Building Your Dream Team: 7 Reasons to Grow Your Company
Have you been here before?
Do you know this strange and beautiful space?
Opportunities stack up and bright shiny objects roll across the road.
I feel like Dorothy, awaking in Oz and trying to stay on her path despite so many wondrous distractions, and the occasional danger too!
Sometimes we chase something beautiful to find it wasn’t ever really there. We get off the path, convincing ourselves that this opportunity is in alignment with our aims, when maybe a more objective set of eyes would have seen things differently.
How DO we stay on track?
How do we honor that sacred strategic principle of alignment?
In Dorothy’s case (and mine too), it was (and remains) important to assemble the right team of advisors and collaborators— people who are also intent on seeing the Wizard and who are 100% willing to follow the yellow brick road with you, keeping you on track.
Dorothy wouldn’t have gotten there without the lion, the tin man, and the scarecrow and I submit that most of us would do well to assemble a similar team of fellows— people who care about getting all of us there and who possess the right blend of skills and personalities to keep us on the right road.
The solopreneur journey was worth taking.
I learned a great deal about self-reliance, strategy, and goal-setting, not to mention time management. Having lived that life for a while, I now understand the bags under people’s eyes in networking groups, and the undertone of desperation in many of the sales pitches we hear— including my own in the early years.
So why change from that model of bootstrapped self-reliance?
It seems so wild west, taking on the whole world like a John Wayne character, as we save the day, guns blazing, to the cheers and admiration of the townspeople as we ride off into the sunset! There is a certain romantic appeal to the idea of doing it on your own.
But what if you don't HAVE to?
There are many reasons why it may make sense to take the risk and grow and, while I am still working out what that looks like for Gly Solutions, I can say with certainty that the reasons for growing far outweigh the reasons not to, of which I can think of only one— fear— something that I refuse to be ruled by.
Are you thinking about moving your business out of the living room?
Are you thinking it may be time to stop trying to play all the parts in the symphony as a one-man/woman band?
If so, you may find these arguments for growth compelling. While they are not all inclusive, they are offered as food for thought, aimed squarely at the foreheads of solopreneurs everywhere.
Seven Reasons to Grow Your Company:
1) You have set stretch goals that simply can’t be achieved by one individual flying solo.
If the goal is “to keep the lights on” and you are happy doing that all by yourself, maybe growing is not the right move for you, but if you see a big, bold version of your company on the horizon, it could be time to explore what your dream team looks like. It may require a proposal team, a CFO, an operations director, administrative support, and more. Draw it out on paper first if that’s you, and then begin to think strategically about whom you see yourself working with over the long haul.
2) You need people to bounce ideas off of.
I have to admit that some of my worst decisions have been made in a vacuum. You can be well educated, knowing the mechanics of strategy inside out. You can collect lots of data and study the problem at hand all day long. You can make charts and graphs to convince yourself, but at some point you have to show your proforma to someone in confidence and hear— loud and clear (wince)— an informed, critical perspective.
Fact: It’s really hard to be objective about your own dreams.
In the picture above, my colleague is turning my head, something I don't look too pleased about! He is directing my attention toward something I seem to be missing on my own.
Now THAT’s a teammate I want!
3) You are tired— dog tired— pooped— kaput—exhausted!
… You yearn for the good old days of a full time job that you didn’t have to take home every night and work on vacation too, one where it wasn’t “ALL about you!”
Today I was snowed in. I had office furniture being delivered and (small miracle, complete with harp music) there was someone I could call to receive my delivery. In the old days I would have been in a panic, but with a couple of phone calls my problem was solved and I was able to sit by the fire and work productively while Old Man Winter did his thing outside my window.
What a change from my old mode of carrying the whole world on my shoulders.
Hey, Atlas! Put that thing down, girl, or you won't be able to walk tomorrow!
All kidding aside, if there is only one of you, what will happen if you are snowed in or worse, faced with an emergency or an illness?
4) You have been burned.
Let’s face it. It’s tough out there. Building the right team can take some of the pressure off in terms of arranging collaborative arrangements piecemeal, deciding whom to trust all over again each time you start a new project.
While some would argue that a few bad experiences justify a life of "doing it myself," I would argue for the opposite— getting the "go to" people onboard for a long-term working relationship.
Once assembled, that team can also help you make better choices as you bring others into the fold. Working with someone who’s not a good fit is a much bigger problem when multiple people are affected. So the temptation to “settle” when it comes to teaming arrangements can be greatly reduced. Who wants to look the people who believe in you and trust you in the eye and introduce someone who lacks the requisite skills but is willing to work cheaply?
5) You have customers and, having been given that gift, you want to be sure you keep them— and find some new ones too.
That requires really good customer service, which is not easy to provide when you are a solo act. Not only can having backup help you to keep your customers happy, it can help you to follow up on all those leads you used to let slip through your fingers!
Oh yes! The people who wanted to hire you, but you lost their business cards or waited too long to reasonably follow up on the conversation because you were so overwhelmed that your relationship-building skills were a low priority and you forgot to be of service…
Ugh! …the stack of cards on the desk in the “should connect” pile…
How many of us have guilty faces right now???
Administrative support goes a long way toward making sure your organization does follow up, even when you are working 18 hour days, yourself.
6) You want to be of greater service to your community and industry.
It’s time to create something that is much bigger than you alone.
It’s about more than earning a living.
Your company is becoming a beautiful, living, breathing thing that you want to keep alive for future generations to enjoy.
“Founder’s syndrome” is what happens when the business is all “you” and then the time comes to retire. Absent others who share the vision and the institutional knowledge, it could all come to an end when you no longer choose to stand at the helm.
7) You may sell the business someday.
Want to retire?... EVER?
If you think you might ever consider selling the business, or passing it on to your children, its value will be much greater to prospective buyers if there is a body of institutional knowledge that exists somewhere besides in the head of the organization’s founder.
So what about you?
Are you getting tired of the solo act?
Maybe it’s time to design the bigger, bolder version of your dream!
Besides, the yellow brick road is a lot more fun with company!
References:
Baum, L. Frank. The wonderful wizard of Oz. Oxford University Press, 2008.
The text of this blog posting may be shared, reproduced, and used in accordance with the creative commons share alike-attribution license (generic, 2.5). For details of acceptable use, please visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5/ . Photographs are used by permission of Tenacious Photography. Their reproduction and use in other works requires permission from both Gly Solutions, LLC and Tenacious Photography http://www.tenaciousphoto.com/ .
