My advice is to hire before you are in a crisis. Try hiring your assistant in the slower months of your business. I realize you will have to feed the business for a few months. But you will be able to invest the training time necessary to produce a quality assistant who will be ready to perform at a high level when you take off. When you are growing and very busy it is hard to find time to train staff properly.
Preparation is the key to achieving success through assistants.
Take the steps to evaluate your need for an assistant. Then create the job description out of your low payoff activities. Then invest the time daily to train, coach, and monitor your assistant. These steps will ensure your hiring an assistant that is a wealth center. We have a tool available to help agents through this process.