Nov 27: Build Your Team

On November 27, 2018 we finished the final section of Born to Build with a conversation about building your team. Here are the show notes:

Introductions:

Dr. Kasie Whitener, Clemson Road Consulting and WBC of SC

Shennice Cleckley, The Chief Start-Up Evangelist and WBC of SC

Theme for the day:

Born to Build: Building Your Team

Agenda review:

Today we’ll talk a little bit about gratitude (we lost track of time last week and skipped that whole Thanksgiving thing), we’re review what we’ve covered so far in Born to Build and then we’ll work through the final section Building Your Team.

Segment 1:

Start Something, Columbia! Is brought to you by the Women’s Business Center of South Carolina at Columbia College.

Let’s do a little gratitude thing here. I know we wrapped up the Summit last week talking about all the amazing people that helped out with the Resource Fair on Wednesday and then the Summit on Friday. But it really does take a village to launch something like the WBC of SC and we’re six months in and here are some stats:

• Over 500 women have attended programming at the WBC of SC
• 34 events including luncheons, tweet chats, On Location, the Summit, GYBO workshops, just a whole spectrum of chances to interact, build community, and get to know the WBC of SC
• Our biggest crowd to date was the Summit with over 100 participants
• But we’ve sold out 12@12 lunches, On Location events, and GYBO workshops consistently
• We’ve coached dozens of women business owners in the start-up, growth, pivot, and scale phases of their businesses.
• We’ve formed strategic partnerships with every resource provider in town and working on doing the same with the resource providers all over the state.

Feels like we should be sipping mimosas this morning, patting ourselves on the back. But this isn’t bragging, it’s gratitude, for real. We’re so blessed to have the network we have and to have the opportunity we have to serve women in South Carolina. There’s just such a need for a resource like us.

In december we’ll be holding two events — On Location at Fit Columbia with Angela Yong Sellers next Friday and then a GYBO workshop with you teaching, Tips for Measuring Online Success. You can register for both on eventbrite.

It takes a village to raise a child and to foster a business into growth and profitability. Who are you thankful for this year? Who’s helped you build and measure and learn?

Segment 2:

Born to Build – So Born to Build has four parts: 1) creating self-awareness, 2) recognizing opportunities, 3) activating on ideas, and 4) building a team.

The first week we took on “self awareness” in the business-building sense. In the book, self awareness is broken down into three pieces: What evidence do we have? Identifying your builder talents, and The Builder’s Method. Shennice walked us through the quiz and informed us the the quiz alone is worth the price of the book (wink).

Here’s a great summary of the book.

Then last week we worked on recognizing opportunities and activating on ideas. We went through the Opportunity Journal which is a tool to help you identify and evaluate opportunities. It’s all in the show notes here.

This week, we’re working through Building a Team, the final segment of Born to Build and something we kind o touched on last week was the Board of Directors. So let’s start there.

So here’s a great list to get us started on the Board of Directors:

• Invite people who are financially independent from you and your company.
• Look for people who aren’t afraid to voice their opinions.
• Find people who agree on the path the company is headed.
• Add people that know things you don’t.

These instructions are a bit more detailed:

• How many should their be? — an odd number to avoid ties.
• Good board members have — expertise in a specific skill area you lack, experience in management and business, commitment to YOUR business and your success, time and energy to devote to your business, integrity and a lack of conflict, the ability to raise money for the business.
• When do you need one? — S Corporations need one and if you’re earning enough to pay them, then you need one, too. If you’re small, consider an informal board.

An informal board may just be your cadre of advisors, people you meet with on the regular to bounce ideas off of, get input from, and ask guidance from.

Advisory Board – a group of individuals trusted to help an entrepreneur in the start-up phases of the business. Usually includes legal, marketing, accounting, HR, maybe a financial advisor.

3 Ways to Find Your Advisory Board:

Recruit Peers

Join Someone Else’s Board

“Hire” Experts you Trust

5 Attributes the Entrepreneur Should Seek in Advisory Board

1. Complementary skill set and experience — not you, but someone further in the journey
2. Experience in fundraising
3. Strong network of contacts and influencers
4. Actively engaged and providing unbiased input
5. Accessible and available

Segment 3

What are you getting out of your advisors?

How do you know when to cut the line?

Do you push back at all?

How do you handle feedback and criticism?

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