Are You Building A Strong Team for Your Business?

Happy Sunday! Happy Superbowl Sunday, if you’re a football fan like I am. American football that is. Most of the world plays football with a round ball :)  I want to start off by saying THANK YOU to all of you who have subscribed to this newsletter.  As of this week, we are over 10,000 strong. That is more than a milestone for me.  For that many of you to grace me with you attention is humbling.

Thank you also for listening to my first podcast episode in over a year. It was fun to brush off the cobwebs and get back to podcasting. If you missed it, you can download or listen to it here.

Well, let’s get to it. I’ve been thinking a lot about teams lately. Not just because of the Super Bowl, but because I’ve been strengthening my team at my business.

Sorry I missed the newsletter last week but one of my big projects was hiring someone.  I’ve grown my business to the point where I can hardly handle the business I have, and I can’t take on any more.  That’s a bad place to be.  You want to hire someone before you get to that point.  One of the things having this person is going to allow me to do, is put more time in here.

Have you been there? Maybe you’re there now with your business. If not, and you’re successful, you will be there soon.  Every business owner, even a solo freelancer, gets to the point where they need to get help with the tasks that are holding them back from growth.

Maybe it’s bookkeeping, or admin work, or research, but there are probably things you’re spending time on that are costing you money. If you’re spending time on things that you could pay someone to do, and by freeing up that time you could make more money than that person would cost you, then doing those things is costing you money.

You need a strong team to run a successful business.  I’m not just talking about employees either. You need advisers, and suppliers you can count on.  I have my own personal advisory board. Like a personal board of directors.  I can count on them to give me their opinions and advice even if it’s not what I want to hear. I can’t overemphasize how important this is, especially when they tell what I don’t want to hear; especially when they tell me I’m wrong.

Do you have a personal board of directors? Are you building one?  You’d be surprised how willing people are to help you.  If you don’t know other successful business owners, and I mean know them personally, in person, not online, go meet some. Start going to local networking events. If you don’t know where to find these groups, check out Meetup.com.

A GREAT way to meet smart people is to volunteer at a local non-profit. I wrote ablog post about why I think every digital marketing professional should volunteer, but I think the same benefits could apply to any field of expertise and any business. You can read it here.

So are you building a strong team?  If not, I hope you give some thought to it.  You can’t go as far alone as you can with a strong team.