The Biz Growth Doctors show is for heart-centered entrepreneurs who are on a mission to make an impact through their businesses.
Our episodes tackle the three biggest challenges of running a business:
▶ Attracting Your Dream Clients – [Marketing] ▶ Building Your Dream Team – [Hiring/Training/Leadership ▶ Creating Your Dream Business – [Strategic Planning]
Content is geared for service-based business owners from startup entrepreneurs to 1M-10M founders
Growing Your Advisory Firm [Business Owner Roundtable Discussion]
QUESTION: 😮WHAT WAS THE MOST EXPENSIVE LESSON YOU LEARNED IN YOUR BUSINESS?
It’s far cheaper to learn from the mistakes of other entrepreneurs than to make those mistakes yourself. Do you agree? …
Then you gotta watch this awesome roundtable discussion I facilitated with three owners of successful advisory firms
I loved the raw conversation. 💚 💙
I got them to “spill the beans” on some of the most expensive mistakes they made in their entrepreneurial journey. They were so gracious to share the good and the bad, so we can help more people avoid common costly mistakes in their own entrepreneurial journey.
Take the time to delve into this robust discussion with:
1- Brian Carney, CFP®, AIF®, ChFC®, CDFA® Co-Founder of RiverEdge (Financial) Advisors 2- Scott Hensley, Founder of IPIVX Growth Solutions ~ Outsourced CRO / VP of Sales 3- Matthew Burr, Owner of Burr (HR) Consulting
We talk about:
⭐️What was the hardest part of growing your advisory business? ⭐️What were the biggest hiring mistakes you had to learn the hard way? ⭐️How are you landing your biggest clients this year? What’s working now?
Love to get your thoughts too…
QUESTION: WHAT WAS THE MOST EXPENSIVE LESSON YOU LEARNED IN YOUR BUSINESS?
Please share your comments and join the discussion
SEND ME AN INVITE TO CONNECT ON: LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/yooncannon Facebook http://www.facebook.com/YoonCannonParamountBusinessCoach Twitter https://twitter.com/yooncannon _________________________________________________
🔥 If you have a burning question you’d like us to answer in an upcoming episode leave us a message here:
CONNECT with me on LinkedIn here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/yooncannon/ but be sure to include a note you found our Biz Growth Doctors YT Channel as I don’t accept every connection request.
Do you struggle with anxiety or SHINY OBJECT SYNDROME?
Growing a business is not easy… it might look that way when you see others winning the Inc 5000 Awards, the Ernst and Young awards like Agency owner, Rich Kahn.
But he spilled the beans on how much he struggled in his business as an extreme introvert.
It takes a lot of strength to admit your weaknesses…. But I believe, that when I am weak, then I am strong.
I am in awe of these three seasoned entrepreneurs: Rich Kahn, Steve Cunningham, and Samantha Bennett.
Not just because of the impressive milestones they’ve achieved … like building 7-figure businesses, winning multiple prestigious awards, achieving celebrity status, and more… I admire their humility and raw transparency as we discuss the real struggles they had had to overcome and continue to manage.
Can you relate to any of these challenges as an entrepreneur?
1- Shiny object syndrome
2- Anxiety
3- Depression
Check out our Entrepreneur round table. I invite you to share your comments and join the discussion
PS: Do you have a specific challenge you’d like to receive peer feedback on at our next entrepreneur round table discussion?
Reply to this blog and let me know what your question(s) is with a little context around the challenge you’re facing in your business.
In today’s world, many small businesses are struggling to compete against large companies because most people would love to work for those organizations. The most typical scenario is that small businesses get what’s left from the applicants of big companies.
Your employees will help you make your business bigger. So it’s always best to look for top candidates as they’ll contribute to your organization more.
Hiring top talents in a company is one of the keys to its success. If you’re running a small business, one of the challenges your company faces is recruiting excellent employees.
This article will give tips on how small businesses can hire top talents and improve their company’s performance in the industry.
