Why you can’t do it all on your own and what help you need

Your Dream Business

English - August 16, 2021 00:00 - 26 minutes - 23.9 MB - ★★★★★ - 34 ratings
Careers Business Marketing Homepage Download Apple Podcasts Google Podcasts Overcast Castro Pocket Casts RSS feed

Previous Episode: Doing more of what makes you happy with Amy McLaren

Next Episode: How to use PR to grow your business with Dina Behrman

In today’s episode of the podcast, I talk about hiring a team for your business. I tell you about my own team, how I get stuff done and manage things and why hiring has been so crucial to my business.

KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCAST

It takes a village to raise a child, and run a business!You may not be able to hire people in your business straight away, it will take time to be able to.If you are working with a part-time VA, be mindful they may not be available every day for you.Before you hire your first member of your team, make sure you have some money in the bank to cover their wages for a couple of months.Every time you hire someone, they will be able to take something off your plate to free up your time.Sometimes you do have to hire people before you can fully afford them – but as soon as they help you, this frees up your time and headspace in order to do more in your business and make money.Having a team that can’t do anything unless you do it, makes you be more productive and holds you accountable.There are people who will be able to certain things better than you can!You do have to let go of some things.There is a hiring process – how you find them, how you communicate, how you set boundaries, what you’re going to pay them, how you onboard them.Systems are so important when it comes to working with a team – you can use something like Trello to organise your processes.Loom is great for recording processes for your team.Hiring people for your team takes time and thought.

THE ONE THING YOU NEED TO REMEMBER ABOVE ALL ELSE…

You don’t have to do everything! Hiring people to help you in your business can really help to free up your time and allow your business to grow.

HIGHLIGHTS YOU SIMPLY CAN’T MISS

My team who help me with my business 02:05Building a team 11:43Tips for building your team 15:22The importance of systems 20:00

LINKS TO RESOURCES MENTIONED IN TODAY’S EPISODE

Sofia – Podcast Manager

Ben’s Sales Page Service

Phil – Podcast Assistant

FREE Front Row CEO training and download

Jen’s podcast episode

Transcript

Hello and welcome to this week's episode of the podcast. How are you? I'm good. I am batching content as we speak or say, as I speak, I'm speaking right now. I'm literally spending the day doing podcast episodes because we've had a really, really busy few months in the business and I got a bit behind not behind as in it didn't come out on time.

As in, I like to batch and be ahead and over these last few weeks, I've really well. Last couple of months, I've literally been doing things as they need to doing so I'm working really hard at the moment to get ahead and get organized, which actually flows really nicely into what I want to talk about today.

KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCAST

THE ONE THING YOU NEED TO REMEMBER ABOVE ALL ELSE…

You don’t have to do everything! Hiring people to help you in your business can really help to free up your time and allow your business to grow.

HIGHLIGHTS YOU SIMPLY CAN’T MISS

My team who help me with my business 02:05Building a team 11:43Tips for building your team 15:22The importance of systems 20:00

LINKS TO RESOURCES MENTIONED IN TODAY’S EPISODE

Sofia – Podcast Manager

Ben’s Sales Page Service

Phil – Podcast Assistant

FREE Front Row CEO training and download

Jen’s podcast episode

Transcript

You know, that saying It takes a village to raise a child. Well, I think that can be true about running a business. And often, especially in a business like mine, where I'm the face of my business. It can often seem like there's just me. There's just me and maybe one or two other people. And I do most of the stuff because it's my business. But I want to give you some reality of running a business.

I mean, if you're running a business, you'd know the reality. But as in kind of the reality of how I get stuff done, how I manage things, who I've got on my team and why getting that team was absolutely crucial to having the business I have today and the business I hope for going forward. So I guess let's start by going through who helps me and who I have in my world.

Now, most of these people are on a business side, but I also have some people helping me on the home front as well. So at work, right. I don't want you to listen to this and think "How on earth I I'm never gonna be able to afford those people. I can't afford to bring them to these people like sounds great Teresa, but yeah, it's not going to happen."

Obviously I didn't start day one of this day one I started with no one. About, I don't know, a year, I think into my business at nine months into my business, I then thought, what is this VA thing all about what is a virtual assistant all about and do I need one? And if so, what do they do? And how can they help?

And, and my first ever person that came and worked with me was Katie. Who was a godsend and I'll explain more about Katie in a bit. And then I went from Katie and then I got someone else. And then I got someone else, then get someone else. And then we're at the team we are today. Don't listen to this thinking, this isn't going to be relevant because you haven't got a team or maybe you don't think you can afford a team.

And I know, like I know they sort of things like that that really are annoying where they're like, well, you know, you can't afford to get one, but really you can't afford not to get one. And you know, and, and it is true, it is weird, but it's true. Anyway, let me tell you who we've got in the team. So I still have Katie with me. Now Katie and this is the thing I want you to think about as I'm talking about this. Katie's role has changed because, you know, as the business changes, you need different people doing different things. So Katie initially came on as a VA to help support me. She did stuff for me. She managed things. She created process on things because I had nothing, literally, nothing, everything was in my head.

