Building Your Dream Team on a Budget: Strategies for Solopreneurs

Ever felt like expanding your team is a luxury you can't afford? Get ready to challenge that notion. 

Join me, Tonya D. Harrison, on the Operations Toolbox podcast, where we debunk the myth that expanding your team is just for the bigwigs.

In this episode, we're smashing through the barriers of team expansion on a budget. Discover savvy strategies to build your dream team without emptying your wallet. Drawing from my own journey, I'll spill the beans on tapping into cost-effective ways to find like-minded team players who are ready to jump on board your vision train.

Tune in, and take the first step toward constructing a powerhouse team that's both affordable and unstoppable.

Get ready to elevate your team's performance! Subscribe to Team Navigator for weekly insight on achieving team efficiency and operational excellence.

Sign up here and join a community of ambitious leaders building high-performing teams >> https://go.cignalpartners.com/leadnews

Transcript

Tonya D.: 0:00

Are you ready to build a team in your business, but the math just ain't mathing. I mean, you run the numbers and you look at it and you figure there's absolutely no way I can hire the people that I need to hire in order to drive my business forward. Well, in today's episode, we're diving into the most crucial aspect of building a successful business, which is assembling your dream team. But here's the twist we're doing it all on a budget. We are going to explore practical strategies to help you recruit top talent, foster collaboration and drive your business forward without breaking the bank. You ready? Welcome to the Operations Toolbox podcast. I'm your host, tanya D Harrison. Let's create version 2.0 of your business, and this is the version that is called growth without burnout. So let's get started. Here's the reality While most of us start as solopreneurs, in order to effectively build our business, scale our business, grow our business, our business.

Tonya D.: 1:27

Scale our business, grow our business we really need to have support, and that support is in the way of a team. Many of us are able to go years without having a team, but if we really want to see our business grow and we really want to make sure we do it in a way that is not causing us to burn ourselves out. We need to make sure we are bringing people along with us on a journey, and that's a team. The reality of it is there's only 24 hours in a day and you cannot spend the entire 24 hours working in your business. At some point, you are going to have to get relief where you have a support system that includes a team if you're really looking to grow your business. This doesn't apply to people who want to be a freelancer. That's their goal to be a freelancer. That's their goal to be a freelancer. That is fine. But if you are trying to build a business, you are going to need a team, and it can be really difficult to hire a team when you are on a strict budget. Today, we're really going to dig in and share some strategies that you could use to get people that you need that go beyond having just a warm body.

Tonya D.: 2:56

The very first thing we want to do is we want to talk about the foundation for your dream team. To talk about the foundation for your dream team. We can't just bring people into any old environment. They need to be brought into a business that is really going to allow them to shine and allow them to thrive. That's what you're hiring them for.

Tonya D.: 3:20

The very first thing you want to do is start with a vision, define your business goals and the roles needed to achieve them. Having a clear vision is going to guide you during the hiring process and is going to ensure alignment with your objectives. Again, we are not doing the warm body syndrome. We're not doing that. We want people that are truly in alignment with where it is that we are headed. In order to do that, you have to be crystal clear on your vision and what your goals are, and then you can start to identify the people that you need to come beside you to help you get there.

Tonya D.: 4:09

One of the things that I recommend to my clients is to sketch your organization chart. What does it look like? What do you want it to look like? This is a part of you creating the vision, casting the vision for your business. If you see yourself an admin assistant, a social media manager, whatever that looks like, put it on paper. The next thing I want you to do is, once you do all of that you have your vision, you have your org chart I want you identify essential skills. Again, we're talking about skills that are needed in order to help you get to where it is you need to go, determine the key skills and expertise required for each role and expertise required for each role. We want to focus on hiring individuals who possess these core competencies to maximize efficiency and effectiveness.

Tonya D.: 5:15

Now, now that we've laid the foundation, we know where we're going, we know what we need, we know the skills that we need. We want to write out a job description. What would you like for each of these team members to be responsible for? One of the things that I want to remind you is you have to be crystal clear in business. Planning is a huge part of business success. This is building the foundation to bring the right person on within your business. Now I want to share with you a couple of different ways that you could bring people in your business that are going to be in alignment with your vision, your objectives and your goals, and they're going to help you take your business to the next level. While all of them may not be free, it is the most cost-effective way I've found to to bring people on board.

Tonya D.: 6:21

The first method I want to share with you, or the first strategy I want to share with you is to bother skills or services. This is one that is often overlooked, but I'm not quite sure why you want to look for opportunities to exchange skills or services with other professionals or businesses. This is something that I did initially within my business. This is something that I've done after I even got going in my business. For instance, I have a business bestie who is a I say, a marketing guru. She does marketing and relationship building. I do operations. We have literally bought her services, where she has provided me with marketing support and insight and I have provided her with operations support and insight and I have provided her with operations, insight and services. So we actually have this skill set that we just share amongst each other, and I've done it with other people as well.

