Business is a team sport. You may start as a sole proprietor, but incorporating members into your team becomes essential as you scale your small business.
But, like the big leagues, you can’t draft random members and expect to win. A team that wins is built with purpose and fostered with care.
By the end of this post, you’ll learn the following:
- The importance of building the right team:
- What to do before making your team;
- How to build your team;
- And how team diversity fosters success.
Let’s get started.
I | Why a Good Team is Important
Let me hit you with some truths—you can’t do everything yourself. You can only do so much in 24 hours.
Becoming a Jack of All Trades has its upside. But there are also limitations. As your small business grows, these limitations will become more apparent.
You’ll reach a point where you can’t learn everything and execute them fully to meet your business objectives. At least not at the optimal level. It’s impossible unless you don’t care about sleep or overall health. Juggling a family on top of it adds another layer of difficulty.
Extra help can go a long way, even if you only hire an assistant.
1. New Ideas and Varying Skills
Each member of your team comes with new knowledge and unique perspectives. Pool them all together, and you will curate an abundant source of fresh ideas.
Customers have a wide variety of options at their fingertips. And often, depending on the service they seek, a specific zip code doesn’t restrict their choices.
Innovation paves the way to business success, especially in this age of digital connections. It’s how you’ll stand out from the competition.
2. Support and Increased Business Performance
Problem-solving in your company is a collaborative effort. You’ll meet unfamiliar pitfalls, and there is a certain peace of mind in having the support of a team. Together, you can identify problems sooner and solve them faster.
When you split up the work, more gets done and done more efficiently.
Even though you’re running a business, a little fun is good. You should love your job. That passion will wake you in the morning, rearing to go.
If you wake up every morning dreading your growing task list, you’ll soon face a bigger problem.
Burnout is a real thing.
The members you recruit for your team, both internal and external, take some of the load off.
3. More Time To Be the Boss
You can focus on what matters most with the added support—running your business.
Sure, it pays to learn about the different functions of successfully operating your company, but know and accept the restraints you’re facing.
Outsource and delegate tasks that take time away from the core elements of developing and scaling your business.
II | How to Build Your Team
1. Start With You
You’ll set the tone for all the steps we’re about to explore to build your business team. You are the first person on your team. The foundation member.
Your personality, values and beliefs, leadership style, strengths, weaknesses, all these aspects of who you are as a business owner will come into play when creating your team.
Assess what you’re bringing to the table with an honest evaluation of yourself. Be objective with this step. Write out your skills, strengths, and weaknesses. What gaps do your weaknesses leave in the company?
Stick with what you’re great at and hire qualified employees to handle the rest.
2. Define Your Business Culture
A company’s culture refers to the beliefs and behaviors that define how employees and management interact. It reaches into the core of your business, affecting every aspect. Both internally and externally.
Team culture will develop organically, but you must also set some shared guidelines as the team leader. There isn’t one way to do it. It depends on you, the business type and size, and the people you employ.
Outside of their skills, you want an employee pool that reflects the core value of your business. How they handle customer relationships and their behavior outside the company will, directly and indirectly, affect your business.
3. Outline What You Need
Make a thorough outline of the precise skill sets you require. Note the soft skills that complement your company culture as well.
The more detailed you are about your needs, the higher your chances of building a team with the right, competent people.
Hiring full-time onsite members aren’t your only option when building your team. You can employ part-timers and freelancers who work onsite and remotely.
Each form of employment has pros and cons, so consider this. Remote workers, for example, eliminate the need for office space, and you often pay as you need them.
4. Explain Your Business Vision
Once you’ve hired your team members, it’s time to orient them into life at your company.
Set the baseline for your business culture. There will be non-negotiables, especially concerning product quality, customer experience, and the company’s reputation. Other elements will naturally develop between a group of diverse people.
Outline your plans and where you envision the company in the next six months, a year, or five years from now. Business performance improves when there is a sense of direction. It also boosts the employee’s confidence in you and your leadership.
Get your employees excited about working with the company. While setting the tone and expectations, be careful not to lock them inside a rigid box.
