Grow your business from solo to enterprising entrepreneur by Dr. Susan L. Reid, small business expert, business catalyst and award winning author of discovering your inner samurai, the entrepreneurial woman’s journey to business success. Find out more at alkamae.com
In today’s “How to turn your business treatment to reality” video, we will be focusing on how to grow your business from a one-woman show to an enterprising entrepreneur. If you are like most solo entrepreneurs, you are running the business that is primarily a party of one.
This is very common especially for women. Women think big about money, but not so big about employees. They’d rather focus on their passion and on getting their product or service out into the market to make other peoples lives better. Because of this, most women do not seriously consider growing their business beyond the solo point. Think of what it would be like for you, as a woman business owner to be happily focused on your passion turned product, while pulling a million dollar a year.
For many people this would be a perfect life. Because women are often reluctant to hire employees, they end up focusing less and less on their product, and more and more on managing the thousands of emails, calls, requests, details, interruptions, breakdowns, and other things that solo entrepreneurs have to focus on each day just to keep their business running.
So let us turn employees into teams. Consider reframing the phrase “Hiring Employees” to “Building a Team.” Doesn’t build a team feel much more expansive and exciting than hiring employees? Women are natural collaborators. Enterprising woman entrepreneurs build teams to manage the day-to-day activities at their businesses as well as build partnerships with professional advisors to help them make the most of their personal and business potential; the enterprising entrepreneur team.
Does building a team sound good to you? If so, who will be on your management and who will you have on your professional advisory board. Let us start with your management team.
First, there is you. Your team starts with you at the top; you are the chief executive officer of your business. To take your solo business to the next level you will need to start thinking like the CEO. You do not have to be running a business to think like a CEO. Just reframe the term “CEO” so that it works for the enterprising entrepreneur. The CEO is the top-level woman responsible for the operations of her business, not for operating her business. Instead doing it all, you will have team who will manage the operations for you. Are you clear on that difference?
Second, our virtual assistants. Virtual assistants are your management team, place two on your team. One to manage the administrative aspects, and the other to manage the technical. How many hours they work each month and what they manage is entirely up to you. Consider starting with ten hours per week and increase it from there. Soon you will see how necessary it is to have them, not you manage the thousands of details.
Third and final, your professional advisory board. These are your professional strategists. You probably already have a working relationship with the three main people who will make your professional advisory team. Your tax advisor, insurance advisor, and legal advisor. The next step to become an enterprising entrepreneur is to turn these business advisors into your business strategists. Instead of meeting with them once a year for business necessities, meet with them quarterly to discuss your business and strategies about its growing needs. Start now to become the enterprising entrepreneur you know you can be.
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