Tips to Build a Team
Build a team for your startup. A challenging concept to say the least. Especially if you are a first-time Entrepreneur looking to bring your new idea to market. In this article, I thought we would discuss a couple of techniques for you to build your first executive team.
Ideas to Build a Team.
Know Yourself
Before you start considering what team member to bring in to the company you need to do a bit of soul-searching and determine your own personal strengths and weaknesses. No matter how talented you are you need to understand that you cannot do every job. The best thing to do is to decide what tasks you want to do and what tasks you want to hire someone for.
Communicate your Vision
If you are going to build a company, you need to create a clear vision statement. This vision statement is the core element that you need to communicate with anyone and everyone that you talk to. Your first step in building a team is to articulate your vision of the future and see which candidates that are truly inspired and believe in your mission. Life in a startup is not easy. These Executives that you hire are your partners in the business. For your team to be successful you need to be 100% vision-locked with your partners.
Determine the key positions
Your venture cannot become viable without some core original executives; founders. Therefore, it is important to determine the key roles you need to fill before hiring anyone else. This is a critical step to assure a smooth operation. After the key positions are determined, you can think of the plan to hire other employees in each of the departments.
Decide the type of employment
When you build a team it is important that you remember that you do not have to always have to hire members on a full-time basis. Of course for departments like marketing and sales, you will need to build a team but not all of the members need to be full time or be paid solely on salary. Also, think about filling positions like advisors and consultants on a contract basis. Meanwhile, you can hunt for talented part-time employees to fulfill some of the immediate positions like content writers, designers, SEO experts, researchers, etc. This is a better method than taking a risk on a full-time employee at the initial steps.
Select your candidates
When you are in the hunt for candidates, make sure to give preference for:
- People you know well or have any kind of link to someone you know. Common ground is a good thing.
- People who are willing to start with a limited wage may wish to demonstrate their level of commitment. Also, look to place a heavy weight on the equity portion of their compensation.
- People who have awareness about your product. Sometimes your best customers make good employees
Experience, of course, is vital, but when you try to build a team for sales, consider hiring trainable, energetic youngsters to employ under a senior member.
The Hiring Process
After shortlisting is done, it is time for you to interview the potential candidates. Here are some important facts to consider if this is your first role as an interviewer:
- Be prepared – not only the candidate but the interviewer himself should be prepared for the interview
- Questions should be able to expose their approach on researching, creative thinking, personality, leadership, and enthusiasm
- Focus on their body language.
- Pay attention to the energy and personality. You can teach the job but not the personality.
After the interviews, you need to do some screening process pertaining to their backgrounds. After selecting, let them start with something smaller and advance. Observe their teamwork and enthusiasm closely.
That’s not all
It is not over just because the hiring is done and the employees started to perform. If you need to build a team that performs perfectly, you need to consider regular training and skill testing. These post-hire assessments are critical for both the employer and employee.