5 Recruitment Strategies For Small Businesses
It may sound easy to create your hiring system, but it is challenging, especially for small businesses. There are plenty of ways you can secure the best candidates.
Offer Flexible Schedules
Small businesses can attract excellent talents by offering flexitime. Most people are looking for a flexible job, especially regarding schedules. Employees use the time to search for other ways to earn money, such as freelancing, while others use it for personal growth.
Most employers think employees might not do their tasks if they don’t keep an eye on them. On the contrary, giving them flexible time allows them to increase productivity in your organization.
For instance, they have to finish 40 hours a week. Instead of making them complete it in five days, they can finish the 40 hours in four days with a 10-hour shift. They would have more free time for themselves to be used for personal growth or family.
Another example is they did 12 hours today; they can come in late the next day. Not only will it give your team more rest, but they can also make critical decisions for the company’s betterment.
Offer Competitive Compensation
Let’s be practical. We all need money to live and enjoy our lives, so job seekers consider salary before applying for the opening. If they have the skills but think they wouldn’t get the salary they deserve, they’d most likely turn away and look for another company.
Their skills are investments. They have spent countless hours studying to earn from them.
However, when it comes to compensation, salary isn’t the only thing involved. You can also add insurance, incentives, bonuses, and other perks that employees can get. Doing this will also improve your employee retention rating.
If your business is in sales, you can offer incentives if they reach their weekly or monthly target. This will make them try to sell more, increasing your sales.
Providing competitive compensation can also increase productivity in your organization. The employees will become more motivated to do their job, improving your business situation.
State Clear & Appealing Job Descriptions
Job seekers dislike unclear job descriptions. Before they consider the position available in your organization, they will read the description. If they find it very confusing, they’re more likely to give up on the job before applying.
Nobody wants to read texts that are full of jargon. So, it’s best to create straightforward job descriptions. You should include all the essential details, especially about the compensation, qualifications, and responsibilities.
Serious applicants and job seekers always want to be clear on what they are getting into. They don’t want to waste their time going through a hiring process that doesn’t give them clarity about the job description and requirements.
Job descriptions are your first move to attract top talents, so make sure that you write concise and appealing words to reach your target people.
Create a Referral Program
Small companies have more limited funds than larger ones. They would try to save costs as much as possible, including the recruitment process. You can lessen the cost of your recruitment by using referrals.
Referral programs are affordable. You don’t need to allocate a large budget to run the program because your employees will do it for you.
It’s one of the best ways to find new talents for your company and, at the same time, promote a stronger employer brand as your current employees would recommend your company as one of the best places to work.
Your current employees will help you look for the talent you need. For it to become more effective, you can offer the referrers monetary incentives for every successful referral. Giving them gift coupons or shopping vouchers will encourage them to invite the people they know to apply for the job.
Remember to keep the referral program simple and keep the referrers updated even if their referral didn’t qualify. This will boost the employer-employee relationship.
Share Equity or Ownership
Sharing equity/stocks or ownership is not a very common approach when looking for talents. However, it is very effective and can keep the key people in the company.
Candidates are not just looking for jobs; they want to ensure their future and create opportunities for themselves.
Offering them a certain amount of your company’s equity can motivate them. The percentage isn’t necessarily large. A small amount is a good start, but when the company becomes bigger, its share value also increases.
You’re also teaching them how stocks work and probably become great entrepreneurs in the future.
Build a Strong Employer Brand
Think about large companies, such as Google and Amazon. They have built their brands that many people could easily recognize as one of the biggest companies in the world.
To build your company brand, you will create a strong connection with your clients or customers as a company. Creating beautifully designed logos, attractive websites, and effective marketing strategies are some ways to establish your brand.
Creating a strong employer brand is similar to your company brand. As an employer, building relationships with current employees is beneficial in successfully recruiting the best people.
Talents want a stable job where they can work for a long time and see improvement. Aside from offering competitive compensation, invest in upskilling and professional development. You can provide them with free training and seminars. This will help you acquire high performing teams to help your business improve and become bigger.
