Expert Advice: The Importance of Recruiting Skills for Growth
Does your team have the skills to support your next stage of growth? As your business develops, the people and capabilities you need will often change. Identifying those needs early helps you decide where to develop existing employees and where to recruit new expertise, so you can grow sustainably, reduce reliance on you as the owner and build a stronger business for the future.
As a business owner, you probably spend a great deal of time thinking about growth. Winning new customers, increasing turnover, improving profitability and exploring new markets are often high on the agenda.
But have you thought about whether your team has the skills and experience to support that growth?
The people who helped you build the business may have been instrumental in getting it to where it is today. As the company develops, however, you may need to develop existing employees, bring in new expertise or strengthen your management team so you can share responsibility more widely.
At Entrepreneurs Hub, we regularly see how the strength and depth of a management team can influence both a company’s ability to grow and how attractive it is to potential buyers.
Recruiting the right skills is therefore about much more than filling vacancies. It is about building a business that can continue developing without everything depending on you.
Why Is Recruiting the Right Skills Important for Business Growth?
At some point, many growing businesses find that simply adding more people is no longer enough.
Larger customers, more complex contracts, new markets and a growing workforce can all require experience and capability that the business has not needed before.
This is where owners can sometimes find themselves caught. The company is growing, but more and more still comes back to them.
At that point, the question is not just capacity – having more people to handle the workload – but capability – having the skills and experience to manage work that has become more complex.
Recruiting for capability means identifying the expertise the next stage of growth requires, rather than simply adding another pair of hands.
The right people can strengthen performance, improve decision-making and support the next stage of growth without everything depending on you.
Our article How to Grow Your Business Before Selling: Building Value for a Future Exit looks more broadly at how sustainable growth can strengthen a business and make it more attractive to a future buyer.
How Do You Identify the Skills Your Business Needs?
Before recruiting anyone new, look ahead three to five years and ask:
Where do I want to take the business, and does my current team have the skills and experience to help me get there?
Consider the areas that are likely to become more important as you grow:
- Finance: Do you have the expertise to manage cash flow, profitability, forecasting and more sophisticated reporting?
- Sales and marketing: Could stronger commercial leadership help you win larger customers or enter new markets?
- Operations: Are your systems and processes capable of supporting further growth?
- People management: Do you have managers who can recruit, develop and lead employees effectively?
- Technology: Does your team have the expertise to use technology, automation or AI where it can make a genuine difference?
- Leadership: Is there someone capable of making important decisions and keeping the business moving when you are not there?
You may already have people in the business who are ready to take on more responsibility. In other areas, you may need to bring in experience that you simply do not have today.
The key is to recruit for the business you are becoming, not simply the business you are today.
Recruiting the Right People: Capability, Attitude and Fit
Qualifications and experience matter, particularly for senior appointments, but they are only part of the decision.
In an owner-managed business, where teams are often relatively close, how someone works with other people can be just as important as what appears on their CV.
When recruiting, consider three things:
- Capability: Do they have the skills and experience the business needs?
- Attitude: Will they take responsibility, work collaboratively and adapt as the company develops?
- Fit: Do they understand your values, customers and what makes the business successful?
For senior appointments, it can be useful to discuss real challenges facing the business and explore how the candidate would approach them. This can reveal far more about how they think, communicate and make decisions than simply reviewing their previous roles.
The aim is not to recruit the person with the most impressive CV. It is to find someone who can genuinely help take the business forward.
Should You Develop People Internally or Recruit Externally?
Not every skills gap needs to be filled by recruiting someone new.
You may already have capable people who understand the business, know your customers and are ready to take on more responsibility. Developing them can help retain valuable knowledge and create clear progression opportunities.
There will also be times when you need to look outside the business, particularly if the experience you need is not already there.
That might be someone who has managed a larger company, introduced more sophisticated systems or helped a business through a similar stage of growth.
Often, the answer is a combination of both: develop existing employees who can grow with the business and recruit externally where you need experience the business does not already have.
