Successful entrepreneurs must surround themselves with a support team. Starting and maintaining a successful business takes a great deal of work, and we need a support team to help develop and grow our business. We can’t be good at all things, and sometimes we need a bit of help from others for their expertise.
During the start-up phase, your support team might include your spouse, your best friend, your bookkeeper, and your kid. You might also have a couple of colleagues or mentors that you could add to your team. These people are vital to your dream of owning your business because they will have helpful and insightful ideas, they will help with marketing, answering the phone, moving into your office and other tasks that just need to get done.
As your business grows, you will often enlarge that support team to include other duties like an office cleaner, HR consultant, intake coordinator, CPA or tax professional, realtor, lawyer or even a handyman or a business coach. Now, these people won’t all be on the payroll, and you may only use their services for a short time, in fact, you may only have them provide you with an hour or two of service. But whatever they do for you it will allow you to do the clinical work or being the face of your business which nobody does better than you. Think about your support team as a return on your business.
When we enlarged our office space I hired a company for $35.00/hr to come and put a few pieces of furniture together for me. Now I love Ikea and building their furniture is a fun task, one I certainly could have done. However, this time while the furniture was assembled, I was at a community event speaking. This speaking event netted two clients at my fee of $150.00/hr. Here is what the math looked like: furniture task= $75.00/2 hours, two new clients @$150.00/hr x 8 weeks of therapy (the average length that clients stay) = $2400.00.
As you can see the return on my time was a huge win for me and my business. Not all wins will net you such big wins all the time. However, they do add up quickly.
On my support team, I have a CPA/accountant who does my taxes and helps me plan for my business’s future. We sit down a few times a year, and we talk about the vision I have for the business, and she helps me find the proper way to fund those activities. I have a bookkeeper, and she makes sure that all my deposits and expenditures get logged in properly for the IRS. She keeps the books in order, and I can review the important documents with a few clicks on my keyboard. I have an HR consultant that helps me keep complaint with all the employment laws and personal matters. I use a wonderful business mentor for planning day to day as well as future planning of all my businesses. I have a lawyer that reviews my forms and answers questions that come up. I have a trusted group of colleagues that I can contact for clinical consultation as well as business building. There can be many ups and downs in business so it a good idea to find other that own business to be able to consult with.
Others on my team include a Virtual Assistant (VA) they handle my social media, business automation, forms, and other tasks. The support team is round out by my referral sources and my therapists’ knowing what their specialties are and then targeting those clients with their marketing efforts. We also have a cleaning crew and an insurance broker. That is a lot of people, but I only use them a few hours each week.
Lastly, I have the wonderful support of my family with whom my businesses wouldn’t have taken flight. My family helps keep in laughing in tough times, is encouraging and pushes me when I have no more energy. I will always be grateful for them agreeing to my business ventures.
When you think about the tasks and duties that you need for your business, think about what tasks must be done, what do you like to do and are fantastic at and only do them. For everything else, consider finding someone to help you with their expertise.
Check out also my video on Creating A Support Team.
For more information, please go to my website for other helpful tips and videos. Therapistbox.com.