You can’t run a million dollar company with a $2 dollar team…..

 

This is the advice that one of my mentors gave me Wednesday, as the preface to why he had to remove family members and his long time assistant from his team.

He was growing, expanding, and couldn’t build what he needed to with the same circle of friends, partners, strategies or players. 

It got me to thinking about Dream Teams and how important it is to build the most powerful circle around you to get you to the places you want to go. There’s a strong correlation between who you place in your inner circle and whose advice you take with how far you can actually go with your business.

If you are hoping to glean all that you need by picking up and stringing together the free crumbs of info that you can gather, family members giving you a hook up, or friends who you should have NEVER partnered with, you run the risk of not reaching your goals, having to fire often, losing family and friendships, MANY hours of time and dollars of your money.

It’s important to plan. It’s necessary to have a vision for yourself and your business, and it’s imperative to start putting together a knowledgeable team to help you sidestep those obstacles and get your 2014 done.

So as you plan to transition successfully into the new year, I want to breakdown the TOP 8 people that you absolutely need to start looking for and add to your dream team, because as they say, “you’re only as good as the people around you…”

8 Players You Need on Your Business Team 

1. A Designer with creativity. It’s time to step up your work products. The DIY design projects take up your time AND they look quite amateur which can kill your credibility. So decide what projects you are going to attack for the year and hire a Kick AZZ designer to help you do it. Now with that said, Anyone can hang their designer shingle in about 5 minutes. But as an entrepreneur who’s worked with over 50 designers, I can tell you that, hiring one who understands and listens to your directions, who is proficient in what you need them for and who are creative people-those designers are priceless. MANY, MANY designers do not have creativity. I am a firm believer in you knowing what you want, but it also helps if you have a designer who is used to creating and not just copying the work of other designers. Get a few good ones on your team ASAP and learn how to work with them successfully by downloading this free toolkit.

2. An Accountant who understands small business and where you want to take your business in the next 1 year, 3 years and 5 years. Finding an accountant is not hard. Finding an accountant who takes the time to help you understand your business, how to reach your financial goals, and THEN keep your statements in order… those CEOs, are like unicorns and can take a little more work to find. But it’s possible. I found my accountant in my mastermind team last year. I interviewed her, hired her to speak to my company of women ceo’s, then decided to hire her for my personal business. Her knowledge and her being a small business herself was exactly what I needed, as she understood important things that I should know as a small business owner. I suggest that you determine if you just want someone to do the books or someone to grow with your business long-term and make suggestions along the way. This may be two totally different accountants.

3. An Attorney who works specifically with small businesses. As with accountants, it’s easy to find an attorney who can file papers for you or send a threatening letter or two on your behalf. But do they truly understand small business and more specifically, your business? Are they patient? Do you feel like they are efficient with your time? They, like the accountants, need to understand where you are going and what your goals are so that they can do their job effectively and successfully keep you out of trouble.

4. A Strategist or Business Consultant who works specifically on the areas that you are trying to improve. This can be tricky. I’m a business consultant, but I work specifically in the areas of Strategy, Opportunity Creation and Digital Leverage. If you are looking for someone to work with you in sales- although I have over 15 years of sales experience- my stronger points and passions are on the areas mentioned above. When I see a consultant, that says, “I do everything”, I think to myself, RUN CEOs, run. Make sure that when you hire someone to work on your business, that you learn about them, their strong points and their previous or current clients. Make sure they are proficient in exactly what you need and not a Jane of All trades.

5. A Virtual Assistant. I’ll say it again, you absolutely waste every ounce of your time that you spend working on things that are administrative, don’t make money, don’t move your business forward or that you are not good at. Yet, a many smart entrepreneurs does this daily. We toil away making spreadsheets, and digging into our DIY projects just to push out these sad looking creations that someone else could have probably done for a few dollars an hour. Learn how to only work on HIGH value tasks and hire someone else to do the rest.

