When working with small business owners, I’ve noticed a trend: a lot of you people are freaked out by team building.
This is totally strange to me, because I “grew up” in business running teams. In fact, my biggest business nightmare is not about starting a team, but losing a great one.
In any case, the other trend I’ve noticed is that many of the fears people vocalize to me are very common — and totally bogus. It’s another one of those energy issues; people start to tell themselves a story about their business and in particular delegating and building a team, and for them, it becomes reality.
So I took the most common fears I hear and debunked them for you…
1. “It will take me more time to figure out how to keep them busy than to just do it myself.”
This might be true if you approach the whole team building thing without any forethought or organization. But why would you hire someone if you weren’t sure you knew how you were going to keep them busy?
Just as with any business task, it pays to be prepared before you dive headlong into trying to find or hire your first team members.
You can download my delegation worksheet here to get started on identifying tasks and activities BEFORE you actually hire someone, but the point is: you hire someone to fit the tasks that you identified, not the other way around.
Hiring someone and then trying to figure out how to keep them busy is backwards thinking.
2. “How will I know if it is a good investment?”
Here’s the thing… It’s not up to the team member to be a good investment; it’s up to them to do the tasks you’ve assigned to them. The investment comes in on YOUR side of things.
Woah, wait, WHAT?
Think of it this way: If someone has freed up 10 hours for you, what are you doing with those hours? Are you able to take on another client? Better serve the clients you have? Do more marketing or selling? Develop a new product or service? Invest in your own education or development?
And by the way, a “good investment” might just mean that you’re sleeping easier because you have backup, or spending more time with your friends and family. To me, that’s totally valid.
Define what return on investment means for you. As a side note, I noticed my sales went up by about 15% when I hired my first staff person. I wasn’t expecting that at all, so it was a nice surprise! Remember: Don’t define your team member by the revenue they create, but by what you’re able to do because they’re around.
3. “Where will I find them?”
Honestly? I found one staff person by referral, another by Craigslist and yet another from my newsletter. I don’t think finding them is the real problem; the more important issue is having a filter to screen out the people who aren’t a good fit. Which is another reason why you need to plan your delegation before putting the word out.
In fact, I find that the act of writing out the job description helps me get crystal clear about who would and wouldn’t be a good fit. And, sometimes, when I’m feeling really woo woo, I also think that the act of writing the job description puts it out into the universe, and helps me attract the right person. (Your mileage may vary!)
4. “Is it really going to be worth the time and effort to train and deal with payroll?”
Go back to that whole “return on investment” part and reassess this question: If you defined a good return on investment as 10 hours a week you can spend marketing and bringing in new clients, then would you categorize it as “worth it”?
I trained my first staff person by sending her the process summary I had for each thing I wanted her to do. So training wasn’t a huge deal (especially if you start out with fewer hours and then build on that later).
It’s worth it to document your processes as part of your pre-hire work, as well, but don’t let this trip you up. Turn on some screen-recording software, and just make a video of you doing the task. BOOM. You just documented your process.
As for payroll, all of my team are independent virtual contractors, so I just pay their invoices once per month. Absolutely simple. Now, given the way I am growing my business, I allow for the possibility that they might be employees one day, but I love them all now, so they are totally worth whatever bookkeeping hoops I need to jump through. So starting with independent contractors is an easy way to go.
5. “Will it take too much time for me to supervise them?”
If you do the delegation work up front, and document what you want them to do, you’re really just spot checking their work — so it doesn’t take much time at all. A lot less time than if you were still doing everything yourself, and that’s the real point, isn’t it?
I use tools like Basecamp, Help Scout and OnePage to monitor what is happening and document questions and conversations between staff. There is always a solution to be more efficient.
And here’s the other part of this equation: if it DOES take up a lot of time for you to supervise them, you probably have the wrong person in the position.
6. “Can I afford it?”
Let’s do some math… If you paid someone $40/hour (typical for a VA), and said you needed him/her for 4 hours weekly to post your blog and set up social media, that’s $160 weekly or about $640 monthly.
I am HOPING you’re billing somewhere in the ballpark of at least double, triple or quadruple that VA rate. So if s/he is costing you $160 weekly, you’re potentially covering that by taking on more business. Do you think you could sell another $640 worth of product or services by having an extra 16 hours every month to work on it? That’s the real question. (Go back to question 2 to define this for yourself.)
7. “How do I know when I am actually ready for this step?”
If we use the above example of needing to pay someone $640 per month, then I would encourage you to save $640 per month from your business for a few months. That also gives you time to get crystal clear on your delegation and the payoff for your business. By saving that for a few months, you also gain the confidence that even if you don’t achieve the ROI you hoped for, you can still afford the cash flow until things pick up.
By the way — it’s okay for you as a business owner to say, “This isn’t working out, sorry…” if you don’t think it’s working or don’t think you can afford it. You’re not required to keep paying someone who you don’t feel like is helping or fulfilling your expectations!
However, most of the time I see staff issues, it has more to do with management than it does a faulty staff person. (So keep that in mind!)
Have I convinced you yet? If so, I highly recommend you download my delegation worksheet, which will walk you through the steps in defining the work you want to delegate and help you get started doing the pre-work that will ensure your team building is a huge success!