Days get busy, and often times, for a salesperson, they bleed well into the night. There might come a time when you consider hiring an assistant to off-set some of your more menial tasks so you can spend more time serving your clients and less time worrying about paperwork, billing, and scheduling.

Here are some questions you need to ask yourself before you hire a sidekick.

Can You Pay Them?

Make sure you have more than enough cash on hand to pay them for three months without having to dip into your incoming commissions. This will make things much easier in terms of establishing payroll. On top of that, it would be unfair to hire someone you’re not positive you’ll be able to pay.

Can Time-Management Solve Your Problems?

It’s easy to convince ourselves that we are so busy we need an assistant, but there is a difference between needing an assistant and wanting one simply for convenience. If you’re pulling big commissions and want to hire strictly for convenience, go ahead, but it’s a luxury, not a necessity.

If you do determine you need an assistant, then it will be a matter of investment. It should enable you to free up precious time for more pressing matters. If you are so busy that you are being held back from making money, then you definitely need an assistant. Not to mention, that if this is truly the case, the assistant should pay for his or herself many times over.

What are Your Expectations?

No matter how adept your assistant is, if you do not have specific expectations for what role you want them to fill, then you won’t be able to leverage their abilities effectively. To make everyone’s life easier, get things started off on the right foot by giving them goals and by letting them know where things will go if they are unable to accomplish them.

An assistant is a classic example of spending money to make money. It should be regarded as a business expense, the money you pay them should result in more profit and allow you to provide more comprehensive service to your clients. Use your free time to spend more time face-to-face with your contacts to build relationships and increase business. Top-producers usually reference the hiring of an assistant as a total game changer that allowed them to take their game to the next level.