[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!