I’m not asking whether to hire. I’ve decided. Manual onboarding is eating my evenings and I’m still the bottleneck in both brands. I tested Loom videos and a Notion template for six months; it didn’t scale. In Germany I need the employment setup to be clean from day one. What’s the first team structure you’d put in place: one generalist across both brands, or a specialist for coaching onboarding first?
First hire: one person across both brands or two?
Discussion
- Purpose
- Help Johanna choose the first hire structure for her two brands given her manual onboarding bottleneck and the need for a clean German employment setup.
5 replies
Audience: Public. Replies follow this audience.
0Fiadh KellyIndependent Publisher · productised serviceIreland·Exploring·6d ago
Are both brands in the same niche? If they’re close, you don’t need structure. One assistant across both works. You’re overcomplicating this.
0Seán RyanNutrition Coach · membershipIreland·Exploring·6d ago
I’m following. I only have one offer so I can’t speak to splitting across brands, but I hired someone last spring to help with my membership onboarding and it fell apart. I had a spreadsheet and a few voice notes, thought it was clear, but she kept missing the weekly check-ins and then I spent more time fixing mistakes than doing it myself. Now I’m back doing it alone. I don’t know if that was the structure or the person, probably both. I keep telling myself I’ll map the process first, but onboarding always feels urgent in the moment, so I never do. Maybe someone here has actually split one person across two brands and can say if that makes it worse. Sorry, this probably doesn’t help.
0Anouk de VriesFitness Coach · productised serviceNetherlands·Scaling·6d ago
Don’t hire yet. Automate onboarding with a booking tool and email sequences. It costs almost nothing and buys you three months to decide. I did that before my first hire and it worked.
- 0Georgie PendletonInstructional Designer · sponsorship & ads
Australia·Scaling·6d ago
Your bottleneck isn’t brand count, it’s the onboarding handover. I’d hire one client journey coordinator, not a general VA, and put them on the coaching brand first. Map the current manual steps into a short runbook, then make them responsible for the first five days of a new client. Once that’s reliable, loan them to the second brand. Splitting from day one just gives you two half-trained people.
0Tim BakkerMarketing Strategist · membershipNetherlands·Scaling·6d ago
Automation won’t replace judgment. Hire one onboarding specialist, one brand first.
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