Business Growth: Your Team and Tools

As we continue our series on ‘How to Successfully Grow a Small Business,’ in this article, we focus on your team together with the tools, systems, and processes to achieve business growth.

You Need a Team to Grow Your Business

Whether you are currently a one-person business or have a team of many, you will probably need other people to help grow your business, so team development is essential.

With changes in technology and the development of e-commerce, many demands are made upon businesses today that were not there in the past. But that also brings many opportunities.

For example, a whole industry has emerged that allows business owners to hire online virtual assistants to help with tech support, accounts, marketing, etc. These people can be part-time, full-time, casual, or even project-based.

So your team can consist of regular employees, specialist consultants, and/or online virtual assistants.

Developing a team brings challenges with it. Many small business owners like having control, but the worst thing you can do when you have a team is to try and micromanage them. The old saying that ‘there is no “I” in the word team’ is a truism that means you need to work together.

Team Development

Here are the keys to a successful team:

• Trust – Don’t be afraid to delegate tasks to team members, as this shows that you trust their work. Help them prepare by providing the training needed to complete the tasks successfully.
• Goals and Milestones – Be clear and concise in your explanations and expectations of the tasks. Ensure a clear understanding of the “deadlines” required with these tasks.
• Constant Communication – Constant here does not mean you need to be on their backs for no reason. Instead, it could involve weekly Zoom meetings or scheduled project reviews.
• Human Interaction – Personal contact is essential in this new world of team management. It helps to motivate team players and bring life to the projects they are working on.

Evaluating Existing Team Members

Evaluating your current team before you look to engage more people is a good idea. Current team members may have the capacity and potential to take on new tasks, albeit with some training. So evaluating your existing team’s value, performance, and skills is the place to start.

Here are a few questions to ask in your evaluation:

• Who is adding value?
• What is their potential?
• Who is not adding value or demonstrating potential?
• Who needs motivation?
• Who needs to move on?
• Who could provide more value in another role?

Consider Outsourcing to Fill Gaps in Your Team

Evaluating your team will reveal where you can optimize your existing team or where you have gaps that require additional resources. This may require a regular employee. On the other hand, ‘Outsourcing’ has become a handy option in many circumstances.

Here are some questions to consider:

• What tasks are you doing that could be done by someone else?
• What could you drop altogether?
• What jobs could you outsource?
• What resources do you need?

Regarding resources, let’s now reconsider your system processes and the tools you use in your business.

Tools and Systems for Business Growth

Your tools and systems need to enable your business functions to run smoothly. They become vital as your team grows, and you need to manage more tasks and more people, potentially including remote workers.

The Importance of Systems as you Grow your Business

Whether formalized or not, you will already have business processes for how you currently do things. For example, some will relate to providing your products and services, others to your marketing and sales, and others to your finance and administration.

Your business processes or ‘standard operating procedures’ are critical when considering business growth.

Review your existing processes to evaluate:

• Are your current processes efficient?
• Are they currently meeting your needs?
• Where could they be improved?
• Where could they save you more time?
• Are the processes streamlining your operation?

You will also need a standard process to prioritize the changes required as your business grows to ensure your core business keeps performing while you focus on the growth process.

Tools for Growing Your Business

You may already be using several tools in your business. The one thing about tools is that they are constantly changing both in online and offline businesses.

In the offline market, just ask a pro, and they will tell you that even things like wrenches, drivers, saws, plumbing tools, and batteries are everchanging, adding more technology daily.

In an online business, as well as in the backend of any business, there are tools such as:

• Asana, Basecamp, or Trello for productivity,
• Google Drive, Apple iCloud, Microsoft OneDrive, or Dropbox for file sharing,
• You Can Book Me or Acuity Scheduling for scheduling,
• Salesforce, Zoho CRM, Freshworks for customer relationship management,
• Quickbooks and Xero for accounting,
• Mailchimp and ActiveCampaign for email marketing,
• And more.

Upgrading your tools and keeping on top of the new technologies is a job in itself. Your role in business development is to be the leader and prioritize the business development activity you have now created.

Regardless of your business size or Industry, you will need to pay close attention to what will be available to you, what you need, and what you don’t need.

Business growth takes time and money; however, putting these changes into place correctly will help grow your business.

In our next presentation, we will culminate this series with ‘How to Create Your Business Growth Plan’. Stay tuned!

Other articles in this series:
How To Successfully Grow Your Small Business
Preparing to Grow Your Small Business
Uncover Your Business Growth Potential
Creating your Business Growth Plan