Scaling Out Loud

Who You Actually Hire First

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It's 2 a.m. and a stranger is backing a car into my driveway.

He just dropped off a photo booth, fresh from a wedding. The next morning, I grabbed it from the garage in my pajamas and loaded the galleries. My neighbors probably thought we were running something out of that house. And honestly? We kind of were. 

For a long time, that was just our life. Booths in the garage, the basement, the living room. Two full-time jobs between me and my husband, and a photo booth business crammed into every crack of time we had left over. We built the first $100K–$150K on our own, no staff, no team, no help.

And it worked, right up until it didn't.

In this episode, I'm breaking down the two hires that finally got us out of that chaos, who you should hire first (not who you think), and what the order actually looks like when you're the bottleneck and there aren't enough hours in the day. Your first hire and your second hire are doing different jobs. Mix up the order and you'll be frustrated when the first one doesn't fix the problem you thought it would.

What you'll learn: 

  • Why hiring event staff first frees your weekends but doesn't actually free you
  • The three non-negotiables Catalina looks for when hiring attendants (hint: a photography degree isn't one of them)
  • The exact three-event shadowing system she used to get attendants event-ready without standing over their shoulders forever
  • Why the second hire is the one that actually changes your life, and what that person actually does
  • The "dual role" hire strategy that tells you exactly who to bring on next without having to guess
  • Why the first six months of a full-time hire feel expensive on purpose, and how to stop panicking in month two
  • The simple question Catalina asked every single time the business hit a wall: automate first, then hire
  • The homework exercise that will write your next job description for you

    • Resources Mentioned: 

    • Photo Booth Supply Co. (Legacy Booth): https://www.photoboothsupply.com
    • Photo Booth Mastery training videos (used for attendant onboarding): https://www.photoboothmastery.com

      • Your Next Steps:

      • Work with Me: https://bit.ly/POD-Site2
      • Join Photo Booth Mastery Hub: https://bit.ly/POD-Hub
      • Connect on Social: https://www.instagram.com/photoboothmastery
        • ...more
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        Scaling Out LoudBy Catalina Bloch