online and assumed this was the only way to grow. 

Here’s just some of the salary breakdowns:

• Chief Marketing Officer - Me (Priceless of course!)

• Chief Financial Officer - $140,000

• Chief Operations Officer - $100,000

• Head of Sales - $95,000

• Facebook Ad Agency - $90,000

• Head of Marketing - $85,000

• Head of Brand - $75,000

• Events Manager - $75,000

• Graphic Designer - $75,000

• Head of Operations - $65,000

• Social Media Manager - $50,000

• Amazon Ad Agency - $50,000

• Financial Coordinator - $50,000

• Sales Assistant - $42,000

• Social Media Intern - $25,000

• Remote Events Staff - $25,000

• Video Editor - $15,000

So how did we go from that massive fantasy football roster to this present day roster below? Rolling up our sleeves, fucking working harder than we ever did, and using fractional talent.

So what did we do? I blew up the entire thing and funny enough sales didn’t change too much. 

I’m in WAY LESS meetings, have way less people to manage, paying way less for them and the business is making 400% more money?! What a deal! You should consider it.

I’d much rather get 2-3 big things done a week for CROSSNET than try 10-20 things and drown in debt to never see them come to life. Being realistic about the hand you’re dealt is probably the most important thing you can do as a founder. Numbers never lie and the sooner you realize that the better.

What really makes you money? Is it the cute graphics, all the boring presentations, the beautiful spreadsheets? No, actually when you’re at the scrappy stage you can live without all that shit. In reality having the knowledge of Facebook ads, having some badass creative and creating an organic flywheel Is the only thing that matters. If you wouldn’t spend the money with your personal bank account money why are you doing it with your company’s?

Here’s how the team looks now:

• Chris Meade - Retail sales, marketing, inventory planning

• Mike Delpapa - Finance compliance, retail order management, everything in between

• Greg Meade - Legal, social media management, content creation, international distribution, much more

• Fractional Operations Lead - Processes all retail orders compliantly and works with our 3PL

• Fractional Finance Lead - Invoice clients, clean up books, work with Finaloop team, send payments, etc.

• Fractional Social Media Assistant - Pay to post monthly across multiple accounts

• Fractional Customer Service Lead - Pay hourly

• Graphic Design Agency - Pay per project for retail box design, Amazon graphics, social graphics, video work - [email protected] 

• Amazon Agency - Pay monthly - [email protected] 

• Performance Marketing Agency - Pay monthly - [email protected] 

So I’m not suggesting you go off and fire everyone tomorrow…. but I am saying there’s probably somebody taking a bubble bath at 2PM on a Wednesday afternoon while you think they are working while getting paid $40/hour.

Scale Your Business Smarter Than Ever

Feeling a bit overwhelmed after reading about how much money you’re probably leaving on the table? Finding it hard to find top marketing talent because you keep hiring frauds or don’t have the time to sift through 200 resumes and interviews?

I've been extremely impressed by the folks at MarketerHire who just helped me find a Shopify coder & Google PPC manager. They've worked with all the big dogs from Netflix, Lyft, and Puma, down to the smaller ecommerce brands like you and I, who are desperate to find some good talent with their pre-vetted pool of elite marketing professionals across all channels.

They streamline the entire nightmare hiring process, saving you valuable time and resources. Focus on achieving your marketing goals while MarketerHire identifies the perfect talent to elevate your team.

I managed to snag you guys a sick deal only for my newsletter readers:

A two-week risk-free trial and a $1,500 credit towards your first hire. Just shoot an email to my buddy Dan at [email protected] and mention I sent you, or visit marketerhire.com/save to unlock this offer that’s only good until the end of June and build your dream marketing team with confidence.