What I tell all my business clients who are starting out…
Most of my clients are in their first few years of business and come to me for help on their taxes, from choosing entity structure to budgeting for the IRS bill coming. But the main piece of advice that I give out every single time is to build your team. No, I am not talking about employees. I am talking about a trusted group of professionals who:
1. Specialize in areas that you do NOT specialize in
2. Are willing and eager to be a resource for you
3. Who will COLLABORATE – this one’s key
One is the Loneliness Number
Being a business owner can be lonely and it’s a lot of fast, major decisions. The first few weeks in building my practice was finding an attorney, insurance agent, IT specialist, and creative director. All these people cover me for when I purchase a piece of software to questions about the font choice on my logo. Could I have made these decisions on my own? Sure. Would I have second guessed myself for hours wasting precious time? Yup. Would I have made a choice I regret due to this not being my area of expertise? Oh yes.
One mistake I see a lot of business owners do is wait until a problem occurs to then reach out and find a professional to add to their team.
Like when your computer crashes.
Here is why I don’t think this is a good idea: you’re likely desperate and on a time crunch – what are the odds that the best person just happens to be the first person you find to help you?
Not likely.
But when you already have this expert lined up, they are excited to be a resource for you and all the ground work is out of the way. They know what software you’re using, the services you have etc. They can jump right in.
Collaboration = Winning
Collaboration is the most important thing in this equation to me.
The reason: time + money. When people collaborate, you aren’t explaining the same exact thing 5 times. Which leads to wasting precious time or, even worse, being billed 5 times. You don’t have overlap of services or miscommunication of information. For example, a CPA and attorney can work together for the best entity structure – can you imagine the game of telephone you’d have if you talked to them separately back and forth?
Bottomline: You don’t need to run your business completely alone. I thought I’d miss the collaboration and teamwork of my corporate life, then I got to build my own team of experts who have my back.
Where to Start
Don’t know where to start? Spend time finding one professional on that team, perhaps a CPA *wink*, and then ask for referrals from there. Interview 2-3 and see what the best fit is, don’t settle unless you are totally satisfied and have a good feeling in your gut about them.
