How often have you wondered, do I have the right team in place to ensure my goals can be achieved? Carefully assessing the talent on your team is the first step in understanding the value of empowering your company to grow as a separate entity… apart and distinguished from you – the founder. That’s a difficult step for many entrepreneurs to make but is critical if you want to grow your organization. It’s quite similar to letting go with your children…. recognizing that it’s time for them to realize their own goals and dreams separate from yours.
Congratulations if you’ve taken that step and brought on a team to support the growth of your firm. Now, how do you determine if you have the right people on ‘your bus” with the right talents, skills and expertise to support your vision? More importantly, are you allowing them to make decisions and take the relevant level of responsibility so the business becomes less about you – the owner/founder and more about the organization on its own? Is your team heading in the same direction… ideally the direction you want to be going in (you don’t want to find yourselves all going down with the ship…)?
The challenge a growing firm’s managers face as the company achieves success is that the skills that are essential to initial product or company development can be stifling when applied to the management of business teams, or sales and marketing initiatives. There’s a continued struggle to micromanage every detail and be involved with every daily function, but this ends up getting in the way, and frustrating the employees to whom they need to turn over the reins.
Weekly Lesson Nine (Answer these questions honestly…)
Answer the following questions honestly. If you aren’t pleased with your response, think about what changes you need to make to improve the situation, for your benefit as well as the benefit of your company.
- Do you have a team in place that you trust and are able to delegate decisions to?
- If you trust your team, then what processes do you have in place to empower them to make decisions
- If you don’t trust your team, what steps will you take either to train/educate or promote them, or to bring on individuals who are more managerially focused and will help facilitate growth?
- Is bringing on experienced managerial talent (maybe even a CEO) an important option to consider?
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Published by Beth Goldstein, Edge Institute
While I am currently pursuing my doctorate in education at Johns Hopkins University (part-time), I remain passionate about helping small business owners and entrepreneurs accelerate growth. I founded my consulting firm, Marketing Edge Consulting Group, in 1999 and established the company's training division, Edge Institute, in 2013 with a focus on helping small business owners, executives, students and entrepreneurs better understand how their key stakeholders think, what they value and what influences their purchasing decisions. I then show them how to apply this knowledge to create targeted business growth programs that drive revenue growth while increasing profitability and customer loyalty.
I teach entrepreneurship and marketing courses at Babson College. Previously I taught marketing courses at the Heller School for Social Policy & Management at Brandeis University. I also spent 13+ years at the Boston University Questrom School of Business where I taught entrepreneurial sales & marketing courses, ran their New Venture Competition for ten years and served as the Faculty Director for the university’s top ranked Online Graduate Certificate in Entrepreneurship Program from 2005 to 2014.
I have conducted business growth workshops throughout the US for organizations ranging from publicly funded groups like the MA Supplier Diversity Office to Fortune 500 companies like Fidelity Investments and Carrier Corporation. I served as the Lead Instructor for Interise’s nationwide training program, run in conjunction with the US SBA: Small Business Association's Emerging Leaders (e200) Initiative, providing training to hundreds of business owners throughout the U.S. I was also the Managing Director for the BU Urban Business Accelerator Program, an educational program that brought students to economically disadvantaged neighborhoods in Boston with the goal of improving financial capacity & business.
For Babson Global, I was on a 3-person MBA design team that created an innovative MBA program for the Mohammad Bin Salman College of Business and Entrepreneurship, Saudi Arabia. I also led the design teams for the Masters in Entrepreneurial Leadership and the 4-year undergraduate marketing degree.
I specialize in custom-designing classroom and online business growth training programs ranging from 1/2 day workshops to intensive 9-month programs for a companies as well as government agencies and organizations. I have taught in the U.S. and abroad including: China, Egypt, Indonesia, Kuwait, Lebanon, Mexico, Nigeria, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Thailand and the United Kingdom.
I have more than 30 years of direct industry experience and hold an MBA from Boston University and a BA in Economics and Sociology from Brandeis University. I am currently pursuing my doctorate in education at Johns Hopkins University School of Education.
View all posts by Beth Goldstein, Edge Institute
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