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Next hire planner

Who should you hire next?

Answer a few questions about where your company is stuck. The planner ranks the seats that would remove your biggest bottleneck, checks three stop signs before you hire, and shows the revenue your own office labor target needs before you add an office wage. It uses only what you type. It does not compare you with an industry average, because we do not have one we can verify for your trade and market.

Your company today

Use the last 12 months for revenue. Count people, not full-time equivalents.

Dollars collected or billed, whichever you track consistently.
People who run jobs that bill. Include the owner only if the owner runs calls most days.
CSR, dispatch, admin, billing, in-house bookkeeping.
People between the owner and the field who can make decisions without calling the owner.
From your phone system. Leave blank if you do not know.
Where it hurts (check all that are true this month)
Stop signs (check the ones that are true)
Office labor check (optional)

Office labor means owner management pay, CSR, dispatch, admin and bookkeeping. Use your own target share; we do not supply one.

Wage plus employer taxes, workers' comp and benefits. The labor burden calculator helps.

How the planner decides

Each answer you check adds weight to the seat that fixes it. The seat with the most weight is the bottleneck to remove first. The rules are written out here so you can check them against your own judgment.

Service technician

Weighted up when you are turning work away and your current technicians are busy producing. If you are turning work away but technicians are idle, the problem is more likely booking, dispatch or scheduling, and the planner says so instead of recommending another technician. If you entered zero technicians, a first producer ranks high.

Helper with warehouse duties

Weighted up when the owner is the second person on long jobs, long jobs are common, or truck stock fails. Read when a helper pays for itself.

CSR and dispatch

Weighted up when calls are missed, the owner dispatches personally, or there is no office person at all.

Estimator or sales

Weighted up when only the owner can sell larger jobs, more so if work is also being turned away.

Lead technician or operations manager

Weighted up when the owner cannot hold weekly check-ins with every direct report, field questions route to the owner and callbacks are rising. Weighted down when there are two or fewer technicians, because a manager that early mostly manages the owner. Read hiring your first operations manager.

Billing and bookkeeping

Weighted up when invoices go out late or the books are behind. This seat is often part-time or outsourced at first.

Dedicated warehouse

Weighted up only when truck stock fails and you already have helpers, since a helper with warehouse duties usually comes first.

Stop signs

A clear bottleneck is not enough. If the role is not written, the cash cannot carry the person for a few months, or nobody owns recruiting, fix that first. Read can you afford another hire.

Guides for getting past the $2M to $4M wall

Educational self-help information, not legal, HR, payroll, tax or accounting advice. The ranking is a rule-of-thumb summary of the answers you give; it does not see your books, your market or your people, and it stores nothing. Employment rules vary by state. Talk with your own bookkeeper, payroll provider or an employment attorney before you hire, set pay or change a role.

Link to or cite this tool

Free to link from a blog, course, association page or forum. No sign-up is needed to use it.

Link: <a href="https://contractorlane.com/next-hire-planner.html">Next Hire Planner for Contractors</a>

Cite: Contractor Lane, “Next Hire Planner for Contractors.” Updated October 12, 2026. https://contractorlane.com/next-hire-planner.html