How growing a team can save you time and money
If you’re a first-time entrepreneur it wouldn’t be uncommon for you to be thinking that growing a team would eat into your time and cost the business money. I want to challenge that perspective and share how a team could actually free up your time and make you money.
DIY vs Team
For many, starting up a business is a means to being more flexible in their working environment and having more control over the type of work they do. But what normally awaits a first-time business owner is the juggling of a variety of elements that the business requires to be sustainable, namely:
Business strategy and development
Product/service design and development
Sales
Customer relationships
Product/service delivery
Accounts and financial management
Admin and project management
Team and business development
And marketing
And each one of these areas of the business requires a very different set of skills. Business strategy lends itself to someone who can see into the future and the bigger picture compared to the detail orientation needed from someone doing the admin. Designing a product requires a level of creativity that someone managing the accounts might not need. You get the picture.
The biggest challenge early-stage businesses have is juggling all the skill sets to enable each part of the business to function well enough to get it to the next level. And if you’re still at the stage of doing this on your own, you are probably finding some roles in real contrast to others.
Expecting one person, or even a small team, to be able to have the characteristics and skills to run the whole business is unrealistic so if you thought you had to, hopefully, that’s the first useful thing to take away from this article.
What is your time worth?
Beyond the practical challenges doing it on your own brings, another perspective shift I want to offer is around your time as ‘a resource’ to the business.
It is not unusual for business owners to decide to avoid delegation because they believe they can do the task themselves and save the cost, but what we should really be looking at here is not the cost of delegation but the cost of not delegating.
What I mean by this, is how could you be using your time if you weren’t doing, say, the marketing and delegating that to someone else?
Could you be being paid to deliver a workshop or securing a new contract? Could you be writing an article for the media or building a new partnership? Could you be playing to your strengths rather than trying to fumble through something that you aren’t experienced in?
If you focused on the roles where your strength lies, you might be valuing your time at 2 or 3 times the amount you’re able to pay someone to do the marketing. So the cost to your business for not delegating the task becomes the value lost by you doing everything.
So I invite you to review your roles and responsibilities by considering where you and your team are best placed to bring in the most value for the business and delegate the areas that would be wasted resources. Allow someone else to do what they are best placed to do and ultimately this will enable you to get more for the business in the long-term even if it means investing your money in the short-term.
Start small and grow over time
When I talk about a team, it doesn’t have to be full-time PAYE roles overnight. If you’re early on in your journey you can delegate in a number of ways that don’t mean taking on unachievable responsibilities immediately.
For example:
Work in partnership with other organisations - This is great for one off activity (events or branding project) with organisations at the same stage as you whom there is clear mutual benefit in collaborating
Outsource certain activities to other businesses - For on-going activities that are key to reaching your audience in an impactful way (sales and marketing), it can be well worth letting the professionals do this. You’ll see a higher return on less resources by letting them do what they are best at
Hire a part-time role - If you’re looking to bring the skills inhouse, why not start by working with a freelancer or an employee on a part-time basis and evolve the role as the business grows
These three mindset shifts have taken me from the martyr mindset that saw me doing everything “because I can”, to protecting my time for where I can be of best service to the business in the long-term and delegating the other areas to people who are more skilled in those areas, which has freed up my time to do more of “my thing”.
By working with people who are more skilled than I am, I have seen time being better spent and therefore costing the business less. It has meant higher quality outcomes across the business which has enabled the business to grow, bringing in more money than I could have if I kept working on my own.
So if you haven’t considered growing your team because you were in the mindset that it would cost you time and money, I hope this has given you a new perspective that ultimately enables you to find more time and grow the business in ways that aren’t possible on your own.
Business Idea Review
Got a business idea that has a purpose beyond just making profit and want to sense check it with someone and get feedback on if it's got legs? Would you like some suggestions on what steps you should be focusing on next?
Book a 1.5 hour review session and get constructive feedback from a startup expert.