Entrepreneurs they say, are the Pied Pipers of the business world, and most times they tend to see themselves as super humans with super hero powers. However, a careful look at entrepreneurial trends today only confirms the age long phrase – no man is an island.
A lot of entrepreneurs today seem to suffer from the lone-wolf syndrome – that “do it all” mindset that is making it even harder for most of them to excel at what they do.
In this article, you’ll learn that the reason you build your team is not because you won’t succeed when you do it on your own. Far from it, the luxury of a team enables you to do more by simply leveraging on the help/assistance of others.
Team building involves identifying and gathering people who are insightful, experienced, thoughtful and possess qualities that can support you to achieve your goals. These are not just people who can help you get the job done, even more so, they exist so that they can make the business even better.
Take the executive assistant for instance. This person spends endless hours catering to, anticipating the needs of their bosses and keeping them in time and in the know. To say the least, the executive assistant makes the boss look good.
A lot of them stand in the shadows behind their bosses, and ultimately help their dream become reality.
One of such people is Anikka Fragodt. She was assistant to Facebook’s mark Zuckerberg for over seven years and was even described at a time as the most powerful woman at Facebook. “No one who achieves success does so without acknowledging the help of others. The wise and confident acknowledge this help with gratitude”.
Some of the areas where assistants can be very useful include the following:
Correspondence: Virtual assistants are highly skilled and adaptive to technology. They are ideal to answering emails and responding to routine phone calls. These people increase the overall efficiency of entrepreneurs in lots of ways.
Scheduling: This job requirement does not simply end at maintaining an employer’s calendar. An assistant can connect with people for multi-party conferences and even arrange online meetings.
Presentation and Spreadsheet: Most special assistants have their duties customized to their specific qualifications. Some of them may do book keeping – ones with financial background, while others may lay out fliers, etc.
Filing: Even in paperless offices, files, whatever format they are still needed to be sorted out into their categories.
The list of advantages in working with a team of assistants cannot be over-emphasized. They provide a framework that can improve efficiency, planning, problem solving and decision making.
Of course, these roles rarely get noticed as these men and women remain in the shadows. But there remains much wisdom in the saying: Behind every great entrepreneur is an army of vital connections and an infallible network of invaluable people who often help the leaders dream become the reality.
