Building a Powerful Team: Removing the S from Your Chest

Don’t Be a Superhero

As a small business owner and entrepreneur, you know what it means to build a business from the ground up. It takes smart thinking, ingenuity, and a ton of hard work to create a successful business.

Many small business owners are very protective of their vision because they know exactly where they want to take their business. Sooner or later, though, most entrepreneurs recognize that they need help to grow.

They can work 80 hours a week, but in order to meet the demands of their business, it’s going to take a team.  You simply can't scale without one.

If you’re ready to start growing your work team, the next few weeks of articles will give you the skills to find an incredible team and the knowledge to create a productive work environment.

 
Avoid the Hero Complex and Build a Team

You may be the type of person who does everything by yourself. You trust yourself the most, you’re the one who understands your vision the most, and you’re the best person to see that vision come to fruition.

That’s a good plan if you have a very small business that depends solely on your own efforts. There are some small businesses that can be run by one person.  

However, if you want to significantly expand your business, you’re probably going to need help.

For most businesses, great success arises from having an incredible team of workers - a group of people who:

• Understand and share your values
• Have a strong work ethic
• Have the skills to push things forward

Have you ever heard of “superhero syndrome?”

Superhero syndrome means that you feel that you’re the only one who can do things well – and you should be the one doing everything.  Robert Kiyosaki said that the S in his Cashflow Quadrant stood for Self-Employeed but that some people wear that S on their chest like Superman.  They have to do it all.

In the book Virtual Freedom, Chris Ducker writes,

"...your business is your baby, and who better to take care of that baby than the person who gave birth to it -- you! However, this will eventually catch up with you, and the strength that you possess as an entrepreneur will start to backfire…[It] will leave you stressed and overworked, and ultimately, you will be no good to anyone or anything -- including your business."

Chris Ducker isn’t the only one to recognize the need for a strong team. Outsourcing work is critical to the success of countless businesses -- small and large.  Our business is no different.

Hillary Kerr and Katherine Power are the creators of the extremely popular blog Who What Wear. What started as a small newsletter eventually expanded into a highly lucrative and successful blogging business.

But they certainly didn’t do it alone.

In an interview with Fashionista, Hillary Kerr answered the question, “How do you manage to juggle all of [your] different projects at the same time?

She said:

"And as we continue to grow, it's always hard to let go of certain aspects of your job that you like and projects that you want to be super involved in but don't have the time to be. Having the right team in place for us in our company has also been huge. But also thinking, ‘Is this something that only I can do? Or is this something that I can delegate to another really wonderful team member?’ It's been a balancing act and I think it will continue to be."

Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft, used to have a big challenge with delegating work to his team. When he first started his company, he struggled to trust his employees and had a strong urge to micromanage.

When his company first launched, he wrote most of the code and he re-wrote or reviewed everyone else’s as well.

His need to manage everything began to affect his company’s productivity.

Over time, he realized that this was not the best thing for him or the company. He began trusting others to manage new hires, write code, market his products, and many other things. He even began to realize that some of the people who worked for him were better than he was.

If you’re an entrepreneur, establishing a good team is key to your overall success.

In these articles over the next few weeks, you’ll learn how to establish the kind of team that you need for a successful, productive, and profitable business.

How to Find Good People

You know you need help, but how do you decide what’s missing from your business?

Before you can hire the perfect team, you’ll need to determine exactly what you need help with.

Do you need employees who can take over some of your responsibilities, or do you need to hire people with expertise that you don’t currently have?

At some point, you’ll probably need some of both. 

Next week (August 13), we'll tell you exactly  "How to Find Good People."

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