Serious job seekers will surely love to work for your organization because they can also improve themselves and become better at what they do.
Start Succession Planning
Employees usually ask themselves what they would get if they stayed longer in a small company.
Larger companies offer various opportunities to their current employees. A small business might not be able to compete with all of those, but when you offer promotions, such as leadership, to your current employees, they would feel valuable.
Recruiting external candidates isn’t the only option for small businesses. You have your current employees to become the next key person you need. You don’t need to look elsewhere to find the right person because your employees are your excellent people source.
Always use data to back up your succession planning. It’s important to know who the right candidate is among your workforce. Using a metric performance system is the best way to identify the person.
You can check which person has been doing well and deserves a promotion.
Use Combinations of Recruiting Techniques
Small businesses shouldn’t just focus on their recruitment process; they should also consider the ways to secure top talents for their companies. Posting a job and waiting for a candidate isn’t a strategy to help your business grow.
Follow the tips above to attract more top talents. You’ll have more candidates to choose from and will be able to hire the best ones to improve your company.
SECRETS TO ATTRACTING TOP SALES TALENT FOR SMB OWNERS
There is a growing crisis in sales talent. According to Forbes, companies are “struggling to keep the sales reps they have, and having an even harder time finding and developing sales reps to replace them.”
Recruiting and retaining top sales talent has always been challenging. But, if you are trying to grow a small or mid-size company, it’s an added struggle to compete with the bigger salaries Enterprise companies can offer.
To help you attract top sales talent and navigate this era of the Great Resignation, I’ve rounded up six SMB owners to share their advice how they overcame specific constraints to recruiting sales talent.
SALES HIRING CHALLENGE #1. Hiring Salespeople Who Can Produce Quickly
We hired a former chef who had never really worked in an office before. He became one of our top performers and stayed with us close to 10 years and even got a FunctionFox Tattoo!
We always try to “Stay Creative” with any challenge that comes our way.
We have focused our energy primarily on inbound marketing, which is conducive to having a team of farmers.
Farmers are generally better with accountability and providing the data needed for closing the loop on the customer journey. Hunters tend to be more outgoing, extroverted, and harder to keep track of. We have found this role has been the hardest to fill and keep and are still in search of a good one.
Lars Helgeson Founder / CEO, GreenRope All-In-One CRM with Marketing Automation
SALES HIRING CHALLENGE #4. Managing Budget & Expectations of the Sales Team.
ReadCube is part of Digital Science, which is part of the broader Holtzbrinck Publishing conglomerate. People who work in the Science Technical and Medical (STM) sectors know that Digital Science is a hot commodity.
So, I leveraged three core ways to be able to attract top sales talent.
I engaged my network looking for potential sales candidates who already had a rolodex.
The sellers I recruited worked for me in a past professional life, so we had/have mutual respect for each other.
I also worked with a headhunter.
From those tactics I was able to source 15-20 top qualified candidates to interview.
In our 15 years in business we have been through many challenging times such as a recession and Covid 19. 2022 has been just as challenging, the challenge this time is finding quality talent.
Only 4-5 years ago if we contacted 20 potential candidates we would get 10 quality resumes. Today, if we contact 50 we are lucky if we get 1 strong candidate. What we have done to combat this situation is think out of the box and consult with our clients to do the same.
Although the clientele might be different the core processes and sales cycles are the same.”
Jim McKenna, President at Definitive Search Partners We Partner with You to Bring You the Highest Quality Candidates!
SALES HIRING CHALLENGE # 7. Candidates Who Change Their Minds
LinkedIn recently published the top challenges facing recruiters. A staggering 75% of recruiters report they’ve dealt with candidates who went through the entire interview process, only to then change their minds last minute. (Ugh!) Unfortunately, this is growing problem that’s been happening at an increasing rate in the post pandemic world we are living in today.
