Special Virtual Team Broadcast for online business entrepreneurs
If you’re an entrepreneur wanting to use the power of a team to leverage your income, I’m going to give you some hard truths today. I’ve been working in teams, both online and offline for over 10 years now. You would be surprised how many people habitually, I mean habitually, sabotage their success by not given due care and consideration to the people who are the machine that drives their business.
“Take my 20 best people and, virtually overnight,
Microsoft becomes a mediocre company.”
– Bill Gates
So don’t take it from me, listen to Bill Gates. He no doubt, sees the value in his team. If you want to KEEP your team, happy, thriving and productive then heed this WARNING – take notice of these 7 de-motivators and STOP doing them.
Disclaimer: If you want a DEMOTIVATED, resentful outfit…then be my guest; turn the following points into a checklist!
- Pay Service Fees and Wages late (or not at all). It may come as a surprise to you, that this is even mentioned. But it’s top of the list, because it’s a problem. Especially in the virtual team world. Nothing frustrates a person more, than not being rewarded for the work they have completed.
- Fail To Give Feedback. Think of a time when you’ve put something brilliant together for a client. When you’ve helped increase their business turnover, when you’ve helped someone’s life change. What if you never heard from the person (even when you requested specific feedback). That’s exactly how your team feels when you don’t provide them with feedback.
- Forget about saying thanks. A thank you goes a long way. I’m talking about a personalised thank you. I mean, in our society, isn’t it just common courtesy to say “thank you”. The more you recognise your team efforts the more they will WANT to do for you. When you stop saying thank you, you stop receiving the best your people can offer.
- Fail to give Recognition and only take credit for yourself. If you’ve ever done this to one of your team…let me explain exactly how they felt about YOU. ANGRY and RIPPED off. Keep repeat offending in this area by failing to recognise your team members and they won’t stick around for long. It will end up costing you hugely in team turnover costs.
- Don’t bother communicating or replying to emails. Ok I’ll admit I’m guilty of this. It’s so easy to let slip. We get an email and with all good intentions plan to reply to it with the proper attention it deserves. Then you get busy on a project, more emails come in and then it slips through the cracks. The good news is, there are systems you can put in place and ways to manage this. It’s important you reply to your team. They need your input. If you can’t manage your emails, then put systems in place so you can! It’s as simple as that.
- “No show” the appointments you have with your team. Earlier on in my career I remember having a meeting scheduled with one of my key clients. He’d specifically asked me to be available for a “very important” after-hours online meeting. It was about 9pm on a Friday night. I rescheduled a family gathering so I could make it (I wouldn’t normally do that, but it was an online meeting with someone on the other side of the world, so I made arrangements to be there). The meeting was a no show…with no good reason either! As you could imagine I was pretty ANNOYED (and that’s an understatement) NB: I no longer work with that particular client.
- Expect your team to read your mind. Have you ever sent one of your team a task to do, only to find yourself bitterly disappointed with the results they deliver? Have you ever said “I could have done this quicker myself”. You could go into “blame” thinking. They didn’t listen to you, or didn’t take enough care, or were just plain incompetent. But you could have just fallen into the mis-delegation trap. Before you look at your team and the result that was delivered…do a little self-analysis. If you look carefully, perhaps it was YOU that didn’t provide enough information, resources or feedback to get the job done just as you expected it.
I hope this has given you some “food for thought”. I know working with a virtual team is a two-way street. It takes both the team members and their leader to be working together. If you’re having a lot of staff turnover, maybe it’s time to look within a little. After you look within, then it’s time to look at your systems and team recruitment plan.
By looking within first, you could start saving yourself money and heartache immediately. Heed this warning…respect your team members individually and as a group. They are your money-making-machine. They are your ticket to your dream lifestyle. Treat them as such.