As an entrepreneur how often do you find yourself running sales, accounting, billing, production, marketing, and every other loose end in your business? Does the list ever end?!
Obviously, a basic human resources strategy is necessary, but nowadays you can get by with a solution like Gusto or Intuit to manage all your payroll and benefits. While that is the bare minimum you need to get by, do you spend time actually working with your team to develop them as a high functioning unit?
You are not a massive a business yet, with lavish budgets to necessarily entertain your team and spend on corporate retreats. That is no excuse, and not having enough time, while is most often the case, still is not a reason to neglect
Think about it, your team is your business. The success of your business relies on the success, unity, productivity, happiness, and efficiency of your team. Let’s look at some basic tips you can implement immediately that will get your team on the same page.
Team Meetings
The most obvious start is to start having meetings. Now, a meeting without an agenda, purpose, and goal is a useless meeting. Set a meeting schedule with your team. Maybe it is the first Monday of each pay period. Go over concerns with your team, and highlight successes and failures. Allow your employees from different departments to interact with each other.
Allow a different department to lead the meeting so that you can start to create perspective in your business. Give ownership to the leaders in each department so they can feel like they are adding value.
When there are shirts to be printed, you might feel like having a meeting is a waste of time ($$$) but when you wait until there is a problem to have a meeting, you have not taken a pro-active approach to running your business.
Practice Skills
Unless your shop is flawless and perfect, and completely free from any mistakes, there is always more to learn. Recently, Tom Brady and his team published a series of videos to go over what makes him and the Patriots great. It is fascinating to see what goes into being one of the best quarterbacks of all time.
The same goes for your business and the players on your team. Spend time practicing with your sales team on their initial call protocol. Take them into the production so they know how to sell smarter. Test their knowledge.
The same goes for your art department. Practice art approvals and proofing so that you can proof jobs quicker, and offer greater customer satisfaction.
What about production? Do you evaluate their raw skills on burning, registering, and physically printing jobs? If you spend an hour a month going through and reminding them of best practices they will understand the team standards of performance
Create FUN in Your Business
Whether it is through contests like fantasy football, team lunches, out of shop activities, you need to have fun with your team. Make them smile more.
A happy team means they will work harder and appreciate you and your business more. If you can relate to them on a personal level, they will be there when you least expect it. Be the company you want to work for.
Cross Train
This might seem like a super time waster, but really, it is one of the smartest things you can do for your business. Bring employees from different departments to learn other trades or skills in the business.
They will appreciate it and have a new-found respect for the different skills that go into making your business run. You might find some hidden talents within your employees that are undiscovered. Spend time learning what your employees enjoy doing. Moreover, these practices will create a sense of unity and respect within your team.
Use Platforms & Technology
If you are not on the “cloud”, get on it. Your business should be accessible, transparent, and cutting edge. Try to go paperless, and see how much more involved your team is when they can check statuses and orders on an iPad or Tablet. By using unique technology to communicate such as Slack or a universal digital calendar your team will be able to work cohesively, together.
Getting your team on the same page means you need to become a great coach. That may not be what you signed up for but becoming a great coach requires a great amount of time, commitment, soft skills, and passion.
You might be printing for all those sports teams anyways, so why not become a great coach yourself.
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