How to Strategically Build a Profitable Small Business Team

When you’re ready to start building your small business team, you need to make sure you are doing so strategically and effectively. While it’s true that your team will be your largest expense, it will also be your greatest asset. This is why you’ll want to keep both profitability and growth at the forefront during this level of business growth.

This can honestly be one of the scariest and most exciting times in your journey as a business owner. The prospect of growth is exciting, but trying to figure out whether you’re “doing it right” can be intimidating.

This is where it can help to have a blueprint to work from. Of course, every business will be different and no two entrepreneurial journeys will be the same, but there are some general guidelines that nearly every business owner can follow.

Building Out Your Team

In Level 1 of your growth, you wore a lot of the hats yourself. Maybe you hired an assistant to take on a few of those roles, but most of the focus was on you.

In Level 2, you’re ready to start handing over more of the tasks. Things have grown to the point of having anywhere from 5-10 different roles to fill (even though most or all of your team members will continue to wear multiple hats).

You’ll want to look for people who prefer working with a startup. Even if they have the skills you’re looking for, you may not yet be ready for team members who prefer to specialize in only one role.

Your Marketing Assistant may start to step in as your Video Editor and Graphic Designer. The assistant you hired may step into your Executive Assistant role and take on some Admin duties while helping you strategically calendar ahead and keeping your email and schedule organized.

Your Client Happiness Coordinator may pull double duty as your Team Happiness Coordinator, checking in with your team members periodically to make sure everyone has what they need to thrive (and alerting you to anything that may need your attention early on). Your Bookkeeper may also act as your Billing Clerk, sending out invoices and staying on top of your Accounts Receivable to keep your cash flow coming in.

As you start to flesh out each of these roles, be sure to document the procedures they use from the start. This will come in especially handy in the next level of business growth, when various members of your team start specializing more!

Building Out Strong Systems as You Grow

As each of these roles comes into play, work with your team members to start building out the systems they’ll need. (If you need to catch up on developing these, let us know – we can help you fast track the process!)

The good news is, you don’t have to build these systems all at once. Have each team member take 5-10 minutes to make a list of everything they can think of that they do in a day, a week, or a month. Simply listing these tasks is the first step toward building your systems manuals.

Then, as they do their various tasks, have them document the process they take. This can be as simple as making a quick Loom video while they’re working or taking a moment to jot down the steps in a checklist.

From there, find out who on your team likes to organize in different ways. Maybe someone enjoys writing SOPs and policies, and someone else enjoys making diagrams. Let them go at it, using the original video or checklist as their source material!

This will not only help you build your systems more quickly, it will also help your team members take ownership of their roles and give everyone opportunities to collaborate. Every time this happens, your team grows a bit stronger!

Helping Your Team Plan Their Time

When each person on your team is wearing multiple hats, it will be especially important for you to help them prioritize. The simple act of meeting with each person to help them develop a block calendar that works for them can do wonders!

However, it’s also important to understand that they may not be able to follow that calendar to the minute every week. Some weeks, certain things may take longer than expected. Be sure to encourage flexibility and be available for questions when this happens!

For example, if you have a big marketing campaign coming up, your Marketing Assistant may need to spend more time putting the assets and logistics together than normal. Because of this, they may not have as many hours as usual to spend on engagement – and that’s ok. Maybe your EA or Client Happiness Coordinator can jump in and work with a documented process to cover that task for a week or two. (This is why having those systems in place is so important!)

If you would like help developing your action plan for team growth, just contact us – we’re happy to help!