I have a great opportunity to hire top talent. Should I rework my budget?

Dear Aunty B,

Huge changes in the last month in our industry have resulted in fantastic people having the opportunity to take redundancy.

The trouble is I have done our budgets for the next year and I don’t have the money to hire them.

But if I don’t hire them they might stay where they are and slowly die a torturous career death in a rapidly declining industry. Whereas if I do hire them I could get them a bit cheaper because they have the redundancy under their belt and they want to remake themselves with our company so they actually have a future instead of past glory days.

Oh the opportunity!

Sydney

Dear Oh the opportunity,

I like your thinking. I really do.

So many entrepreneurs over the years have told me that when great people suddenly become available they grab them. Stuff the budget, bugger the money, nothing is more important than those special people that declining organisations absorbed in their own agonies forget about.

When your competitors are weak and managing decline towards some dastardly end and the smart people can see where it is all going; that is your opportunity to swoop in and fly off with the prize.

However, let us also remember that plenty of entrepreneurs have driven their own businesses into the ground by not adhering to budgets and acting on strange impulses without clear plans.

Get yourself out of the noise of the office and write down what’s just changed and the opportunity that presents.

How would you change your business plan? Make sure the changes fit in with your long-term strategic goals. Then redo your management structure and put names against it so that you have the right bums on the right seats.

Finally, do the revised budgets and cashflows with hopefully increased revenue to offset your little spending spree.

Does it all still make sense? Feel even more excited about the opportunity? Then go forth and employ!

Be smart,

Your Aunty B

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