[unclebucknasty]

If your profits will increase after paying a new hire, then absolutely, positively, go for it while you can. It is so difficult to work yourself into your current position that you must maximize your return while there.

Also, if you have more business than you can handle, then the only certainty on your decision tree right now is that you will lose revenue if you don't hire someone to help. Google may hose you (and that may even be likely, at some point) and you may be able to find alternate traffic streams, but they are not certain occurrences, nor is the timing of any of these scenarios (including a Google hosing).

And, of course, if you get help then it may free up some of your time to pursue the other streams without impacting your current revenue.

If you can mitigate your hiring risks by offering 1099 or contract-to-hire, or otherwise, that may be prudent.

But, again, you gotta' maximize your profit while you can. Congrats on having a "good problem" and best of luck!

[MitziMoto]

Thanks.

If it was just my wife and I like it has been, I wouldn't mind the risk. We've gotten this far. My fear is in hiring a new employee and having their livelihood dependent on my business that has a single point of failure. Granted, it's a fairly entry level customer service position so it's not like someone's going to retire from the job, but I would still feel just awful if I had to let them go because we had no traffic due to something like a "mysterious" Google penalty that I can't figure out and will get no help from Google on.

I'm hoping we can use the free time we'll have from mundane tasks to think about how to make the business work with other traffic sources.

[unclebucknasty]

>My fear is in hiring a new employee and having their livelihood dependent on my business that has a single point of failure.

Man, I have absolutely been there! I mitigated this concern by hiring part-timers who also had other jobs. An added benefit was that having multiple part-timers vs. one full-timer also gave us redundancy in the event of vacation, illness, etc.

BTW, my situation was primarily with customer service reps as well.

Hiring multiple people does require additional training and administrative overhead, etc. and your business needs may or may not allow for such a solution. But, you can also mitigate your legitimate concern by being completely transparent with candidates with regard to the company's position. You might even consider offering a little upside bonus for the good months/quarters or paying slightly higher than market to offset their downside risk.

Given the current labor market, you will possibly find that candidates who would otherwise have no prospects are happy to take on the risk of having even potentially short-lived employment.

In the end, you can find a solution that works for all. Communication and openness are the keys.

Good luck!