5. Set Goals and Milestones
So, you have a vision for your company. How are you going to get it? And how will you measure success?
You’ll lose momentum if you amp up your team and cannot provide a clear road map.
Deciding on your priorities and developing actionable strategies is one of the hardest (and most important) tasks you’ll face as a team leader.
The wrong goals and action plans can send the team off track. Any derailment will cost you time and money. If you’re operating with limited resources, the fallout can have a crushing effect on your business.
Milestones are your last rallying cry. The entire team should have a shared image of what success looks like. That way, everyone will know when it’s reached, giving the team a sense of accomplishment. Nothing motivates you more than realizing you can achieve what you set out to do.
6. Clarify Roles
Each person has a part to play in the team. Assign them according to their qualifications and strengths. To turn a group into an effective team, you must understand each person’s personality.
Provide a clear outline of job requirements and expectations. Employees are less likely to pull the “not in my job description card” when asked to complete tasks. We’re all familiar with this tactic and know how it slows down business activity.
Efficiency suffers without clear guidelines about who does what.
7. Nurture Your Team
Don’t build it and leave it. Hiring was only 1% of the entire process. Integration sucks up the other 99% and is a long-term everyday deal.
Once you’ve set up your dream team, do check-ins weekly, if not bi-weekly or monthly. Ensure everyone remains on the same page and each member is happy and satisfied with their role.
Keep your members informed if any changes arise to the company’s goals. When you bring on a new hire, introduce them to the other members, and encourage team communication.
Remember, your teams stay together while you’re away from the day-to-day workings. Synergy in the workplace is a cornerstone of productivity. It also lessens employee misunderstandings.
Team-building activities like Friday get-togethers can foster a sense of belonging and connection between team members. Consider other team-building exercises, and always look for ways to improve employee morale.
Positive reinforcements garner better results than a heavy-hand approach.
III | Diversity In Business
Team diversity is a valuable asset. If you have a team with all the same personalities, backgrounds, ways of working, and thinking, you’ve created an automated factory line.
It’s copying and pasting or building the same machine for a singular task. It won’t work in a dynamic environment.
A dynamic environment requires diverse minds and thinking to foster creativity, innovation, and growth.
Creating a team with contrasting yet complementary backgrounds will strengthen your business. Everyone will not have the same blind spots and weaknesses.
Don’t expect everyone to behave the same. And don’t hire photocopies of yourself. How well your team fits in and carries out its individual and group roles matters. How well they do their jobs and represent your company. Nothing else matters.
IV | The Effects of a Bad Boss
The process starts and ends with you.
No matter how well you built your team, if your business leadership isn’t up to par, there will be problems.
Most of us know the emotional drain of working with bad bosses throughout our careers.
Working with a terrible boss might be why you started your own business instead of continuing to work for someone else.
Bad Boss Syndrome
Bad bosses share many of the same negative traits.
- They micro-manage, showing a lack of trust in their team’s abilities.
- They’re terrible listeners and poor communicators.
- For them, employees are pawns of their success, living on the mantra of “I” instead of “we” and “us” as a team.
- They point and blame rather than own their mistakes, treating accountability as a one-way street. The rules they set are not for them.
- A toxic work environment forms around them, lowering morale, increasing employee turnovers, and stifling creativity.
Foster an environment where employees feel safe and there’s a mutual level of trust and respect. You built the team, and you’re the captain.
Conclusion
Building a solid team means knowing who you are as a boss and what you bring to the table. Once you’ve figured out your role and contribution, you can begin planning your “team roster.” Who do you need to fill out the rest of the positions in your company?
Start the hiring process with a clear understanding of your desired company culture and the people who’d complement it. Leave wiggle room for organic development when the group meets and starts working together.
Share your vision and rally everyone around shared goals and milestones. Then send them out with the game plan and a clear understanding of the part they play in the company’s overall success.
Nurture the team you’ve built. Your employees are people too. Positive reinforcement goes a long way. So does showing you care about and value them as individuals.