How Yoon Cannon Helps SMB Owners Overcome This Challenge:
While it is unrealistic to completely eliminate this problem you can expect to greatly reduce candidates changing their minds by focusing on the big rocks I call the 3 R’s:
Remote Options: The latest studies are finding that 56% of candidates turn down jobs because of lack of flexibility to work remote. They want flexibility more than they want pay and security. Where we have been able to help SMB owners is by designing systems to help you effectively manage a remote or partially remote team while boosting their sales performance.
Retention through Relationships: Working remote certainly gives your sales team greater work-life balance, but it can also lead to your sales team feeling too isolated and disconnected. Pandemic or not, never forget human nature has proven throughout history that people will often stay with a company longer, not necessarily, because they love the actual work they do, but because they love the people they get to work with.
Introduce candidates throughout their interview process to multiple managers and peers in your organization.
Show the vibe of your people and the camaraderie they enjoy through your company videos.
Create and showcase several videos of you, the founder as well as your leadership team. Don’t make it “corporate”. Be your genuine selves. Candidates will want to work for you if you give them ways to feel like they got to know, like and trust you.
Recruiting Funnel: There is no one reason why a candidate changes their mind last minute. There are multiple reasons.
So, by the time you are reviewing your top candidates you can be confident each of those candidates have determined for themselves the role they are applying for is truly the right fit for them.
Yoon Cannon, Business Growth Coach, Founder, ParamountBusinessCoach.com Helping entrepreneurs scale your business growth!
SALES HIRING CHALLENGE #8. Generating Enough Sales as a Startup to Hire Sales Talent Without Any VC Funding
FIrst off, to make sense of this here is an analogy. Startups are like rock bands. Whereas, rock bands will send out demo tapes to whatever label will throw money at them. StartUps send out pitch decks to whatever VC will invest in them.
Either way, most of them never make it out of the garage. To get a record deal in your favor, getting out of the garage and touring is the best way to do this.
Investors want to see traction and there is no better way to show this than to have paying customers. It doesn’t matter who you know. People with money have it for a reason, they don’t spend it foolishly. Ironically, the far majority of VC funded companies also fail.
My best advice to any Entrepreneur is to get as many paying customers as possible and as quickly as possible. This also comes at great cost if you are irresponsible.
Peeva’s approach is a top to bottom approach.
Rather than hire a ground swell of boots on the ground (outside sales professionals) to make cold calls and hand off marketing literature and then pay them to chase and bother busy prospects, it was much more productive for us to establish a beta relationship with a large corporate chain of vet hospitals.
From the C-level down, we were then able to scale at a much quicker rate with veterinary professionals and hospitals without ever meeting them let alone speaking with them. Our veterinary professionals essentially do sales for us, by selling Peeva to pet owners.
I did all of this myself, before requiring any sales professionals. It was not until after I established these types of accounts before brining on a veterinary relations director that overseas 3 other sales professionals that follow the traditional meet face to face sales model. No VC needed, and the only VC’s I ever speak with at this point are those that reach out to us.
I hope this helps many entrepreneurs that will go broke or focus on an exit strategy before getting started.
Michael Hamilton, CEO / Founder of Peeva
Universal pet identification and central database
SALES HIRING CHALLENGE #9. Sales People Who Are Transactional
The biggest challenge in hiring my first sales team was the transition from their past selling “norms” into trusted advisors that would solve the customers problems as opposed to selling our products and solutions.
I hired sales talent who had the desire and hunger and weren’t too worried about their sales track record as that was in the past and CVs are exactly that past achievement. I was more interested in how I can transform the potential that existed to meet what our customers needed. So, I trained them to be consultative and not transactional.
The key is well-structured, performance-driven incentives. Why not offer unlimited upside to grow your business?
Of course OTE must be achievable so that your team can accurately forecast income and plan their lives. But incentivizing sales talent to treat your business like it’s their own has been the single most important thing. How can you make them feel more like an owner, rather than a rep?
Alex Goldberg, Founder Fin vs Fin
Discover the best wellness products
SALES HIRING CHALLENGE #11. Making Our First Sales Hire
It’s easy at first to try to go too big, too fast especially while building a solution or consulting business. While growing an early sales team, it usually works well to start with one great sales professional to help you begin bringing your product or service to market.