Everything was like just me doing all the steps. So Katie was a great first person to bring in, but then as time has gone on Katie's role has moved and changed. And Katie, now I speak to roughly every three, four weeks, and we just do an overview of what's coming and what's happened because Katie really now is, is it strategic level.

And what she does in her role in her business has changed. And my business has changed. So we've changed Katie's role within my business so that she now really does strategic stuff. She's the one who kind of helps me look really wide into the future and talk about, right. So for instance, we had a call the other week and it was like, what's going to happen in the next six months.

So she's really good for that sort of stuff. So Katie is still with me, which is lovely. Then if I do it in kind of, well, there's no particular order, but I've just written them down. So the next person I have working with me is Becci. Now Becci is, she's not full-time, but she does quite a lot of hours for me.

And Becci is like my right-hand woman. Becci is the person that I get on a call with every week at the beginning of the week going right. We need to do this, this, this, this, this, this, this, and Becci just goes. "Yeah, sure. I'll take it." Honestly, she's a flipping godsend. She's really good. I talk way faster than I type.

So having someone that I can communicate with on a call or zoom or in person, because Becci happens live, not that far from me is just brilliant. Becci's organized. She gets stuff done. She's, you know, she's proactive. She's happy to take on things. So like, you know sometimes like I've worked in the past with people who had say, or could you just have a look at how to do that in Kajabi?

And they'd go, "How do I do it in Kajabi?" And I'd have to find it to then tell them where's Becci really good in the case of she'll go, I can work it out. I'll find it. It's fine. So Becci helps with all aspects of like content planning. She helps us social media scheduling. She helps it planning out my diary when it comes to things like speaking, she gets all the forms arranged.

She gets all that stuff done and she does a bit of research. Becci does lots and lots for me in the business. And like I said, she is my right-hand woman. Right, in terms of getting the stuff done. Then we've got Johanne. Johanne is based over in the Philippines and Johanne is full-time. She works full-time for me.

And Johanne is like, I get almost a bit like, you know, my right hand as well. Then the fact of Johanne does all the kinds of stuff where I can just. She has processed stuff that she does also stuff like, so this morning I literally just sent us something saying, "Can you just type this up into this format?" or "Can you make that look like that?" Or "Can you do those sorts of things?" So Johanne's kind of around all the time. I wouldn't say she works full-time every single day. Because not every day, I've got stuff for her to have, but I like the fact that she's there in case I need her. Whereas Becci doesn't work full time and therefore, if I've got something that I want doing quickly, I can't necessarily expect Becci always to do it. Which is something to bear in mind when you bring on a team member. That if you're bringing on a VA of some sorts that if you're not paying them full time, then there's going to be a lag in between like, oh gosh, it's absolutely throwing it down outside. So I apologize. You can hear them out. There's going to be a bit of a lag between like giving them something and when they get it back to you. But as long as they manage your expectations, and you're aware of that, I messaged Becci this morning saying, "Are you around today?" And she hasn't got back to me yet. And that was like many, many hours go and that's fine because we had a call up during the week. She knew what she had to do.

And I was going to put something extra on as it is. I've given some stuff to Johanne and I've done some bits. So like I said, what I really wanted for Johanne was something, someone that was full-time that could be there for me when I needed stuff done quickly.

Then I've got the lovely Sofia and Sofia is also based over in the Philippines. She is my podcast manager. She manages everything through the podcast. They've basically after I've recorded this episode I've just marked it in Trello, that's recorded the rest of the team, there are more people than just Sofia that does this, this whole thing, but basically Sofia makes sure all the steps are done.

Everyone's doing their bits. And she then puts the podcast out into the world. She does the social media for it. She basically takes that whole process off my hands, which is amazing. She's super-efficient. She's known for a long time and is very, very excellent at it. Um, it's really, really good.

So then I've got Ben. Ben is based in the UK. Ben is my tech guy. So Ben did my website. He also offers a new service, which I will link up to if I can find well, if he's done the sales page for it yet, which I'm not sure if he have all done the page for it. He's offering this new service where he is basically designing and building sales pages or the pages where you go and decide if you want to do something. So a sign up page. And initially when he told me about this idea, I was like, nah, I don't think that's going to work. And then I sat there and thought, "Oh God, I'd love someone to do my sales pages for me." because I do them all in Kajabi. And I know, although Kajabi is excellent and I talk about it a lot and it's really, really good.

I also know there's limitations. Like there are to anything that's a kind of off the shelf builder. Whereas Ben can do things from scratch, make things, look how I want them to look. So he is now designing all my sales pages and managing that whole process from that point of view which is ACE. I'm really excited about that.

I have the amazing Phil who is listening to this, as I say his name because he is editing my podcast. Phil is also able to edit videos. He can do various other things around media in terms of like videos and audio and that sort of thing. He's excellent. Work with me a long time. Super-efficient. Very reliable.

Obviously I'm going to hook up to these people who are open to getting business from anybody else. Obviously, you know, not, not my full-time Johanne or that, but yeah. I will check with them. And if they're looking for business, I will link up to them in the show notes. But I know that Phil, for sure and Ben, for sure they have some great stuff and they're great at what they do.

