There Is No ‘I’ In Team
Restored from the Empower Network archive (2011–2017), lightly edited to meet our current advertising standards. Views are the original author’s.
Focusing on success as a Team will get you there faster than focusing on individual success, every time…..
Anyone can become a success if they have enough drive, determination and focus but as an individual your success will always be limited as you can only do so much in the 24 hours each of us has available on a daily basis therefore building a team around you so you can leverage their time as well is a smart move for anyone.
Too often, when people decide to go into business for themselves, they try to do everything on their own because there is usually limited resources and when you are in building mode your first consideration is to put all your resources to work to increase income flow and save money where you can on the tasks that commonly take it up rather than produce it by doing those tasks yourself. People reject the idea of having a team straight away because they think it will cost them more money, this can sometimes be the biggest, and most costly, mistake they can make.
Focus on your strengths and let your Team handle your weaknesses
We are all great at some things, we are all good at others and we are all terrible at the rest, in short, we all have our strengths and our weaknesses. Strengths work for us while weaknesses work against us. The idea of having a team working with you is to find people who compliment your existing skills, people who are good at what you are not. Not only will having a team of good people backing you up save you money but it will also save you time.
Before you begin your new business take stock of yourself and what your most productive skills are, these will be your greatest assets. Now make a list of the things you either do not like doing or are not good at doing. Who do you know that is good at these things? Can they be approached to work with you on a either a part time or full time basis, depending how big a job it is? If you do not know anyone who can do these jobs then the great thing is there are plenty of options. My first recommendation would be to hire a virtual assistant to join your team. Use a firm that specialises in virtual assistants because if your normal assistant cannot fulfill his or her duties at any particular time then the firm will always have a back up and a firm has a multitude of talent at your disposal should you need it. Using local firms will support your economy and country but will be more expensive, using a firm in say India or Asia will cost far less and may be the better option until you are established and cash is flowing well. Take your time to research each VA team to find a good fit for your business.
Having a good Team provides balance
The biggest hurdle to overcome when building a team is learning to trust them and to give them the space and confidence to get the job done.
Paying someone else to take care of the tasks you are not good at or don’t have the time for is just good business sense. Your business starts off on an even footing right away and instead of spending 20 hours a day doing everything yourself and not having any time to spend with your family or friends and stressing because you are getting tired and making mistakes, which take up more time and money to fix, you have more peace of mind knowing you have a team you can trust and you have more time to actually pursue a life and spend some of your hard earned money. Leveraging team skills and time not only increases your profits but it also gives you more time to focus on real income producing activities thereby increasing profits even more, it is a win win scenario and provided you do your homework and keep a close eye on your team (for a start) to make sure they are performing as you want them too, gauge results regularly and tweak where necessary then you are all but guaranteed success right from the outset.