What matters is having the right capabilities in place for the next stage, whether that is further growth, succession, or eventually preparing the business for sale.
How Can a Growing SME Attract the Right People?
Larger companies may offer established career structures and bigger benefit packages, but growing SMEs have advantages of their own.
For the right person, the chance to have real influence, take on meaningful responsibility and help shape the next stage of a business can be very attractive.
Think about why someone good would choose to join your business and make sure that comes across clearly.You may not be able to match a large corporate on every benefit, but you may be able to offer something the right person values more: real responsibility, influence and the chance to make a visible difference.
Recruiting Good People Is Only Half the Job
Once you have found capable people, you need to give them reasons to stay.
If you have good people in the business, ask yourself whether they can see a future with you. If they cannot see how they might progress, there is always a risk that they will look elsewhere.
People are more likely to stay when they feel trusted, recognised and able to develop. Just as importantly, experienced people need the freedom to do the job you recruited them to do.
There is little benefit in bringing someone in to lead a function if every meaningful decision still has to come back to you.
A useful question to ask yourself is:
If you were away from the business for a month, what would stop, slow down or still need your approval?
Your answer will usually show you where too much still depends on you and where more responsibility could be handed across.Creating that space for others to step up can help you retain good people, strengthen the management team and build a business that is less dependent on your day-to-day involvement.
Why Does a Strong Management Team Matter to a Future Buyer?
Developing your team and sharing responsibility can strengthen the business while you are growing it. When you eventually decide to step away, those same changes raise another question: can the business continue performing without you?
What happens when the current owner leaves?
If important customer relationships, commercial knowledge or decision-making sit mainly with you, a buyer may see additional risk.
The same applies where important processes or technical knowledge sit with just one key employee rather than being shared or documented across the business.
A buyer is likely to have far more confidence in a business where capable managers already make decisions, manage customers and keep things moving without everything coming back to the owner.
Importantly, this is not simply about having one strong Managing Director. Buyers will also look at the depth of the wider team and whether too much knowledge or responsibility sits with any single individual.
Our article Preparing for Exit Starts Earlier Than You Think explains why strengthening management well before a potential sale can give you more options later.
Client Experience: Strengthening Leadership at Durkin & Sons
We have seen the importance of the right leadership structure first-hand through our work with Durkin & Sons.
When the owners were considering their longer-term plans, they decided that an Employee Ownership Trust (EOT) was the most suitable route.
As part of that transition, they wanted to strengthen the board and appoint a Managing Director to take greater responsibility for the day-to-day running of the business.
Entrepreneurs Hub supported the recruitment process, from identifying and approaching suitable candidates through to screening and interviews.
Michael Durkin explained:
“We were presented with several top-tier candidates and ultimately hired a new MD who has been an excellent addition to the business.”
For Durkin & Sons, recruitment formed part of preparing the leadership structure for an Employee Ownership Trust transition, rather than simply increasing headcount. The example illustrates why the role you recruit should reflect what comes next for the business.
You can see more examples of the businesses we have worked with on our Success Stories page.
How Can You Tell Whether Your Recruitment Strategy Is Working?
So how do you know whether the changes are actually working?
You may begin to see:
- fewer day-to-day decisions coming back to you
- managers taking greater ownership
- problems being resolved before they reach you
- important customer relationships spreading across the team
- stronger and more consistent management information
- the business continuing to perform when you are away
Choose the measures that relate most closely to the gap you set out to fill and review them consistently over time. If your aim was to reduce owner dependency, for example, look at which decisions still need your approval and whether that is changing. You may also see improvements in profitability, sales, customer retention or operational efficiency, but these should be considered alongside changes in how the team performs.
Perhaps the clearest sign, however, is that your own role begins to change.
If fewer issues are finding their way back to you and you have more time to focus on strategy and growth, that is usually a good sign that the team around you is becoming stronger.
Start Building the Team You Will Need Tomorrow
A useful starting point is to ask yourself three questions:
- Where does the business rely most heavily on me or one other individual?
