Without You
Creating a great team is essential to increasing the profitability of your business. The goal is to make yourself redundant by building a business that works without you.
Most startup businesses are reliant on the knowledge and skills of the owner which can mean money-making potential is limited by the time, knowledge and experience they bring to the table. The owner also needs to be present every day to keep the business running, limiting time spent on new business opportunities.
The key is to build a great team who share your skills and can manage the business when you’re away.
Step 1: Share your tasks and responsibilities
Train people to share your tasks and responsibilities so you’ll have a backup if you’re sick or need time away. Let key staff build their skills and gain an understanding of your operations so they can multi-task and share responsibilities with you.
Step 2: Share your knowledge
You may have invaluable management skills or knowledge which benefits the business. Make the effort to share your knowledge with your key staff. Establish systems to make it easy for knowledge to be shared.
Step 3: Delegate, delegate, delegate!
Give others a chance to share the responsibility of running your business. As you train up others and delegate tasks, you are building up your assets, which can only help achieve your goals and boost business profitability.
Step 4: Involve your lieutenants in decision making
Once you’ve trained key staff, involve them in decision making. Your employees will see your business from a different — possibly more objective — perspective, and will feel more valued which is great for staff retention.
Step 5: Emphasize team goals
Create bonds between team members and establish goals or beliefs to keep them focused on your business objectives and their targets. Motivate staff so they want to achieve the business goals and they will respect you and take care of your business while you’re away.
Step 6: Reward your lieutenants
Paying competitive salaries and rewarding staff are important to make them feel valued. If you underpay, the loyalty of your lieutenants could be tested. A relatively small rise can be enough to keep someone happy - a good investment when you add up the costs of recruiting, retraining and lost productivity when an experienced staff member leaves.