Early on, it’s about learning quickly and allowing the sales, marketing and product development cycles to evolve together. It’s more difficult to do this with a large team in place, and I’ve seen firsthand how painful it can be to change or adapt once you’ve made a few great but potentially mistimed hires.
That will help you define and grow your offerings to fit the needs they’ve seen solving this problem first hand.
Based on the approach that works, it may make sense to hire more sales professionals with a similar background, or it may make sense to partner with a larger firm that is in the industry that can be trained to cross-sell or up-sell for you.
There’s no one-size fits all method, and you may find that direct sales hires, outside SDRs that focus on meeting generation, or a partner channel oriented approach work for you, or a healthy mix of the three may be the best approach. It’ll all depend on your industry and the state of your business, so the first step is to start trying and learning!
Akash Agarwal, CEO, Conmitto
Configurable cloud software for supply chain management
SALES HIRING CHALLENGE #12. Creating a Large Team of Sales Advocates as a Startup Company
Having been an entrepreneur for over 20 years, growing and scaling multiple teams and companies, sales is the lifeblood for growth. The challenges in hiring great salespeople and teams have evolved over the years. In my latest start-up at AQai we have focused on two key aspects to grow our company through a specific sales and go to market strategy.
Firstly, having a compelling mission, one that deeply resonates and connects with our audience of coaches and HR leaders. This driver to inspire & empower every human with the skills to adapt and thrive. Ensuring no-one is left behind in the fastest period of change in history, has been the corner stone to attracting truly great talent.
The second and important strategy has been to empower a global network of distributed agents to act as our sales advocates. With this strategy we have managed to rapidly train, certify, and enable over 200 coaches and consultants to win more business, and do more interesting work. With their sales and success, driving exponential growth on our adaptability assessment and training platform. This strategy has removed the traditional thinking for hiring, and the barriers of initial funding the growth of a direct sales team.
Using this strategic approach has enabled us to land significant projects with companies like Microsoft, IBM, The Federal Reserve Bank and Havi, among many other pioneering, people focussed organizations.
To find out more about our work, the community we are building focussed on the mental health and wellbeing in the future of work, please check out www.aqai.io
Ross Thornley, CEO & Co-Founder AQai
Change, retain and prepare your people for change
SALES HIRING CHALLENGE #13. Making Sure We’re Hiring the Right Kind of People to Fill the Role.
The biggest challenge we’ve faced in hiring sales talent is making sure we’re hiring the right kind of people to fill the role. Sched helps individuals and teams create great events with our event scheduling software.
We invest significant resources in training our sales team to be able to offer solutions for our customers’ challenges when trying to plan great events.
We want to make sure our salespeople can uncover problems, explain our solutions and build trust along the way.
Instead of just hiring a Sales rep, we are trying to hire people who over time can expand their roles.
Our company is remote, distributed and filled with self-motivated, accountable people. We look for bright, hard working, results-oriented individuals with high levels of integrity because they are the most likely to succeed within our team.
Finding these people makes our typical hiring process look more like an audition than the typical “application and interview” process.
Hiring good people is tough. Hiring good sales people is even tougher. Our hiring process helps reduce some of that risk and increase the probability of a successful sales hire.
Marvin McTaw, CEO of Sched.com
Event Scheduling Software & Event Mobile Apps
So, there you have it. Thirteen founders sharing their personal advice on how they overcame specific Sales Talent Hiring challenges.
▶ QUESTION: What specific hiring challenge would you like to see covered in this article? Please share your comments below.
▶ Not Sure What The Best Way is to Solve Your Sales Hiring Challenges?
Book a complimentary business strategy call with Yoon Cannon here:
How to Build a Dream Team as an Entrepreneur (for Startups)
The purpose of this guide is to help you build your startup from a team of one to a team of many. You’ll know how to identify your startup needs, find the right people to fill those needs, and how you can bring those people together to create a high-performing team.
