Build a Winning Team

“Teamwork is the ability to work together toward a common vision, the ability to direct individual accomplishments towards organizational objectives. It is the fuel that allows a common people to attain uncommon results.”

The Lack of Talent (LOT) Problem

What do I believe to be the number reason why small businesses never grow? What is this one reason that I constantly bump into? Small businesses have pathetic, horrible, and abominable staffs. They’re so understaffed with talent. I call it a LOT problem.  Lack Of Talent. It’s the biggest problem with small businesses.  When you go in there you can look and tell when it’s a family run business. That sounds great in theory. I love my family. But thinking back to my last family reunion, looking around, I don’t think I would want eighty percent of them to come work for me, to be honest with you.  You need to build a winning team.

So why do small businesses think that they need to put all their family members on staff? Do they really have the talent that you need for your company? In almost every company you have to have a high energy or a very driven salesperson. You need to have somebody who can sell your product or service. It’s amazing how we put this responsibility in the hands of a friend or family member who has no skill set for this. No experience. “Oh, but he or she is a nice person.” Listen, nice doesn’t always sell.

There is an art to communicating and selling a product. It is a high-level skill. And I would argue that within a small business (under twenty employees), it is the most important skill in that organization. Because if you cannot sell your product or service, guess what?  You don’t have a company or a business.  Small businesses don’t grow because they don’t have talent in key positions.

The Importance of Organizational Positions

There are also key organizational positions. Are you organized? By that I mean your books,  record-keeping and customer folders where you can keep track of all your customers and all your customer contacts.  Can you effortlessly communicate with your customers within the next two days if you wanted to with a promotion? What about your office and your management systems? Who do you have running that? Who’s taking care of your books? “Oh, my wife’s taking care of my books or my husband ’s taking care of my books.” Wrong answer again.

Let’s think about this. You’re forming a team. A team is made up of position players, in that each person has different responsibilities and a different skill-set.  If you think that you can just bring people into your organization because you like them and they’re good folks and they’re going to be able to succeed at these positions you’re wrong. Period.

What I want you to understand first of all is that the reason why small businesses don’t grow is that they don’t have enough talent in the organization. You as the owner need to start evaluating the people in the key positions, such as the person selling your product or service. Ask yourself, is that the best person I could have doing that?  If your life depended on getting 20% growth next year is that the person you want doing it? Are you organized?

Can you get the information you need about clients such as their demographics and customer sales habits like what they are buying from you and how often they repeat the sale cycle?  Can you get that information effortlessly from your staff?  Regarding Quickbooks and bookkeeping, can you get the information? Do you know at what level you’re growing? Do you get little tax surprises at the end of the year or bills you had no idea were coming to you because you don’t have the right person?  We can keep going and going.

The Power of Money

Let’s start thinking about putting the best people on your team. You might say to me, “How can I even get these people?”  This is how you do it. First, you come to the realization that you’re going to have to pay real money because that’s the first reason why small businesses are understaffed with talent. They don’t pay any money which is why they get family members and Friends. You’ve got to be willing to pay real money to get real talent. I’m not saying for everybody, but for the key positions I just shared that are common within most small businesses, you’re going to have to pay a bit of money. So the first reason why some companies have a lack of talent is that they don’t want to pay any money.

“I can do this on my own”

The second reason is that they don’t think they need anyone. Are you really that talented as an individual or do you really want to do everything within your organization?  I know I don’t. Get the idea that you don’t need anyone aside right now unless it’s a one-person business. Every quality company needs someone on the team. You cannot be skilled in every facet needed to grow.  This is the key work. Grow. Not to operate, but to grow your business. Get past the fact that you don’t think you need anyone because you do.

Don’t Challenge Me

Third: you don’t want to be challenged by anyone. We’ve all met this owner. They’re as stubborn as can be and they think they know everything. They don’t advertise because,  “We’re a word of mouth people, a word of mouth company.”  I have never seen a word of mouth company grow exponentially. It’s amazing how Microsoft and Apple still advertise. Have you ever heard of Budweiser? They still advertise at 2.4 million dollars per commercial during the Superbowl. My point is, bring people in that will challenge you, get you to see the future and give you great ideas. You want ideas. You want to be challenged. But not small businesses that don’t grow. They don’t want to be challenged.

Afraid of Competition

Number four is, they are afraid that if they impart their knowledge to this individual that this person will be their competitor. The fact is that could happen. However, if you’re not that talented yourself, don’t worry about it. They’re not going to be that much of a threat. And if they really are talented, they’re going to help your company grow. And if you’re smart and you take care of them through compensation or ownership opportunities, they’re going to stay there with you. So don’t be afraid they’re going to leave. Be excited that they’re going to stay.

How to Build a Winning Team

How do you build a winning team in business? Two things. You need to look at your current team and see where it lacks. Be sure to make a real analysis of it. Look at all the key positions within your organization. Look at who you have handling the position and give them a report card grade. Would it bother you if they worked for your competition?  Would it bother you if they went out and started their own company? If the answers to these questions are no and no, then you probably need to do better. Look within your current organization and see where you have people that aren’t the best you can have there.

Second, know what talent looks like. I have a rule when I interview someone, whether we need to hire them or not: if I think they’re that talented I will hire them on the spot and figure out where I’m going to put them. Have you ever had an interview for one position and this man or woman comes in and they’re not perfect for that position, but you know you’re staring at raw talent?  I’ll walk out of the room, look at my staff and say to them, “We gotta get this person on staff. I’m not really sure where we’ll put them but we don’t want to lose this person.”

You need to start knowing what talent looks like. You can tell in that they have an energy. They start asking questions about how they can grow the position even in the interview. So you need to know what this talent looks like.