Soaring to Success: How to Build a Winning Small Business Team

When Oakland Athletics general manager Billy Beane assembled a contending Major League Baseball team, he gained lots of notoriety for signing players using a strategic analysis of their statistics that had never been done before. Mixing younger players with older veterans made the A’s a winning team.

Building a small business team has lots of parallels to putting together a baseball club or any group of individuals who will feed off each other, work together, and be successful by producing positive results for any organization. If you’re ready to lessen the burden of all the work on your plate as a one-person small business owner, take a look at some of the key strategies to help you surround yourself with a winning team of motivated and talented individuals.

Clearly outline the specific needs of your small business.

Whether or not you already have employees or contractors working for you, take some time to clearly identify where the biggest needs lie in your business. Do you need to beef up your online marketing or social media presence? Is your current sales team just not finding success? Are there backend issues with your bookkeeping or recordkeeping? Wherever the needs are, it’s important to first determine those before you start hiring others to take on these critical duties.

Keep in mind that funding your dream team is no walk in the park—and certainly is not inexpensive. Fortunately, marketplaces like Fundera can help you find loans for small businesses that fit your needs. Once your financial needs are met, you can confidently move forward with hiring the people you truly want on your team.

Add team members who fit well into your organization.

It’s a common misconception that hiring managers bring on employees based on the information on a resume: experience, education, and honors. However, the reality is that the most successful companies hire individuals who they think will fit well into the culture and environment of their organizations based on how one acts in an interview and through what that person’s responses are to important questions about values. So, apply this idea to your small business. When you’re interviewing applicants for a new position, make sure you have a good rapport with a candidate. Ask questions about the person’s goals and values, and then see how these answers align with your company’s mission. Surrounding yourself with people who buy into your concept and fit well into the working environment you’ve created will only help in your efforts to build a winning team. Plus, assembling a group of like-minded people will increase the chances that everyone will work well together, and you’ll have a well-oiled machine in place for prosperity.

Motivate your team members and give them a reason to enjoy working for you.

Hiring employees isn’t the most difficult part of being a small business owner. Instead, keeping and motivating them can be the biggest challenge of all. So, hold contests for your sales team to meet specific sales goals. Then give out bonuses, gift cards, or even some extra paid vacation as an incentive.

Communicate with employees who may appear to be struggling. Offer competitive pay and benefits to both attract and keep your best workers. Hold teambuilding events and out-of-the-office social gatherings so everyone can get to know their coworkers better. Time, energy, and money must all be spent on motivation, but it will all be worth it over the long haul.

Be clear with your expectations, and remind employees of them.

In general, team members want to know what is expected of them in terms of their work and productivity. So, you should set clear expectations of your workers. Provide feedback to show that you really do care about what these hardworking people are doing for you, and offer constructive criticism when it is warranted. Employees eat this stuff up. It will make them more driven to improve upon any areas of their work that can use some extra attention, and it makes them feel like they have a true purpose in your small business.

In addition, it’s often a wise idea to ask those around you what their personal and professional goals are. It’s important to get this feedback so you can see if everyone has a similar vision of what they want to see in themselves in the future and what they’d like to see the company look like down the road.