If you want to get your ideas off the napkin and on the ground running, it can be helpful to prioritize the growth of your team. These are people that you can mold into your workflow, and bridge the gap between your expertise and business knowledge. Not only will you have to expand it, but also make sure these individuals have a strong foundation to launch from.
Have a Clear Vision for Your Startup
If you’re reading this you probably have an ideal plan for your business, but the development ofa business ideastill has to be completed. Either way, solidifying the vision is a great first step toward a clearer direction.
Once you’ve outlined your idea or “vision”, set SMART goals for building your future team. As a refresher, these are goals that are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and timebound. They can always be adjusted throughout the different stages of your startup so don’t limit yourself, or feel limited to sticking to your original plan.
During the stage of crafting your business’s vision, find individuals to network with and learn from. They may have gone through a similar process before, or have a well-rounded knowledge of establishing a startup. If conversations go well, and you build trustworthy work relationships with others, you can always further the mentorship process and ask them to be an advisor for your startup team.
These don’t have to be full-time employees, but more of a mentor or phone call away if you needed a helping hand. Without one, you could be missing out on necessary industry and experience-based knowledge so take additional time to prioritize those networking events, and connect with as many people on LinkedIn as you can!
Once your advisor or board of advisors is established, make sure to take the time to review expectations and schedules with them. Take their areas of expertise and experience into consideration when developing a strategic plan for your business. ask questions such as: How involved will they be in the process? Will there be weekly or monthly meetings?
Evaluate Your Startup Needs
As an entrepreneur, you may pride yourself on being self-sufficient and independent, but you doing everything by yourself can actually lead to burnout. Skills that you may lack, another person could really excel at. Instead of thinking that you can do everything the best way, delegate the tasks to other people and work along with their strengths to help build your business.
Write down what skills you can improve upon, and what the main needs of your business are, and find the gaps in between each to create roles for your future team. Remember, self-awareness and honesty are key to benefit from this exercise.
Hiring people who are different from you helps to create a well-rounded team with a diverse skill set. Diversity leads to more creative solutions to problems. Hiring people who are not only equipped with different skills and backgrounds but also different personalities and interests can lead to more success. While keeping diversity in mind, there are a few key abilities and traits that you should also look for when bringing on team members.
First and foremost, startups can be completely unpredictable. Most of the time, they may be strapped for resources, tools, and possibly money. You will want people who can bounce back from mishaps that are bound to happen when you’re working in a company that’s in its early
stages. People who are adaptable, innovative, and capable of multitasking will thrive in this ever-changing and evolving work environment.
Use Your Connections to Your Advantage
This may seem obvious, but making connections is essential when you’re recruiting new business team members. Take advantage of networking events, industry-focused workshops, and other opportunities that may broaden your social reach.
As mentioned earlier, it’s important to first find someone (or maybe even multiple people) you trust to serve as an advisor on your team. Depending on what you’ve identified as your business needs, you’ll need people to fill those roles. Typically, the starting lineup of any company will include these positions:
Chief executive officer
Chief marketing officer
Product manager
Chief financial officer
Chief technology officer
Business development manager
Sales manager
Customer service expert
However, don’t feel tied down to building your dream team around these positions. You can adjust or delegate multiple roles to team members.
If you feel like the number of connections is looking limited, don’t hesitate to use hiring platforms to build your team too. Indeed, Linkedin and Glassdoor are reliable for finding and recruiting top talent. If you’re not confident using this method by yourself, consider involving your advisor in the hiring process. They can assist you in interviewing and choosing candidates, and it never hurts to have a second opinion on something that’s going to affect your business.
Another thing to have handy in the hiring process is an employee checklistfor candidates you’ve decided to move forward with. You’ll want to make sure your employees are set up for success early on in your business beginnings. On the note of successful beginnings, make sure your team is properly compensated whether it’s monetary or otherwise from the start of employment.
Take your advisors, for example, they’re not just doing you a favor by mentoring you through your startup journey. There are a few ways to go about compensating advisors, one of the most common is to utilize the FAST Agreement from the Founder Institute. This is a flexible approach to providing compensation as it depends on the company’s maturity and the level of advisor engagement.
