In a recent article, I introduced building and leading your team. You were asked to consider your virtual team, such as accountants, a marketer or graphics designer, a banker, an attorney. Even solo business owners have a virtual team. Often the first virtual team members you hire are for tasks you literally can’t do or must do for legal reasons, like taxes and transferring money. Who’s the next person to bring onto your team?
The next round to hire will free you to make the best use of your time. My first hire was a bookkeeper and a virtual assistant part-time. Next on my list was technical support. I like to hire a bookkeeper, because it’s easier to make decisions when I know my financials. An assistant can do repetitive tasks such as scheduling meetings, or welcoming new clients. This allows me to strategize, write, develop programs, and coach my clients. You may have different priorities.
One of my clients creates herbal medicine; she can’t hire anyone to do that, however, she can hire a manufacturer to produce her medicine for her. And it is less expensive and faster than doing it herself, because the manufacturer purchases raw material and packaging in bulk and passes savings to her. They meet her quality standards and other requirements so she outsources her medicine. She can now create the medicine, prescribe it to her clients and also sell more wholesale.
Here’s some homework for you. Next week, keep a little journal with you and write a list of tasks you do every day. In the next article, I’ll show you how to turn this into a job description and ultimately assign the tasks to your team. If you want to grow your business, it helps to implement support systems as you build it.