Future Growth
As your business grows, you may that it starts to look more like a traditional business with departments such as:
- Management
- Marketing
- Sales
- Operations
- Finance
You will find that as your company grows, your perspective on who you hire changes also. At first, you bring in people that have that same entrepreneurial spirit that you have. Eventually, you will need people that you either promote to or bring in to fill specific task. You will need to learn to always be looking a year ahead, so that you are on the lookout for good people that you will be in the future.
In the beginning, most entrepreneurs finance their own startups. As your business grows and branches out, you may find the need for investors or lenders from whom you can borrow money. Make sure that you establish a relationship with your local bank. You need to have separate business accounts with them and meeting the people you may need in the future such as loan officers or payroll specialists.
You may need to bring onto your team a PR professional. Using public relations to get your message out through the media can be extremely effective for some businesses. This person may write press releases or articles for publication that reference your company's expertise in your business field.
Large corporations have dozens of departments and business teams. Your business may become huge and global one day, so the team-building skills that you learn at the beginning will help you get there.
Personal Teams
Millionaires do not do housework. If you spend 10 hours a week cleaning your house, tending to the garden, or doing errands, that's 10 hours away from your business. Most of these jobs can be taken care of by employees for $10 to $20 an hours. If you spend 40 hours a month taking care of your home, then that is an entire workweek you are taking away from your business. If you making $400 a day in your business, that can get to be an expensive diversion.
Since your personal team members will be in your home, it's important to get reliable references for each person you hire. This is vital. If people are to be in your home while you are away, make sure that you have a different alarm code for each employee, so that you know who is entering and leaving your home and when.
Building a business is a lot of work and often long hours. The best use of your free time is to enjoy your family and friends, which your personal team can help you do.
Preparing for Change
Change is inevitable and you need to plan ahead for it. This is especially true if there is more than one owner of the business. Too many people just shake hands and go to work. That's just asking for trouble and I've seen plenty of it. While taking the time to create a working contract can be annoying, it is absolutely necessary and can save you a lot of aggravation later on. When partners start to disagree about the direction a company is going, often emotions take over and rational thinking stops. That is why I advice my clients to design their business divorce at the beginning. When one partner wants to leave or sell to someone else, there is a clear and logical path to follow, making the change a lot easier. If you are planning on giving equity in your company away and that person is uncomfortable with a contract, it is best to find another candidate.