How to Achieve Success by Creating a Team

I have a good friend whom I met when I rented my first office in NYC over 4 years ago. His name is Boris.

It was during September 2005, and I was renting my first office to launch my ecommerce business. Boris had an office in the same floor, and he was also launching his local service business at that time.

Both being entrepreneurs, and owners of 2 startups in the same building, we have become friends right away.

Boris was a very smart guy with great potential. He was probably the best sales person I have ever seen in my life.

One day, while we were having lunch in Dumbo, New York, near our offices, he’s overheard a conversation between two gentlemen who were also having lunch at the next table, and Boris found a way to join the conversation without interrupting them.

Within 30 minutes, he has sold a big ticket contract to these people. It is hard to explain, but when Boris started talking, you didn’t have a chance to say no to what he sold. He looked and talked trustworthy, friendly, and he was pretty persuasive.

He was so good at sales, he could pretty much sell anything. That’s the main reason his business started growing pretty fast.

Boris had another skill; networking. He pretty much knew every key contact in New York City. Whenever I needed a contact, it was enough to ask him. He could find the best electrician, customs broker, accountant in the city. He had a great network of business people.

While I was becoming close friends with Boris, I had realized something. He had a huge bottleneck in his business mindset which was going to keep him from becoming one of the most successful businessman in the future.

He was too perfectionist, and he wanted to do everything by himself. Even though he had usually one employee helping him, he was the guy trying to do everything by himself, and also burning out himself with all the unnecessary details.

Boris kept growing his business, and launched an import export company. Don’t get me wrong, he is still very successful compared to many entrepreneurs I’ve met. But he is wasting his huge potential by still trying to do everything by himself. And as a friend, I still tell Boris, he needs to start trusting people and create a team.

Left Brain vs Right Brain Mindset Approach

I won’t get into the details of how important it is to create a team and bore you with my tips. Instead, I will show you how I approach this in my own business.

It is all about the specific tasks. Is it a task that require to use your left brain or right brain? If you can answer this question, it is easy to come up with a plan.

Most business owners ask this question to themselves:

Should I hire somebody for this task, or Should I do it myself?

Create a business process flow chart

You can google some examples if you are not familiar with drawing a business process flow chart. Then use a free service like flowchart.com or even photoshop to create the business process flow chart.

Mark each step in the flow chart as L or R

For each step, I add a letter L or R. L means left brain, R means right brain.

Let’s say I’m building a network of product review sites. Choosing a niche would be the first main step. I’d mark this step as R. Because choosing a niche is the most important part of this project, and it needs experience and knowhow. It’s not something I can teach somebody in a few minutes. But uploading a wordpress would be L. Because I can create a short screencast video and teach one of employees how to upload and setup wordpress.

You see where I’m going from here right?

If you clearly identify the business process steps as L and R, your job becomes much easier to find the right people and manage the project.

Time to find people

Since I have clearly identified the steps with L and R. It’s time to find the right people who will be doing the left brain tasks (teachable, kind of easy, more data entry type).

This is the step which shows if you are a good businessman or not. You have options; hiring full time, part-time, outsourcing, crowdsourcing, or even finding a JV partner.

Proper Training & Management

When you found the right people for the tasks, it is time to train these people and manage them.

Working less hours for more success

Now, I have a team of people (full time, outsourced, part time, etc.) well trained, and working on the tasks simultaneously, like the workers in a factory assembly line. As the business owner, I can focus on managing the team, motivating them, planning for scaling, and enjoy working less hours for more success.

This is so important in business, I will also write some case studies about creating a team soon.

Taking it to the next level

Find team members for the right brain tasks. Yes, you need experienced people, and they cost more. But finding the people for the right brain tasks will take your business to the next level.

While you are coming up with the ideas, your right brain people will help you with decision making and managing your team. This is the only way to grow fast without losing control.

Whether you run a small local business, an internet marketing company or an affiliate marketing business, if you try to do everything yourself, you won’t achieve the ultimate success you deserve with your potential.

It is time to adopt this mindset, create your team, and turn the 4 hour workweek myth into a reality.