My goal is to help you grow your business in 30 days with 30 steps and today’s step for day fourteen will help you do that.  It’s interesting that step fourteen is about having a strong team because I had to rely on my team in the last few days because I unexpectedly took a few days off from writing because I got my Fall cold that manages to get to me every year!  Now that I’m back on course I’ll be catching us up with the remaining steps in growing your business.

Build A Strong Team - Guarantee Success

If you can put together a strong team around you then you can guarantee success if you work with your team effectively.  Who is your team?  Both internal and external partners.  Take your time to find good teammates and also realize that something could happen that moves them onto the bench temporarily or permanently in the future.  You are the team captain so you will always have to keep a close eye on performance and make adjustments as necessary.

1. Outsource Effectively

Outsourcing can be the right answer when you aren’t big enough to warrant full time teammates for a specific task or when it doesn’t make sense to learn and train a new skill set for only one area of your small businesses workload.  When you begin to outsource certain parts of your workload think about finding the right teammate for your small business in the same way that a professional baseball team looks for a new pitcher.

Start to do some scouting and find a few eligible candidates to invite to the tryouts.  The tryouts may consist of applying for the work, interviewing with you personally, or demonstrating capabilities in some small manner.  After you make a selection give them a trial project.  Be sure to pay very close attention through the entire project and don’t let it be a mission critical assignment for your small business.  Be sure to give them feedback as the work on the project for you.  It’s alright to head out to the mound once in awhile and let them know what you think.  The coach doesn’t always have to pull the pitcher out of the game when he heads to the mound.  Sometimes he just needs to give the pitcher some words of encouragement to refocus him.   Be sure to be very involved in game one and all the early games as you groom your new pitcher that you want to outsource work too.

After game one or two you’ll have a feel for how they work, how they handle the pressure of the game, and you’ll have a better idea of how they communicate and get your signals.  Let them know from the beginning at the tryouts that you are going to evaluate performance closely during the first few games and then more infrequently if they make the cut.  Setting this kind of formal tone at the beginning gives them clear expectations.

You also want to give written, verbal, and graphic illustrations of the work you want completed.  Each of us communicates differently so you will want to give the new teammate every opportunity to succeed.  By taking the extra steps to communicate in multiple mediums you give them the opportunity to succeed.

What are you looking for?  Consistency.  If you can have consistency you can plan work and deliver results to your clients consistently.  One shot rock stars usually don’t make long term reliable teammates so you want to look for consistency over speed or bravado.

The two most important parts of outsourcing are that you take your time to think it through and communicate effectively.

2. Hire In Temp To Full Time

As you succeed in finding new lead sources, closing new sales, and winning more long term customers you will need to ultimately have more full time teammates in your small business.  When you see this need coming in the near future, or even if it springs upon you more quickly than you expected, take the same approach I described in the outsourcing section.  Start with part time low commitment positions.  Let the new teammates tryout and prove they can pitch in the big games before you invest hours of training or large expenses in getting situated for them.

3. Learn To Give Consistent And Effective Feedback

Giving consistent helpful feedback can be very difficult to master.  Our upbringing or former work environment might have taught us an extreme of negative feedback or positive feedback.  Either extreme is useless.  No one will believe they are always doing poorly, but it will demotivate them and you will lose them as a true team player for your small business.  At the same time no one believes they are always doing a spectacular job.  If they constantly hear they are doing awesome when they know they aren’t performing their best then they will stop trusting you.

The key to good feedback is real and kind honesty.  Teammates need feedback when they make mistakes and also when they succeed.  It’s important to set a pattern of consistent feedback.  The goal of my feedback to my team is to help them more effectively think about their performance and the results of their actions.  When I give feedback I ask a lot of questions and ask them to think through their failures or mistakes out loud with me.  I’ve learned an incredible amount for two sources;  Manager Tools and John Maxwell.  I would recommend you look into both of these resources yourself.

So that’s today’s step.  Find ways to build and improve your team today so you can see success for your small business!  Have you found an especially effective team building method?  Share your story in the comments.