6. A Financial Advisor. This person is essential to your team. You may feel that you don’t have enough money to be “advised” on, but as an entrepreneur, you need to know your savings and retirement options and what you should be doing yearly to protect your personal financial health and wealth.

7. A PR Expert ( Public Relations ) Now, before you get to sourcing the person who’s going to get you on the news, get your name in the magazines, etc. etc. You absolutely have to have something that you’ve done that’s interesting. Take a step back, I’m sure that everyone feels that their business is the most interesting thing happening, but usually, it is not- yet. Starting a new business isn’t necessarily newsworthy. But creating innovative products can be. First get to creating, then start interviewing PR Experts to find out what angles you should partner to pitch.

8. Accountability Partner or Mastermind Team. Being held accountable has long since been one of best incentives to getting a goal accomplished. The next best thing to have is a whole ride or die business team of folks looking out for your best interest. The third best thing to have is a combination of the both. We have an a POWERFUL option for you here, but the most important thing to do, is to find someone who is just as ambitious, punctual, focused, goal oriented, considerate and reciprocal as you.

Dream Team Suggestions:

• Get referrals from credible sources and also look people up, what they are known for, their recommendations and portfolio of work on Linkedin. This platform holds a wealth of information that you can use to pick the best lineup to interview slots for your dream team.

• Look for more than motivation. Seek out results. Motivation makes us feel warm and fuzzy and there are many folks who package up and sell pretty words. But when you are spending your money, time and energy to build a business, you need people on your team who are just as results driven as you need to be.

• On that note, no one, absolutely no one on said dream team can give you the vision for your company. What your team can do is, refine your vision, help you find tools and develop relationships to create bridges that get you to move faster and give suggestions to leverage technology and innovation to reach your goals. But you CEOs, you must come with the goals.

• Sometimes, it may be necessary to get more that one part of your team together so that everyone is on the same page and understands their role in the BIG picture. I like to have these meetings about 2-3 times a year and can do them successfully with tools like Uberconference, Anymeeting, Google Hangout or FreeConferenceCall.com. Yep, all 4 of those tools are absolutely FREE! To get a massive list of valuable tools for your business, download this.

• You’re going to be spending a lot of time with this person and divulging some of your most private information. Make sure you look at credentials but also, think like this, “ Do I like/want to talk to this person frankly about my business?” If you can’t share with them comfortably and without censoring yourself, you may want to hire someone that you’ll feel more comfortable with.

• Get an understanding of the expectations you have of the team member upfront. You may feel that you are hiring someone to physically do a job for you when in essence, you are hiring someone to share their knowledge, ideas and strategies… “their brain” with you. Make sure you understand and are clear on what your expectations are from the beginning. This again goes back to you being clear on what you want. The #1 issue my consulting clients usually have, is not having a clear vision for where they want to go. So if you are able to tackle that before you hire a team, then your first couple of sessions with a consultant don’t have to be spent getting you to know your goals before any strategy at all can happen.

• Remember that this list is just a suggestion. Only you know who you truly need on your team. Get some clarity by creating a mindmap of who you feel you need and what you want them to bring to the table.

• Expect to spend money. In our Unleash Your Champion Teleseminar this year, the very powerful Lisa Nichols mentioned that when she asked Oprah if she took up consultants on the MANY offers she got for “free” sessions, Oprah said no. She basically said that she paid for value and wanted to make sure that she “owned the time” of the consultant. So, understand this CEOs, you will pay for what you get. You will either pay in your time, energy and years to try and get the information and experience yourself, or you will pay someone to deliver ALL of that knowledge to you, packaged up nice and neat with a bow. Either way, you will pay.

 

So as you plot and plan a successful 2014, I want you to keep the goal of creating your own POWERFUL Dream Team in mind, what role they should play in the overall vision you have for yourself and for your business.

Did we miss anyone who should be on the Dream Team? Drop them in the comments below!