1 Day is 24 hours, or 1,440 minutes, or 86,400 seconds. There is no way to change that. Time is the one thing we can’t create, buy more of, slow down, or rewind. Even if you were the most productive person on the planet, you’d be limited to the constraints of time.
Let’s just say you can bill $100/hr and work 24 hours per day. That’s a maximum of $24,000 in one day. Making that you are limited to $8,760,000 in a 365 day year. No too shabby, but you’ll never be able to leverage that to make any more without others on your team. I mean, $8,760,000 a year isn’t bad, but you won’t eat, sleep, spend time with family, enjoy life or pretty much do anything but work so it comes at a price.
What if you could make your earning potential unlimited AND not have to work 24/7? Enter you team. Having a team comes with additional expenses and management, but can multiply the potential of any one person. If you are growing a business and constantly want more, it’s inevitable you will have to build a team.
Anyone can build a team, right. You see a guy walking down the street and say “Hey, what are you up to? You want to come work with me? I’ll pay you.” Boom, you hired someone. Does that really improve your business though? Not really, we all know you can’t just hire anyone off the street. You have to interview the right candidates, check references, review resume’s and find the right cultural fit for your business.
It takes time and effort to hire the right team member and train them up to produce the quality you expect from them. This is where you are doing the “dance” with your new candidate to make sure they will add value above what they cost to keep on your team. Understanding the formula between what a team member costs vs. what they add in value is critical to ensure you are growing your business and increasing your earning capacity through your team.
As an example, if you hire a team member for $10/hr, train them up and integrate them in to your daily processes, you would expect at least $10.01/hr in value to be created from that person. in order to keep them around. We’d obviously want more than just $0.01/hr in value but the concept is the same. Value creation is essential for your team and measure that is vital to hold both you and your team members accountable.
Once you get the magical formula right and hire the right people for your team the value creation grows exponentially. A great team with a clear set of marching orders can create more for a business than any one person individually. If you spend time producing plans and nurturing your team relationships instead of doing “getting in the weeds” it’ll be a win for you, your team, and your business.
It’s human nature to want to do well. If you set goals that are challenging and achievable, your team will want to work to work hard to achieve those goals and gain a personal satisfaction from the sense of meeting and exceeding benchmarks. It’s a win for the business because your high level goals are met and the business can grow. It’s a win for you personally because you have achieved a high level of production, met goals, grown your team members and win the battle of a work/life balance for everyone.
This, of course, assumes you have a great team driven to achieve and produce at a high level. Our business has been blessed to have an excellent team. We would not have been able to accomplish what we have been able to without a great team. We have a great team. Plain and simple. No question about it. The effort is put in every day to accomplish great things and ‘move the ball down the field.’ This business would not be successful without our team.
It’s my job as a leader to steer the ship to the best seas. But without the team to field and complete each task the ship needs, nothing else matters. Your team is your business. If you assemble the right team, you win. Take care of your team and they’ll take care of you.
