As a manufacturer, we tend to have a production hiring mentality: you only hire when there is work to do.  Our hiring practice has been to add staff very conservatively and only when the sales exist to justify the addition.  This mentality works great for production staff and efficiencies.  It is insufficient when it comes to the growth areas of business.  For us, that is sales and engineering.  In order to grow, we actually need excess capacity in these key areas.  How else will we take on that next project or follow up on that next lead?  If we staff for current workload, we can sustain and maybe even grow a bit, but not capture all the growth available.  If the resources are insufficient to work every great project, execute it well and service the customer as they deserve, we are leaving growth untapped.  So I want to hire just beyond the workload.  Allow that salesperson to hunt and have an engineer at the ready to work the project the salesperson wins.  That is capturing growth!