The small business growth playbook has always been simple: get busy, hire help, scale up. But what if that playbook is broken?

In this episode of Businessing, Pat Miller presents four alarming reasons why hiring doesn't work the way it used to:

**1. The talent gap is real.** 89% of business owners report they can't find qualified applicants. Not "people don't want to work"—people don't know how to do the work.

**2. Skills-based hiring means you're the trainer.** Employers are hiring for personality and training for skills. That's great—unless you don't have time to run a training department.

**3. AI is destroying critical thinking.** Gartner reports a trend toward "AI-free assessments" because employees can no longer think their way out of a paper bag without ChatGPT.

**4. Engagement has collapsed.** Employee engagement dropped from 88% to 64%. Six out of ten days they care. Four out of ten? They don't.

Pat's solution: **Stay solo as long as you can.** Build automation. Create SOPs. Use contractors for narrow tasks. And when you finally do hire, accept that you're now in the training and development business.

**Also in this episode:**

- A three-part time management framework for overwhelmed solopreneurs

- Why you should schedule tasks by due date, not importance

- Permission to forget everything that's not due today

- Historic winter storm warning (feet of snow, exploding trees, -50° windchill)

- The ChatGPT image follow-up: Brad's robot is NOT happy

**Perfect for:** Solopreneurs considering their first hire, small business owners drowning in to-do lists, and anyone wondering if they should scale—or stay lean.