Your Critical Team: The 6 Most Important Success Team Members to Have in Your Arsenal
Copyright (c) 2006 UpLevel Strategies
Mark Twain once said, “Keep away from people who try to
belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but
the really great make you feel that you, too, can become
great.’
It’s true. Have you ever noticed that people who are
successful have friends and work with others who are
successful?
Take Chicken Soup for the Soul author Mark Victor Hansen.
As the story goes, Mark Victor Hansen was lamenting to Tony
Robbins about his less than desirable level of success. “I
don’t understand it,” said Hansen. “I just can’t seem to
get from where I am to where I want to be.”
“Well, who are the people around you?” asked Robbins.
“The thing is,” replied Hansen. “I’m hanging out with
millionaires.”
“That’s the problem,” declared Robbins. “You need to start
hanging out with billionaires.”
Mark Victor Hansen took Tony Robbins’ advice, and the rest
is history.
Surround yourself with the best and your efforts will more
naturally – and more surely – lead toward excellence. By
doing so, you will begin to achieve success faster, easier
and with greater predictability than you could by yourself.
What can you do to begin surrounding yourself with success?
Here are my top six must-haves for your business:
1. A Visionary Thinker Combined with an Detailed-Oriented
Operations Manager
I happen to be extremely visionary with exceptional
out-of-the-box ideas. People who work with me call me an
idea factory. So what’s the problem? Having a visionary
around is essential to growing a business, right? Well, I
often have so many ideas, I can’t keep on-track!
That’s where my business partner, Sheryl, steps in. I
realized it’s just as essential to balance my creativity
with someone whose a detail-oriented operations person, so
that all my ideas are realized.
Let’s face it. We can’t be good at everything. You should
form a success team with a person who balances you out. If
you are not interested in establishing a formal business
partnership, then find your opposite and meet weekly to
trade your wares. Your business will benefit!
2. A Financial Guru
If you are good at finances and like to take care of them,
using a program like Quickbooks can get you the information
you desire. However, when it comes to tax time, I don’t
recommend going about the task unless you are a CPA
yourself.
CPAs are no longer just number crunchers and tax preparers,
they are business and financial strategists who help chart
the paths of businesses and individuals. Businesses are
tapping CPAs to not only manage finances and taxes, but
also to determine profitable new product lines, help
diversify investments, and provide a variety of other
consulting and business services.
If you are like most business owners, you have knowledge
and drive and a strong affinity for your industry; you know
your product inside and out and enjoy promoting it. But a
business is in existence to make money, and every business
requires money to keep it alive. Keeping track of the money
that you are earning, spending and saving is crucial to
your success. Do you have as much knowledge and drive and
affinity for financial recordkeeping as you do for your
company? Many people don’t, and for them the nominal cost
of having a professional take care of their all-important
financial needs is well worth it.
3. A Coach
Top performers in all fields use personal coaches to help
them create outstanding results and to develop their full
potential as human beings. Your coach is your personal
consultant - a personal trainer for your spirit and soul.
A professional coach helps you envision, clarify, create,
and sustain the results that matter most to you. Perhaps
the most important thing your coach does do is to hold you
accountable for creating the results you say you want to
create. And people do create results!
I have several coaches myself: a business coach, a life
coach and a book coach. Coaching is a relationship that has
challenged me to tap into and bring out the best of myself.
I can not emphasize enough the positive effect that my
coaches have had on my life and my business
4. A Virtual Assistant
I never understood how someone billing 200.00 or 100.00 per
hour could say they can’t afford an assistant. They can’t
afford not to! Not only does it free up their mental energy
to do what they love, it frees them up to concentrate on
activities that are billable or sales related.
Having a virtual assistant (or VA) is fast becoming a need
for the busy entrepreneur, small business owner and person
on the run. With the advent of new technologies and ways of
doing business, the VA has stepped up to help you along
your way.
Virtual Assistants work remotely and often can hook into
your computer to make you more organized and efficient.
They run upwards of 30.00 per hour and, believe me, are
invaluable!
5. A Computer Doctor
Computers are great when they work. But when they don’t,
they can bring your business to its knees, causing you to
lose time and money, miss business opportunities, and your
customers to lose confidence in your service.
And even when they seem to be working, computers can have
hidden problems that can slow your efficiency, cause
errors, and sow the seeds of trouble.
Don’t wait until you have a major technology meltdown to
try to find someone who can come to the rescue! As unlikely
as it may seem, there are people who actually enjoy fixing
our computer equipment and who can solve issues in a matter
of minutes that would have you pulling out your hair or on
the verge of tears.
6. A Marketing Professional
Nearly 90% of business owners and managers have little or
no professional experience in sales or marketing. Yet,
their businesses and often livelihood depend on their
marketing effectiveness. For the same reason that people
hire an auto mechanic, an accountant, counselor and others,
hiring a marketing consultant provides expert guidance and
support in needed areas. When talking about the success of
your business, the stakes couldn’t be higher.
Even talented marketers like me need to have someone who
can help them objectively market their business.
Entrepreneurs should be spending about 60% of the time
marketing and we can’t afford to be off-message or be the
same as everyone else’s.
Find a professional resource that can help you with web
design, brand identity and collateral development.
At this point many of my clients say, “I can’t afford this!’
You can’t afford not to. Doing everything yourself isn’t
free. If you spent all your time doing all of the tasks
above, when would you pitch new business or service your
existing accounts? And what if you make a mistake on your
finances? Choose the wrong marketing technique? Or your
computer crashed and lost all your documents? What is that
going to cost you?
Successful people are goal-oriented. They aren’t afraid to
work with people who are smarter, harder working or more
ambitious than they are.
Hire an expert and stick to what you are best at. The
financial returns will come.
—————————————————-
Kelly K. O’Neil, Chief Strategy Officer, UpLevel Strategies
Business & Marketing guru Kelly O’Neil is passionate about
helping entrepreneurs succeed in business through her
Business Mastery Success System. She is the lead author of
“Visionary Women Inspiring the World: 12 Paths to Personal
Power†(Skyward, 2005) and is writing her second book
Guerilla Business Strategy with mega-marketing genius Jay
Conrad Levinson. Kelly’s company received several awards
for her exceptional work including the PR Compass award for
outstanding Public Relations, The ADDY Award for Branding
and recently received the Purple Cow Award acknowledging
her company as one of the Most Innovative Companies in
America by best-selling author Seth Godin.
For more information, or to subscribe to O’Neil’s Arrive!
E-newsletter filled with countless tips and resources for
creating more profit in your business, visit
http://www.uplevelstrategies.com . Please contact UpLevel
Strategies at (408) 615-8150 for a Complimentary 30 Minute
Strategy Session.
June 2nd, 2007 at 5:39 am
Thank you - many people still do not understand what Virtual Assistants are about and how they can save them time and money, but they do. Any business owner needs admin and IT support, just as corporates too. No-one can do it all themselves, and even if they were able to, it doesn’t make sense to waste their time at whatever they charge, doing something that a VA could do so they can concentrate on their real income earning potential.
For the record, I’m a VA and business owner and do have a coach of my own, a financial planner, a team of VAs behind me, a computer support tech and access to marketing support and advice.