Building Your Team

Starting, building, and managing a business may be your best chance to earn a real return (link to yield article) on your investment, but it’s no cakewalk. The small business failure rate is substantial – in fact, on average only 29% of small business startups survive for more than ten years. That sounds risky, and indeed it is. However, not all businesses are created equal, nor do all types of businesses fail at the same rate. There are a number of factors that can make the difference between success and failure.

One of the most important and most effective ways to bolster your odds and increase your chances of building a profitable business is having a strong a support team to see you through the initial development phase. This common sense notion has been amply demonstrated in studies, as well – for example, the Women’s Initiative for Self-Employment undertook to study the results of programs designed to offer support for small business owners and found that such business owners “more than triple their overall household wealth and increase their business equity six-fold an average of two years” after participating in the programs. Oh, and by the way – he same study found that self-employed participants “have 40% higher average household incomes and 48% more household net worth than clients who have not started a business.” For those keeping score at home, when’s the last time you got a raise or a bonus from work that increased your household net worth by almost half again?

The reasons are as simple as they are important. Taking your guidance from those who have experience and knowledge in your industry presents you with the opportunity to learn from their successes as well as their mistakes, and gives you a support structure on which to draw when new and difficult situations arise – as they inevitably will. Just as important, working with somebody instead of for them generates better results for both parties. Psychology matters – knowing that you are responsible for your results leaves the incentives for success in place, and knowing that you have a knowledgeable, capable team supporting you gives you the confidence to face down new situations with their backing as well as the motivation to live up to their standards and deliver your own results. It is this support framework that will enable you to build your own personal independent earnings and secure a revenue stream for the future that does not depend on the whims of the corporate world or the vagaries of the business cycle. By putting your earnings in your own hands, backed by a solid, experienced, and reliable team, you’re taking the single most important step towards securing independent earnings and experiencing genuine financial freedom.

None of this should come as a surprise to anybody – great teams have been outperforming all stars ever since the Romans triumphed over Hannibal. The key, as always, is not merely to have knowledge, but to act on it – and when it comes to starting your own business, building your team, and taking your first steps towards your own stream of personal independent earnings, there’s simply no time like the present.