No matter how great your business idea is, it will not pass the actualization phase if you do not have the right team to execute the vision. Although being a boss is not very easy, you will succeed if you have the correct group of individuals who are motivated to meet the business’ objectives.

It is also important to note that great bosses are not always determined by the amount of remuneration or bonuses they offer to their employees. However, smaller things, such as creating a serene working environment, can go a long way in ensuring the business targets are met.

Assembling the right people for your business is not easy. However, if you have a clear idea of how to search, places to look, and tools that you should apply in spotting the right people, you can successfully assemble a capable team with the drive that you need. Below are some factors that you should consider when searching and building a quality small business team.

1. Develop Clear Business Objectives

Before you start a business or a project, you should have a clearly rolled out plan. Business objectives give your business a sense of direction. The targets for your business can act as a benchmark when assembling your team. With clear goals, you can come up with the roles and responsibilities you require your team to perform. Then, you can assemble the best personnel to achieve those responsibilities. Some of the other questions you should ask yourself include:

• What talents and qualifications do I require to meet my business objectives?
• What personalities best suit my ideal team?
• What type of individuals will complement my skills?
• How much can I spend on the team?

You should not be very rigid when selecting your team. You should not have a redundant member of at any particular time. Always have a solid reason behind your intention to expand your team. If the person you are hiring does not contribute towards achieving your objectives, it will be a waste of resources.

2. Hire the Right People

It is not advisable to rush during your recruitment process. It is vital to ensure that you employ a person that fits your company requirements. Once you have broken down the roles required of each employee, you should look for potential employees in the right places. LinkedIn is one of the best platforms where you can find and evaluate your potential team members.

LinkedIn also lets you follow companies from where you can scout talent. You can follow up on talented individuals joining and leaving companies and thus allowing you to approach these talents immediately. Also, you can find talented team members from universities, job fairs, and social communities, among other avenues.

3. Maximize on the Available Project Management Tools

The success of a team relies on communication and information sharing. Therefore, once you have assembled the right personnel, the next step is to ensure that the group remains operational. Therefore, as the team leader, you should consider sourcing the services of tools that might help you solve various aspects of the team assignment as well as a management problem.

The use of a project messenger is central to ensuring communication and organization in the team, which is essential in ensuring that the team members remain in synch. However, you should have a plan to ensure the effective use of these tools. In other words, make use of tools that you really need, and, before you employ a given tool in your business, conduct in-depth research on its usability, the benefits, and the downsides of its application.

4. Build a Good Rapport with your Employees

As the team leader, you should make an effort to know your team members. Although it might not be your area of specialization, you may be required, as a business owner, to take up the role of a human resources manager. Upon bringing in a new member into the team, you should strive to know them personally, their needs, and their life goals.

Then, you can easily know the strength and weaknesses of each team member. A good relationship with your employees ensures that you can get the optimum out of them. More so, you can induce employee loyalty to the company. The employees are also motivated to work harder since they know that their boss cares about them as much as he or she cares about the business.

5. Share your Business Vision with your Team

Sharing the value of working with the team and its contribution to the business, in general, is important to ensure that you can encourage the optimum performance of the team. Before potential prospects join your business team, you should pitch the vision of the business to them. This way, you can induce passion and a positive mentality among your team members.

Therefore, to share your company’s vision, you should consider both one-on-one pitching as well as selling your idea online. You can do this by creating your business profile or updating your resume. With the help of the online resume service, you will be able to outline the key selling points of your company and yours (as the manager) as well. Sharing should not be exclusive to the recruits. You should also consider people who are already part of your team. The key is constant honest and realistic communications. Do not exaggerate your company targets or sell unrealistic ambitions, which are clearly unachievable.

After you, your employees should be the next group of individuals that know your business best. With qualifications from education and garnered experience, employees can bring new ideas to the table. Hence, you should welcome great ideas from team members. Accepting employees’ contributions makes them feel important, which brings job satisfaction and motivates them to work harder. You should also share the ideals and ambitions of your small business with potential prospects through social media platforms such as Twitter.

6. Use Social Media Platforms to Voice Your Business Ideals

Apart from being an excellent marketing tool, social media platforms and a company blog can help share your company’s objectives and ideas with the world. When your employees blog freely, expressing their creativity and ideas in the context of your business target, you appeal to potential new employees. These potential prospects will then contact you instead of you contacting them.