So yeah, Phil's ACE he does the podcast editing, which again, he's in Trello. And he's just once I've put it in his folder, he then just takes it and does it. And then I've oh, no, hang on. Let me think who's is next.

So I'm trying to give you like the people who deal with like the Teresa Heath-Wareing stuff. So the next one in the Teresa Heath-Wareing stuff is I've just bought on Meryl and she's over from the Philippines again, she, I actually contacted Johanne and said, "Do you know anybody who's a designer?" And she pointed me in the direction of Meryl and she's a designer and she's now going to help me. This is a really new position that's just come up and she's going to help me do like social media posts, create workbooks, because I tend to do all the design.

So she's going to have to do that. And then I've got Ann who works. So I've told you before, we only really have two clients. So Ann looks after one of the clients, does an amazing job, very efficient. She's excellent. But Ann also does lives in my group in the Academy around content creation. Cause she's a really talented content creator.

And then the lovely Kirsty, she looks after the other client for us. And she does social media, Instagram. She is a plus size travel blogger as well. So that's like a hell of a lot of people. When I write it down, it feels like a lot of people. And then in my home, I have someone who walks my dogs. I have someone who now helps in meal planning and meal prep for me, my amazing husband does the cleaning.

I have said, let's get cleaner. He won't cause he is obsessed that no one will do it as good as him. And I have somebody who helps me with personal stuff sometimes like taking things to the post office or those are the things. And again, that role has been really new that, and the meal prep role has been really, really new.

So you'll probably sat there thinking "What the actual hell do you do Teresa because you've literally just reeled off all these people who do all this stuff. And how on earth? Like, oh, how much are you paying for all this?" Okay. So let me tell you like where it started and how I got to where I am today in terms of like this whole thing.

So when I bought Katie on, I wanted to be able to pay her for a good few months. So I made sure I had the money in the bank for a good few months before I took her on. I took her on 10 hours a month. Which I know sounds nothing, but I promise you you'll be amazed at what someone can get done in 10 hours, because I set this the other day on a coaching call, I think, for the Academy.

And I was like, I it'll take me 10 minutes to do a job, seven minutes cause I'm like, "Hmm, do I have to do that job?" And fluffing around? And then like, literally three four minutes to actually do the thing. Whereas if you give it to someone else, they literally just take three, four minutes. So I wanted to make sure I've got Katie's money before I bought her on.

And then every other team member that I have taken on, without doubt I have taken on before I thought I could afford them. Now don't get me wrong. I'm not saying put yourself in debt. I'm not saying take some big risks. I knew that I could pay for them that month, I knew that I had the money for them. But going forward, I wasn't a hundred percent sure that like that was going to work.

Um, but every single time without fail them, taking something off my plate, freed me up to do something else or something came in or we did another launch or someone. Yeah, it just worked out every single time. So I know this kind of, you know, have people before you can afford them sounds like a ridiculous saying. But honestly, every single one of the team I've been like, you know, "Can I honestly afford to bring that person on? And you know, is this going to work?" I've never been in a position where I'm like, I've got loads of money. I'm just going to bring in this person, that person, that person. No, never, it's always been like, oh, this is a bit scary, but because it's a bit scary, I'm going to make the most of it. You know, it was really interesting today.

So I got up and I sat and I have to be careful myself because I'm sat here think "God, who do I think I am?" but I got up and I was a bit lazy getting up if I'm honest. I'm normally pretty good, but I was some time spent way too long on Instagram. I also play solitaire on my phone, which is a terrible habit. I don't spend that long on solitaire, but I did this morning. And I was getting ready to get started on my day and feeling a little bit lazy for it.

And then the lovely Rachel turned up who is doing meal prep for me and doing a bit of like stuff around the house. And I went downstairs and she arrived and I was like, "Oh gosh, it's all a lot mess down here. Let me just sort the dishwasher." And she's like, "Well that's what I'm here for. Leave it. And I'll do it."

And suddenly it made me think like, "All right, Teresa. You've bought all these people into help and you're staying in bed until like nine o'clock this morning." Cause I didn't have to get up for anything in particular. "And what on earth are you doing? You really need to be working your backside off now."

And so it's lovely that I have the option to do that, but actually having these people make me work harder. Also having a team that can't do anything unless you give it them is again like a really good focus. It's like I said, for me, it really helped my kind of taking on any or all of them really helped me to go right to step up productivity, do more of what I have to do in terms of a, has to be me. Okay. So I hope that, I hope that doesn't sound like I'm literally sat here, lauding it, like look at all these people because I've certainly not, I am not. And I love and appreciate every single flip in one of them. They are amazing.

I'm very, very lucky. So if you're thinking about bringing on 18 member, and like I said, I started with one. You might have lots of questions about how you do it, how to go about it. And the reason I'm doing this episode this week is one because actually, you know, this has been big in my world recently I've taken on a few new people, do new roles and that's really, really huge.

So it's really front of mind. But also my amazing friend, Jen Lehner is doing a course and I