Why Running Your Business Alone Never Works

I was coaching a client one day who was feeling rather overwhelmed with trying to launch her new idea. I invited her to start a process of writing down all of the responsibilities, projects, tasks and other “shoulds” that she had swimming around in her mind. When she called in for her next coaching session, I asked her how many things she had on her list. She had filled four pages of stuff that had to get done—right now!

As we went through her list the problem became crystal-clear, and it’s what I call the Multiple Train Syndrome.

This is why running your business alone doesn’t work.

Every role, project and task is a train that you must drive to the station (the end goal). If you insist on driving all the trains yourself, you will never get them all to the station. Multiple Trains Syndrome might be the reason why you aren’t accomplishing results fast enough.

So let’s put this into perspective: If you are the conductor of all of these trains…

AND they need YOU to put your attention on them in order to move forward…

AND you can truly only focus on one thing at a time…

THEN every time you get on one train… you HAVE TO get off the other one! Your trains will take forever to get into the station.

The solution to Multiple Train Syndrome?

Hire other people to drive the trains forward for you.

That’s where a virtual team comes in. To achieve an income and a lifestyle that you have admired in other successful entrepreneurs and wondered how to have for yourself, you must you must learn how to use leverage. This is accomplished in the three steps I have talked about before: money, systems and time.

Once you learn to leverage, your team will, in essence, replicate you (the “old” solo entrepreneur) in areas where you (the visionary) are “wasting” your time and talents in the day to day tasks that take care of your business—enabling YOU to become the SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS OWNER!

Now, let’s begin building your dream team so you can start planning for your “bigger lifestyle goals”—vacations, getting more done and blowing the ceiling off your revenue projections!

I am sure you are asking yourself, “But what about WHERE I find these people and WHERE do I start and HOW do I do it? I want to make more money AND I want a better lifestyle as well!”

A dream team is a group of independent contractors (and maybe employees) who are integral to a team approach in creating a collaborative end result.

The golden rule of thumb for team building is: Hire to your weaknesses not your strengths. Hire complementary skill sets to your expertise and you will find it a freeing experience.

As entrepreneurs we must remember that people who balance us out may think entirely opposite to us and constantly challenge our way of thinking and getting things done. That is actually a good thing. If you are good at sales and client fulfillment, hire people who love to do the bookkeeping, appointment scheduling or customer service so you know that these essential components are being taken care of with enthusiasm and pride.

I want to leave you with something Theodore Roosevelt once said, ‘The best executive is the one who has sense enough to pick good men to do what he wants done, and self-restraint enough to keep from meddling with them while they do it.’