Reseller hosting is one of the best online businesses to start for several reasons. Getting started is relatively straightforward (once you’ve done the prior planning), and on a practical level, the startup costs are minimal compared to many other business models. However, going alone can lead to several problems with scalability and product quality.
Although hiring people will naturally increase your costs, the return on investment is considerable if you hire wisely. To help you understand where you should focus most of your initial energy, we’ll show you the most essential hires to consider as a hosting reseller. You’ll also discover a handful of other helpful tips to help you grow your business.
1. A Good Customer Support Team
If you want to build a profitable and sustainable business, you must prioritize service quality over everything else. You should be spending the bulk of your time focusing on high-level business decisions, meaning that you probably won’t have a lot of time to interact with customers. More importantly, you probably didn’t get into business to answer customer emails all day.
You should hire a good customer support team as soon as possible; start with one or two people and scale as your business grows. Besides having a track record of excellent customer service, you should also look for hires with experience in web hosting and similar industries.
Train new hires so that they know your products and company values inside out. You should also ensure that your customer support team can speak the language of your primary market (if you operate globally, English skills will probably be more important).
2. Virtual Assistant
With more and more global online businesses emerging, there has never been a better time to become a freelance virtual assistant. And as a hosting reseller, this is great news for you because it means you’ve got access to a wide pool of potential hires.
Virtual assistants (VAs) perform several administrative tasks, including:
Payroll and other finance/bookkeeping tasks
Distributing and allocating tasks to contractors
Administrative tasks (e.g., responding to emails)
Looking for new hires and assessing candidates
Hiring a good VA will free up a lot of time that you’d otherwise spend on low-level tasks, making them one of your most important initial hires. Look for skills like versatility and reliability, and ensure they sufficiently understand your onboarding processes.
3. Technicians
Even if you already have a good technical background, you probably don’t want to spend your time putting out fires or constantly monitoring your backend. So, you should strongly consider hiring at least one experienced technician to ensure that everything’s running smoothly in the background.
Technicians should be on hand to address any issues that may arise, and you also need to have a clear ticketing system so that other employees know how to raise problems when they occur.
You can mitigate many technical costs by partnering with a reputable reseller hosting company. You’ll have access to a support team and won’t have to worry about server issues, making it a solid return on investment.
4. Customer Success Manager
Since the quality of your service will determine almost all of your long-term business success, ensuring that existing customers are getting as much value as possible is crucial. Being proactive is a much better strategy than being reactive; a customer success manager can help you achieve that.
A customer success manager handles onboarding and ensures that they’re happy with your products and services. You can receive valuable feedback, allowing you to further improve your offerings.
Customer success managers are also handy for identifying potential upselling and cross-selling opportunities. As a result, your profits are in a better position to increase over the long run.
5. A Sales Representative
Sales representatives can help you identify new business opportunities and identify areas of weakness that you can improve. While you should have a solid inbound marketing strategy (more on that later), sales reps can also identify and nurture leads that you might otherwise have missed.
Besides identifying leads online, sales representatives can also attend in-person events and workshops to find new opportunities. For example, if your reseller hosting niche is within the travel eCommerce space, a sales rep can visit conferences to pitch your services to creators and business owners.
6. A Marketer With Content Creation Skills
Even if you have the best reseller hosting business on the web, you’ll struggle to make sales and generate revenue if nobody knows about your business. Investing in marketing is a very good idea, but you’ll also have to think a little outside the box. If you’re just getting started, you should strongly consider hiring a marketer with broader skills.
Having someone who's good at creating blog and social media content is a good starting point. You’re onto a winner if they also understand copywriting, SEO, and have a background knowledge of advertising.
While marketing and content creation principles are similar in all industries, having industry knowledge is a good idea. That way, it’ll be easier for them to speak in the language of your target audience. There are also several differences between B2B and B2C digital marketing, so you’ll need to consider these and implement what applies to your business.
7. A COO
Hiring a chief operating officer (COO) will be one of your more expensive personnel, but it’s worthwhile if you can focus on the tasks that a) you like, and b) you’re good at. The COO is responsible for ensuring that your business is operating effectively on a day-to-day basis, and as a result, they must have a good understanding of your internal processes.
You’ll also need to work closely with a COO to build effective strategies, along with policies that the entire business should adhere to. Your COO will also need to report whether what you’re doing is working —and if not, they should help you find alternative solutions.
8. Bookkeepers and Lawyers
Depending on your jurisdiction and business structure, you may have to report your financial results to the local authorities each year. Bookkeeping software might be fine in the beginning, but you should work with professionals to ensure that everything is accurate. Getting financial advice is also handy for identifying potential areas where you can save money in the future.
Having a legal team ensure that you’re adhering to local laws (e.g., GDPR) is worth it for avoiding the potential financial implications of non-compliance. It’s also a good idea to have a lawyer on standby in case you have to deal with legal issues. Legal representatives can also help you determine whether you need a business license to sell online.
9. A Web Designer
Even if you reduce time with low-code and no-code website builders, you probably don’t want to spend a lot of time designing and populating your website. Unless you’re really passionate about web design, hiring a web designer will help you spend more time on other essential tasks.
Web designers are responsible for thinking about user experience (UX) and building a user-friendly website. Your web designer can also assist with search engine optimization (SEO) and desktop/mobile responsiveness. Consider tracking these top UX metrics once your site is live.
Where to Find People to Hire for Your Reseller Hosting Business
In my opinion, LinkedIn is by far the best place to look for potential business hires. The quality of potential employees is relatively high, and you can get a full overview of each person’s credentials.
To search for ideal candidates on LinkedIn, use key search terms related to the roles you’re looking for (e.g., “copywriter with experience in writing for hosting resellers in the financial sector”). You can use secondary phrases if that doesn’t work (e.g., “copywriter with fintech experience”).
I suggest looking for freelancers and contractors in the beginning; convincing someone to leave a full-time job will be a harder sell.
If you’re specifically looking for freelancers, Google will be one of your best friends. Many talented individuals have their own websites, and like LinkedIn, you should use key search terms to find people related to the roles you need to fill.
Use this as an opportunity to look through their portfolio, too, before making your final decision. I’d suggest looking beyond just the first page of Google; you may find some hidden gems by doing so.
Upwork and Fiverr
While you might have to sift through a lot of people to find higher-quality hires on Upwork, Fiverr, and similar job boards, it’s still worth considering in your hiring process. The benefit is that you automatically have a large pool of potential candidates, and you’ll also see the rate they expect you to pay for their services.
In addition to Fiverr and Upwork, you can consider advertising openings on job boards. Examples include Problogger and We Work Remotely.