Tonya D.: 7:39

Think about the people that are close to you. Think about the people that maybe have something that you need and you have something that they need and you could literally trade services. Right, it could be whatever your business is. If you do taxes and somebody else does graphic design and websites, you could barter services. Think outside of the box when you are trying to bring people in. That's the first strategy.

Tonya D.: 8:12

The second one is your network. Tap into your network. Leverage your personal and professional networks. Think about people that you've worked with in the past, or you can seek referrals and recommendations for potential team members. The benefit to this is you know what you are getting. You've worked with these people. Know what you are getting. You've worked with these people. You know them, you know their work ethic, you know their output. You missed the whole part of going through and looking for somebody and hiring them, and all of that because you already know certain things. Now you just need to make sure that they align with your vision. For instance, my executive assistant. I knew her before we started working together. She actually worked in the church's administrative office. I already knew a lot about her. I knew her work output. I knew her ethics. I knew that she would be someone that would align with my vision. I had the conversation with her, we agreed, and five, six years later, we're still working together. So tap into your network.

Tonya D.: 9:35

Option you want to consider is interns or students and local work programs. When it comes to interns or students, this could be a paid intern or a free internship. Either way, you have an opportunity to bring on some very skilled talent if you are willing to do some training. When you are looking for interns or students, you can go to local universities or college. Now, remember, the great thing about them is, aside from bringing in the skills that you need, they often bring fresh perspectives and are willing to work again for lower pay or even free, because they're getting some type of academic credit. When it comes to the local programs within your area, you definitely want to look out for those, because they offer grants to businesses. Some of these local programs will pay the salary of the person that you are bringing on board if you are willing to do some on-the-job training. Some of them may not have a grant, but they have people that have the skills that you need and they are trying to re-enter the workforce or go into a different industry. Either way, you are able to get some valuable talent people that have the skills that you need to perform certain types of jobs, as long as you are willing to do some on-the-job training. This is where your standard operating procedures are going to be extremely beneficial Making sure that you have these when you onboard people, so that you are not using a lot of your time to train. You definitely want to make sure you have these in place, but this is a resource that you want to tap.

Tonya D.: 11:31

Interns, students, local work programs Head over to your local university and colleges and check out what they have available. The next strategy is leveraging freelancers or contractors. This is where you're going to go to Fiverr or Upwork or some type of platform that offers a diverse pool of talent at a competitive rate. I have found some really great talent on Fiverr and Upwork. If you have a specific task that needs to be done, you can literally go out and hire someone for that, like I have had people that I've hired to work on my website to do specific things within my business. They complete that task or that project, I pay them and then that's it. You can do the same thing with anything. If you need a flyer created, if you need admin hours, there's different ways that you could get people on board to do specific tasks.

Tonya D.: 12:40

So what are the things I want you to do? Is I want you to really think about again where it is that you're going, what are the skills that you need, who it is that you need to come alongside of you, whether it's long-term or short-term, in order to get you to the next level. So what is that goal that you are trying to achieve and what and who do you need on board to achieve it? The last thing that I want to talk about is investing in skill development. We have to be always willing to upskill ourselves, and if we have a team, upskill our team.

Tonya D.: 13:19

Whether you are going to online courses or workshops, seminars, conferences, whatever it is, you want to put yourself in a state of continuous learning, because this is something else that fosters growth and innovation within your organization, and if you have teams, you want to pass that along to your teams. This may not necessarily be people that are there for a short term, for a project, and things like that. I'm talking about long-term team members. The other thing is you want to empower team autonomy. When you bring team members on, whether it's short-term or long-term you don't want to have to babysit them. You want to be able to give them a certain amount of autonomy. So part of this is making sure that you have the right processes in place so that they are trained accordingly, and then also making sure that you are available to help them along the journey, being available to answer questions or whatever it is that that looks like, and I'll talk more about that in another episode, but with this episode I really want you to start thinking about creative ways that you could start building your team that is not going to break the bank.

Tonya D.: 14:49

So really quickly, just going back through Number one, you can bother skills or services. Number two you can hire interns or students or look to your local work programs. Number three you can leverage freelancers and contractors. These are three ways that you can start building your team right now without breaking the bank. As a solopreneur, building your dream team on a budget is not only achievable, but it is essential for your business's success. By leveraging some of the strategies discussed, you can assemble a high performing team that drives your business forward. Remember, it's not about the size of your team, but the quality of the talent and having a shared vision that propels you toward your entrepreneurial dreams. Thanks for tuning in to the Operations Toolbox podcast. Until next time, keep building and thriving.