- What skills will the next three to five years require?
- How closely do those requirements match the capabilities we already have?
That should give you a clearer view of where you can develop people internally and where you may need to bring in new expertise.
And if selling the business is somewhere on your horizon, it is worth acting early. New appointments need time to establish themselves, build relationships and demonstrate that the business can operate effectively without constant owner involvement.
A strong team can help you grow more sustainably today while creating a business that is more resilient, transferable and attractive to a future buyer.
How Prepared Is Your Business for the Future?
If you are unsure whether your management team or current level of owner involvement could affect a future sale, our free Exit Readiness Assessment is a useful starting point.
It takes around five minutes and can help highlight areas that may be worth addressing before you eventually go to market.
Assess Your Exit Readiness
If you are thinking about selling within the next few years, contact Entrepreneurs Hub to arrange a confidential, no-obligation conversation with one of our directors.
You do not need to have made a decision to sell. An early conversation can help you understand which changes could have the greatest impact on your future value.
Alternatively, call us on 08450 678678.
Not ready for a conversation? Sign up to our newsletter for practical guidance on growing business value and preparing for a future sale.
FAQs – Recruiting Skills for Growth
Why is recruiting the right skills important for business growth?
As a business grows, it often needs new capabilities in areas such as finance, operations, sales, technology and leadership.
Recruiting or developing those skills can help the company manage greater complexity, improve performance and grow without everything depending on the owner.
What skills should I recruit as my business grows?
The right skills will depend on where you want to take the business.
Common gaps include finance, sales and marketing, operations, technology, people management and senior leadership.
Start by looking at your plans for the next three to five years, then compare the capabilities you will need with the strengths of your current team.
Should I develop existing employees or recruit externally?
Developing existing employees can work well when you already have capable people who understand the business and have the potential to take on more responsibility.
External recruitment may be more appropriate when you need expertise or experience that does not currently exist within the company.
Many growing businesses use a combination of both – recruiting specialist or senior experience while developing the next generation of managers internally.
How do I know if my business relies too heavily on me?
A useful test is to ask what would stop, slow down or still require your approval if you were away from the business for a month.
If major decisions, customer relationships or operational issues cannot move forward without you, that may indicate a high level of owner dependency.
Strengthening your management team and spreading responsibility more widely can help address this.
Does having a strong management team increase business value?
A capable management team can support business value because it reduces risk and gives potential buyers greater confidence that the company can continue performing after the owner leaves.
However, management strength is only one part of valuation. Buyers will also consider profitability, revenue quality, customer concentration, market position, future growth and other risks.
For more information, read How Much Is My Business Worth? A Simple Valuation Guide for Business Owners.
Should I recruit a Managing Director before selling my business?
Not necessarily. What matters most is whether the business can operate effectively without constant involvement from you.
If too much responsibility, customer knowledge or decision-making currently depends on you, strengthening the management team may be beneficial. That could mean recruiting a Managing Director, developing existing managers or bringing in other senior expertise.
If a senior appointment is needed, doing it well before a sale gives that person time to establish themselves and demonstrate their contribution.
How can I reduce reliance on myself as the owner?
Start by transferring responsibilities gradually rather than trying to step away all at once.
Develop managers who can own key functions, spread important customer relationships across the wider team, document critical processes and give senior employees greater authority to make decisions.
The aim is to build a business that can continue performing without your involvement in every important issue.
Our Exit Readiness Assessment can help identify whether owner reliance is an area worth addressing before a future sale.
How far in advance should I strengthen my management team before selling?
Ideally, start thinking about your management structure several years before a potential sale, particularly if you expect to make senior appointments or transfer significant responsibilities.
Two to three years can be a useful planning window, giving new leaders time to establish themselves, build relationships and demonstrate that the business can continue performing without constant owner involvement. What matters most is that those changes are well established before you go to market.
Our article Preparing for Exit Starts Earlier Than You Think explores why giving yourself time can create more options and put you in a stronger position when you eventually decide to sell.
