How to build a team to support you in your business + how it isn’t for everyone!
The small business journey is one of the wildest roller coasters you will ever find yourself on. Some days you feel like you have it all under control and living your best life kicking all the goals, and other days you feel like even getting out of bed is too hard!
Having grown my team very quickly after going full-time in my business, I regularly get asked “how did I build a team to support me, my business and my clients”. Along with the flip side of this, “how do you know if having a team is for me or not”.
Firstly I am going to mention a few things in case you are not familiar with my story. I was a corporate HR Manager, people are my jam. So I knew very early on that wanting a team was for me - I love helping team members to grow and achieve their full potential. Beyond this, I also knew that I wanted to help as many business owners as possible to grow their businesses. In order to do this, I had to grow my own very rapidly to ensure I had the team to support my clients.
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Not everyone has this same innate feeling towards having a team and, for many business owners, it is more about the practicality and business growth that having a team may be considered.
Let’s start with how having a team is not for everyone, or might just not be at the current stage you are at!
3 key things to consider when deciding whether you would like to grow your team (or not!) are:
Can you financially commit to making sure you can appropriately remunerate your team and on time each pay cycle? (Note: Sometimes you also need to spend money to make money and take that leap before you are fully ready to!)
Have you written a list of all the things that you are looking to delegate in your team? Have you prepared said items and training, procedures and process documents/videos accordingly to ensure that you can delegate as efficiently and effectively as possible?
Do you have the skills and abilities to manage people? Do you even want to manage other people? This is a biggie and if you are not confident here, upskill first before you take on your first team member to ensure that the experience is enjoyable for both you and them when working together
So now let’s dive into the steps you need to take in order to build the team to support you in your business…
Remember that list I spoke about in item 2 above? It is now the first step here! Having a list of items that you know you don’t enjoy doing, or know that someone else can do quicker, better and more efficiently and effectively in your business, is key here
Review your list from step 1, and distinguish the different skill sets you require from the new team members that you are going to hire
Once you have figured out who you need and how many different people you require - some people may look for an all-rounder who can achieve all of your list, or depending on the skill-mix required, you may need to hire a few different people - now is the fun part: crafting a job ad and working out where you are going to post about hiring! Again, depending on the skill-mix required, you may think about options such as on your business Instagram page, Facebook groups and pages, LinkedIn (if appropriate for your business), and, failing all of these and depending on the role, job pages like Seek, Indeed etc. I mention these last as these can be quite costly for a small business.
Prepare your interview questions. These are essential so you can make sure you follow a set of questions across all candidates. Getting to know the candidate who will be working closely with you in your business is essential! Hire right the first time and you will save yourself time, $$$ and pain!
Book in a handful of interviews. Depending on how these go, you may need to interview a few more until you feel 100% confident in your decision of who you are hiring. (Note: I have posted jobs before, interviewed and not found anyone suitable so have put on ice and re-tried again weeks, months later. It is not worth bringing someone on if they are not the perfect cultural fit for your biz!)
Hire your new team member, ensuring that you are meeting all employment law, tax obligations etc. If you aren’t sure, reach out to experts to make sure you get it all correct, and, one final thing: please make sure you have a contract in place!! #essential
Congrats on hiring your first team member!
Or if you are in the other camp, and not quite ready: remember that right now might not be the right time for you to hire in your business. But business is a rollercoaster; just because you decide today that you aren’t ready, it doesn’t mean that you will never be!