As for your other team members, you may be wondering how you can not only compensate top talent but also entice them to work for you. For startups strapped for financial resources, it might seem like working for a startup is undesirable. Job seekers might opt for work at a larger company with higher pay and better benefits. But, how long does it take until those benefits are outweighed by a lack of satisfaction?
It all depends on an employee’s value, and how they are able to connect with your start-up’s overall mission. Even though a larger company is most likely more established, it does not mean they are prioritizing employee growth and opportunity. It’s all about how you advertise your business to those who you want to hire. Relate to an audience and show them that, even though you’re smaller and in a more development phase, it could give them a lot of experience!
Working at a startup and on a smaller team fosters a sense of belonging and purpose as well. There is a clear goal for the team to work towards, and reaching that goal is the most satisfying feeling. Furthermore, a startup with a clear vision and personable leadership is more attractive than a big corporation with less than ideal morals and goals. As stated earlier, a startup may lack resources and constantly change. That isn’t necessarily a bad thing though, it gives employees a challenge that they can benefit from professionally.
Making and utilizing connections is an effective way to form a team but it’s also crucial for finding support outside of your internal team. You’ll need people to advocate for your startup to help you achieve your goals. Accelerator programs are a great resource for breaking through a heavily saturated market.
Rafael Ilishayevand Yakir Gola, co-founders of the delivery company Gopuff, understood the importance of having an advocate in the early stages of a startup through their small business accelerator program. These are great for business-minded people who are starting their own companies because it gets them in front of the right people to find funding or other resources that can set them up for success.
If you’re looking to expand, take advantage of the resources and opportunities that these company-created programs give you especially as you’re growing your team. And who knows, maybe one day you can give back to the entrepreneurial community with your own accelerator program or fund!
Instill Strong Values In Your Team
When you have finally assembled your team, consider having them take a personality assessment. This test can give you an idea of how individuals will work with you and the rest of your team. Remember, it’s less about who is on the team and more about how the team works together. Once you’ve done this, you know how your team can most efficiently work together.
But, that’s not the end of things. What foundation are efficient and high-performing teams built on? A few things; trust, consistent communication, respect, and honesty. If your team consists of people with all these traits, they’re more likely to be there to support you and each other. From day one, you need to set up the expectations of these values for your team.
Re-evaluate Your Team as Needed
Now that you have your team and know how best to work with each other, it’s important to keep track of your progress as a business. If you find your team is missing something, like a specific skill set or perspective, consider bringing someone on to help. You can either hire someone to fill a role on your internal team or you can outsource an individual or an entire team.
Let’s say you’re lacking the marketing tools to propel your business and you find your team unsure of how to tackle this issue. Ask yourself, “Do I hire a team to do in-house marketing, or should I outsource?” While there is no right or wrong answer to this question, and it depends on what works best for your business, this outsourcing vs hiring guidemay help you find perspective on what to do if you find yourself in a situation like this.
At the end of the day, your team is what makes or breaks the success of your startup. Hence the saying you’ve probably heard countless times, “Teamwork makes the dream work!” By utilizing the tips mentioned above, you’ll build the startup team of your dreams in no time.
The purpose of this guide is to help you build your startup from a team of one to a team of many. You’ll know how to identify your startup needs, find the right people to fill those needs, and how you can bring those people together to create a high-performing team.
As an entrepreneur, you may pride yourself on being self-sufficient and independent, but you doing everything by yourself can actually lead to burnout. Skills that you may lack, another person could really excel at. Instead of thinking that you can do everything the best way, delegate the tasks to other people and work along with their strengths to help build your business. 
As for your other team members, you may be wondering how you can not only compensate top talent but also entice them to work for you. For startups strapped for financial resources, it might seem like working for a startup is undesirable. Job seekers might opt for work at a larger company with higher pay and better benefits. But, how long does it take until those benefits are outweighed by a lack of satisfaction? 
