Build A Capable Team

How much do you do around your business every day? And what is your main role? If you are the main salesperson or the chief of operations or in some other critical role, that is a mistake. It is time to build a capable team.

How Capable Is Your Team?

Buyers are looking for companies that run “like a machine.” Those companies will be the ones that have a qualified and expert team in place. Roles on the team are deliberately spelled out. Each team member knows their role and works it creatively and effectively every day. The team meets on a regular basis and you watch over the team. Does that sound like a dream to you? Or are you saying to yourself: “of course, that’s the way we operate.”

If you are in the first group that’s dreaming opf a great team, it’s time to start building it. Most businesses have three major components that form the basis of everything that’s done: marketing/sales, operations and financial management. Let’s take them one at a time. Marketing/sales is all about finding customers. You have a product or service, which needs to be packaged, promoted and sold. That’s the role of marketing and sales.

Your product needs to be produced and delivered cost-effectively. There are many aspects to that process. The one who oversees it is usually a Chief Operating Officer (COO.) In addition, there are finances to be tracked and managed as well as hiring and firing of people and a facility to be managed. Typically, those areas can be managed by a Chief Financial Officer, (CFO.) Your role as Chief Executive Officer (CEO) is to keep the team on the same page and moving in the same direction overall. When you start a company, you’re probably doing all three. But, over time, it’s important for you to keep moving out of the specific roles.

If you can move out of the roles and hire competent team members to head each area, you will be surprised one day, when it dawns on you that your company as taken on a life of it’s own that will keep going without you. That is a great day, because you are then ready to sell.