5 Great Tips To Develop A Top Business Team

If your business is to thrive you need to put a good team at the heart of it. Unfortunately that is easier said than done, especially if you are in the early stages of developing your business when you have a hundred and one things that need to be done by yesterday. The truth is that the sooner you have that top team in place the more time you will have to work on the strategic aspects of your business,. In other words time to work on your business rather than in it.

Today’s blog is based on Duncan Tannahill’s 5TopTips of How To Develop A Top Team, which you can watch just below or you can read on.

Duncan Tannahill is Managing Director of The Tannahill Partnership, a company that delivers business coaching to SME businesses to enable them to gain real competitive advantage. Here are his five top tips on how to motivate and develop a top team.

The Right People

Start by recruiting the right people. It may seem obvious but if you get this wrong you will end up frustrated and complain about your employees not doing what is expected. You need to invest time in setting out a well thought through recruitment process. You need to consider the job specification or description and the type of person who will likely be successful in the role. Then think through what the advert piece will look like and where you will promote the position. In the past it may have been the recruitment pages of your local newspaper that you would advertise but these days you have many more options such as local radio, online recruitment sites, traditional and online recruitment agencies etc. Once you have the candidates you need to set out the interview process and questions you will ask.

An Existing Team

What if your employees are in post? Well, consider how you communicate with them and share information about the vision for the business and how they fit in to helping deliver that vision through their job role. Stop finding fault with the team and rather highlight the things they do right. It might be harder to do but well worth the effort.

Regular Appraisals

Review your employees’ performance regularly both informally and with an annual appraisal.  People like to get feedback. And remember that an appraisal is a two way process or discussion with the employee. Successful appraisals also require planning and commitment to make them work and be seen as valuable, there are no short cuts!

Train And Train Again

Training should not be a one-off but something that is a regular part of the business. The best teams always train so you need a clear training plan supported by a suitable budget to ensure that you up skill the team continuously. Training must be tied back to the business plan and reflect the needs of the business going forward.  Well planned training will always give a return on investment in excess of 100%.

Inspire By Leading

Be the leader in your organisation and work to enrol and inspire your team.   Consider a great leader and how they operated, for example Winston Churchill.  What did he do and how did he perform. What set him apart from his contemporaries? In the field of commerce Harry Selfridge transformed the retail business in Britain through innovation and his inspirational leadership. His philosophy on leadership is as relevant to SMEs today as they were over a hundred years ago when he opened his London store.

·         “The boss drives his people; the leader coaches them.”
·         “The boss inspires fear; the leader inspires enthusiasm.”
·         “The boss says ‘I'; the leader, ‘we’.”
·         “The boss says ‘Go'; the leader says ‘Let’s go’.
·         “The boss depends on authority; the leader on goodwill.”



Related Blog PostsHow To Grow And Develop Your Business - Duncan Tannahill

The Great Profit Giveaway and how to stop it - Duncan Tannahill

Online Business Success - Mike Berry
Put quality at the heart of your business - Tony Couch


Useful books
If you want more information on starting your own business take a look at Dragon's Den: Start Your Own Business: From Idea to Income. It's a practical guide to starting your own successful business, complete with examples and case studies from popular BBC show Dragons’ Den. The Dragons will show you how to turn your pipe dream into an income stream. This book shows you everything you need to know to:

• Create new ideas and find market niches.
• Develop a business plan to suit your lifestyle.
• Find funding from banks, investors or business angels.
• Deal with the practicalities of company registration, corporation tax, VAT, and much more.
• Develop marketing and publicity strategies to launch your business so that it makes an impact on the market.

    

Also recommended is Your 60 Minute Business Transformation by Martin Robertson. In this small book Martin shares a great deal of his knowledge. Do you: • Work longer hours than you want to? • Take fewer holidays than your employees? • Want to earn more? • Have sleepless nights because of the business? • Want tips on how to run your business more efficiently and effectively? Martin has been there and done it. He gives many examples of how he got it wrong in his first fourteen years of business, and what he learnt from it. He gives numerous tips on how to avoid making the same mistakes and transform your business from being mediocre to fulfilling and inspiring.


Please note this post contains Amazon affiliate links.