When it’s Time to Grow Your Business: How to Effectively Build Your “A-Team”
When it is finally time to start expanding your financial business and team, it is important to ensure the right people are being hired. Your team is the backbone of your company and can make all the difference in whether your business excels or plummets. Building your team wisely is the best thing you can do to boost your chances of success; however, it can also be challenging when it comes to assembling the proper team best suited for your company’s mission, needs, and goals. As a business owner or entrepreneur, you need to put strategies in place that will help you select the right talent and ensure you are continually motivating your team for maximum results and productivity. You should care about the success of not only your business but also your staff so they enjoy reporting to work. This translates into employee retention as well as attracting new talent while boosting staff efficiency that will end up having a positive impact on your overall bottom line. Here are some top tips on how to know if you need to expand your team and, if so, how to build an “A-Team:”
Signs That You May Need to Expand Your Team
Before deciding to expand your team, take the time to really examine your current staff before making any changes. Ask yourself, do you have more business than you can handle, do you have the capital to expand, is your industry growing and are all your employees working in the most efficient way. Before you begin hiring new people take a good hard look at how things are currently running throughout your business. Seek to gain perspective on how your workflow will be enhanced by adding more people to determine how your company will benefit from this change.
Be sure that bringing on new people will have purpose and will have a direct positive effect in helping your business bloom. Ensure you have a plan for training new employees, especially if you are launching your business in a new location. While growing your business is exciting, you have to be smart and strategic about it. You also need to have a proper onboarding process in place in order to set your employees up for success and increase employee productivity along with an effective functioning system.
Determine Your Wants from the Type of Candidates You Are Seeking
Once you truly understand what you want your organization to look like as it grows and the work that needs to be done then you can start thinking about what type of candidate is the best fit. You have to know what kind of role will generate the biggest impact on your business. In order to determine this, ask yourself: do you need more salespeople, a marketing team or administrative assistants, and whether these positions need to be part-time or full-time. Depending on your business and when your busy season is, these questions and answers may vary and could even result with you coming up with a seasonal hiring strategy.
Be Thorough When Considering Talent
Interviews shouldn’t be your only predictor of performance and ability. The references provided by a candidate are not always necessarily representative of a candidate and should not always be taken at face value. It is important when considering candidates to do your homework in talking with a few back channel references. These are people you have found independent of a candidate’s provided contacts. You can even use the references provided by the applicant and ask those references to give you additional names of other people you can talk with who may have worked with the candidate for a further background check so you can ensure you are making an educated and informed decision regarding the candidate in question.
Will Applicant Match Your Company’s Culture?
You need to be sure before hiring a new person that that individual will embody the values of your brand and mission. People who are hired should reflect your goals in wanting to grow your company and aid in your company’s objectives. In my case, being that I am currently franchising my law firm, it’s important that any new people I hire share my goal in fulfilling my mission to reshape the debt resolution industry by building an environment of trust, comfort, and results for today’s consumers and businesses who are struggling with control over their debt and finances and thereby support my mission in franchising. When considering candidates, I always look for competent, capable and committed people who share this goal.
Remember employees are a reflection of your company. You don’t want to hire the wrong people who will end up putting your brand and reputation in jeopardy. Employees who won’t mold into your company’s culture are likely to create conflict. Set high expectations with your new hires on their first day and give them an action plan outlining short and long-term goals you expect from them. Every employee should have clear objectives so everyone is on the same page right from the beginning.
Heightening and Retaining Your Team
Once you have a good selection of new hires and feel as if you have your “A-team” is in place don’t forget to invest in them. A common reason companies tend to lose employees is because their employees feel as if their work isn’t making an impact, they aren’t being recognized for their work, or the workload isn’t challenging enough. Be sure to give your staff goals and challenges to be met and don’t forget to offer financial incentives and rewards either. This doesn’t always mean having to give your employees a raise. Rewards can come in many different forms, including additional vacation or personal time, special perks, and time flexibility.
Whether you’re expanding into a new location, franchising, or have an increased workload that is causing you the need for broadening your team, some of these tips may help you find the best candidates for ensuring you have the best and strongest team in place to suit your company needs and mission.
