#Marketing #Team
One of the most challenging tasks of business is the feeling that you must do everything yourself. Not only is this detrimental and a show of ignorance about the scope of things to be done, it is also just not physically possible as the business grows.
The best practice is to develop a team from the beginning. You may not have a team available when the business launches, but you will want to keep in mind what typical needs businesses have as you develop. That way, you can stay open to contacts who you may engage for board membership, advisor status, project groups, or other teaming opportunities. The teaming areas mirror the needs of your business model.
Legal & Contracts
Your business needs a legal structure and a relationship basis for work with other agencies. As well, you will want to have team members who are well versed in the legal, ethical, and mechanics of the business you run. Look for people who are detail oriented and good technical writers. You will save yourself a lot of headache when you are able to lean on someone who can translate legal language into intelligible speech.
Make sure the person has an optimistic balance of realism and potential. I have worked with boards where the legal person was vocal, pessimistic, and well respected. This meant that opportunities were always seen as dangerous and potentially troublesome. Because the legal person was respected, his No was rarely questioned resulting in a slow-moving, overly cautious agency.
Financial & Budgets
Financials are obviously the literal lifeblood of your business. You will pay accountants and bookkeepers. You will also want to have board members, advisors, and independent auditors on call for periodic reflections.
You want team members who are revenue-side creators. These are as opposed to expense-side controllers. Creators help you to view the potential of investment to spur growth. Controllers are primarily concerned with holding on to money or decreasing expenses. Effective, trustworthy Creators show you the cost, the benefit, and the outcome in dollars and cents just Controllers will. A good financial team member, even while optimistic, uses numbers to communicate.
Marketing & Dissemination
Marketing and dissemination are how you build your network. You want team member who are skilled with the traditional as well as the new media. We typically speak of So-Lo-Mo.
The LO refers to local media. This includes traditional media on television, print like newsletters and annual reports, and the website. These are media where you present the story in your voice, in your way.
The SO refers to social media. Here we explore platforms that allow for interaction and sharing. The challenge is to manage the message through responsiveness, consistency, and a great deal of branding control.
The MO refers to mobile technology. This is social media on hypergame. With this you are not only concerned about the platforms, the interaction, and the story. You also must account for the story being broken into sound bites. The first two lines or the first 10 seconds may be all you get. Sections may be taken out of context. You want team members who get this and can deal with it without demeaning or discounting the intelligence of your market.
