The Sprouting Phase

In my previous article I introduced you to the 3 phases of building your team in order to reach the multimillion dollar mark. Today, I’m going to talk about the first phase, The Sprouting Phase.

If you are frustrated in this phase then you probably already know you’re not spending time on what you should be spending time on in order to grow your business. Your resistance might lie in one or several of the following areas:

1. you don’t have the $ to hire someone
2. you don’t know how to find and hire someone or
3. you are scared to delegate. What if that person screws things up?

The issue with staying in this phase is that you’re working on jobs that you could pay someone else $10 – $20 per hour to handle and that is not going to help you build the wealth you’re looking for. You need to begin building a team in order to delegate those lower paid tasks. If you haven’t listened to my free audio I encourage you to do so in order to get some insights on hiring as well as a checklist to help you through the process. (Click here for my Free Resources Offer.)

Once you listen to this you will understand how bringing on support people is the #1 way to move you and your brand to the next level.

When hiring, the first thing you need to think about is how many hours of help do you need per month or per week. If you don’t have a lot of money then maybe you need to start by hiring a Virtual Assistant (VA) for 10 hours per month.

VA’s are trained professionals that work for small business owners typically on handling administrative tasks in their business. Some VA’s are expensive and those tend to be the VA’s that have a lot more experience at supporting online companies. If you hire a VA from one of the higher end firms then you will likely pay a minimum of $40 all the way to $100 per hour.

Another option for hiring a VA is to place an ad and pay less per hour but not necessarily have someone with a lot of experience supporting entrepreneurs in the online world. This can be a great option if you are tight on money and you are just looking for some basic admin help (i.e. scheduling, entering emails into your CRM etc…). Craigslist has always been a good place to go for people like this and I’ve often found people that have stayed with me for years that I’ve found through Craigslist. Indeed is also another great place to find high quality candidates but it can be a slightly more expensive option.

Little by little as your budget allows you start adding people and hours to your team. Sometimes you need to do this before you can really afford it. You may need to stretch yourself financially a bit here if you tend to be conservative but this stretch is important if you wish to move into the next phase. Many of my clients have a difficult time with this first hire but once they do it they’re relieved and it creates so much more time in their lives for bigger, more impactful things.

If you’re uncomfortable with delegating you just need to remind yourself that the more you delegate the easier it will be to move on to the next level. Delegating also does not mean you ever completely let go of something. You always need to keep your finger on the pulse so make sure whatever you delegate you are able to track. This doesn’t mean that you delegate customer service and need to read every single customer service email that goes out but you should be popping in there once in a while to make sure things are getting answered on time and correctly. The more you trust the more you can let go but you always need to be checking, tracking and measuring. It’s your company and your responsibility when things go wrong.

When hiring team members in the beginning it’s very important to make sure it’s a good fit. Make sure to do some testing in the early days and if this person begins working with you and there are red flags don’t hesitate to make a change. Hire slow, Fire fast was always my motto (taken from Bill Glazer) and it’s one that I stand by. You not only want to make sure it’s a good fit but you want to hire people that you can envision staying with you for a long time. This doesn’t always happen and there is only so much control you have over this but in the next article I will explain why it’s one of the most important growth strategies in moving you into the final phase. It’s at the beginning, the Sprouting Phase, where you should start planning for this.