Therefore, with the help of the social media platform, you can reduce the amount of effort you put into locating the best personality that best suits your company. You can also use tools like TheAdsy to improve your social media presence.

If your company is not vocal enough with its business ideas, social media can help communicate the objectives to both the existing team members as well as any future team members. Aside from Twitter, other platforms such as YouTube and Facebook are key for selling your ideas.

7. Invest in Your Team Members

As your venture grows, you should also be improving the qualification and skills of your employees. It will be selfish to focus solely on business growth while your employees’ career qualification has remained stagnant for a significant period. Therefore, whenever it is possible, you should consider investing in your team. The skills they gain will help your business grow even further.

Therefore, if possible, instead of looking for a new expensive team member to serve some exclusive responsibility, you can sponsor your team members to a short learning program that will help them improve their qualifications while assisting the company. Also, events such as seminars and conferences can help your employees feel valued and thus encourage them to commit more to your business objectives.

8. Develop a Positive Work Environment

As a team leader, you are the core of the team. Therefore, the performance of the group is very dependent on your leadership quality. Your leadership style should be able to develop a positive work environment where everyone is passionate about the performance of the business. If you are excited and passionate about your project, you can spread the same attitude to your employees and thus cultivating a work environment where employees are motivated and dedicated to meet their personal as well as the business targets.

The best way to ensure that you maintain a pleasant working atmosphere is to consider your team members to be more than employees. You should not stick to a hierarchy where there is communication tension between the senior and the junior team members. Instead, your team should be treated like a web, where everybody is important to ensure that the operation and functionality of the team progress effectively. When communication among team members is maintained, you will be able to sustain a quality working environment where every person feels important and valued. Any conflict among team members should be resolved immediately it arises.

9. Maintain a Balance

It is common to find a team with incompatible individuals, yet they are both critical to the team. Therefore, it becomes essential to learn about the relationship between your team members. That way, you can understand the state of their relationship and the personality of each individual. By learning about your team members’ personalities and traits, you can know the characters that complement each other and those that are incompatible.

Understanding your team will help you maintain a balance, especially when allocating tasks and pairing up individuals. You can safely put together members and be sure that you will get the full potential out of them. If you can avoid pairing up the incompatible individuals, you can evade unnecessary conflicts that might affect the performance of your team. In extreme cases, you can also try and find a way to improve the relationship between team members who do not have a healthy relationship.

10. Apply Employee Retention Techniques

The process does stop after assembling your business team. What do you have to do next? Well, you should ensure that your organization remains intact for a significant period to allow it to impact the growth of your venture. Once you have recruited your preferred talents, you should consider applying employee retention techniques to prevent your best performers from being poached by your competitors. Employee retention techniques should start during the recruitment process. You should not, at any one point, hire a potential team member you can’t afford.

If you cannot sustain his salary and benefits requirement, the employee will eventually leave once he or she gets a better offer somewhere else. Therefore, although he might be the best at that particular moment, you should consider the longevity of your team during recruitment. If not, you will end up needing another recruitment process, which will inconvenience your team by affecting the continuity of team operations. In addition to that, a decision to employ someone you cannot afford will not be financially viable to business.

Other considerations, such as knowing your employees, listening to their ideas, and appreciating their side projects and passion, will help to sustain employees within your business for longer duration. By interacting with your employees, they develop loyalty to you, as a person, and to your business.

Conclusion

The success of a business does not solely depend on how great your idea is. However, the cohesiveness and performance of your business team play a significant role in ensuring that your business vision is actualized. Therefore, to ensure growth, especially in small business ventures, it is essential to learn the skills of attracting and retaining talented individuals in your team.

To build a world-class team, consider factors such as the best location to find your team members, their contribution to your business, and their compatibility with your business ideals as well as the existing team member. To retain your team, use great project management tools, hire within your budget, maintain a pleasant working environment, and be a source of motivation for your team. If you can manage to assemble and maintain a group working to its full potential, your business has a higher chance of succeeding and create a productive culture.

Further Reading:

• Does a Balance of Presence and Remote Work Increase Collaboration Results?
• The Case for Remote Work
• Team Building In A Virtual World

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