10 Tips for Choosing the best Team Members

Communicators, Well-Organized & Self-Disciplined, Leader or Role Model, Best Fit, Resourceful & Influential, Researcher, Pro-Active, Listener, set Priorities, Commited.

The Importance. When you want to build a company from scratch, you have to carefully plan your strategy and resources. The more outstanding people work for your company, the better your image, reputation, products & profit will be. Picking the right professionals to build an effective team is more challenging than it looks. It’s a big responsibility and risk, because the people you choose are the biggest factor to determine if your Startup / Small Business will turn out to be successful. The more skilled and knowledgeable they are, the better your odds of success become. Here are ten tips for choosing the best professionals for your team:

1. Look for Excellent Communicators

For your team members to be receptive, to understand, and to act on what you tell them to, they’d better be great communicators. They are people who know how to listen, reply, and respect the other conversation participant. Individuals need to be usually available when you need to reach them, and ready to address your concerns.

2. Seek People that Are Well-Organized and Self-Disciplined

Two of the top qualities that you should always expect from your team members are good organizational skills & self-discipline. You can develop these traits by motivating them with your Mission and by engaging in an uncertain process that will gradually lead them towards the mastery of these skills. Of course, not many people know how to or apply these skills. However, for a team to be amazing, it needs to be comprised of self-disciplined & well-organized individuals.

3. Find an Exceptional Leader Manager or Be One Yourself – Role Model

Are you the one who’s leading the team? If the answer is yes, you should ask yourself the next few questions:

Can you lead by example?
Are you a genuine, compassionate, and patient leader?
Do you have what it takes to lead your people to success?
Would it work better with another manager?
Do you have to acquire certain skills & knowledge to improve your leading confidence and to deliver the expected results?

Being the leader is not a simple task, so whether you’re up to it or not is your decision to make. If you decide that you want to hire another leader, (ie, if you’re the technical part of the equation), you need to make sure they are a better leader than you – so they can truly energize your business and help lead it to success.

4. Hire the Best Fit for the Role

Never make exceptions on this. When you hire people, you need to be 100% objective. It doesn’t matter whether the candidate is one of your friends, relatives or your partner. You should only hire the best fit for the role and for the team. This is ideally a person whose background (experience, skills, & attitude) corresponds to the requirements & expectations that the role needs.

5. Look for Resourceful and Influential Individuals

Do you want your team to be resourceful? Then start looking for resourceful individuals. When you want to make a big, delicious meal, you need to ensure that each part is well provided with in the ingredients and every single component becomes the best it can be at one point or another. Your team should be comprised of some people who have professional connections with different organizations, individuals, and/or clients as their network. Ideally, they should be influential – meaning that people will recognize them as an authority in their corresponding field.

6. Do your Research well – All the Time

Proper research will save your business from a lot of trouble along the way. Hiring team members that don’t actually fit the job role and the team will waste your time, money, & energy, + the relationships between you two can often end up in conflict. Before you hire someone, make sure that you research their online presence, (ie, Social Media, LinkedIn, etc). Then you’ll be able interview and analyze the person in a better context. Lastly, you can convince yourself by challenging the candidate. Assign them a small test or work sample to see how they may perform in the future or get samples of their work.

7. Seek Pro-Active Members

Pre or Pro-activity is an essential component of each successful team. Your business’s success heavily depends on the activity of each of your team members’ combined. Employees that take action on their own are helpful assets. Seek this in your employees, and your business will run smoother and grow faster than you would expect.

8. Listen to your Candidate’s Words

While your candidates are speaking, are you truly listening? Do you genuinely care about what they want to say? Or are you just hoping to hear the things you want to hear? To start, analyze the candidate’s first inter-action pitch. See how they approached you in the beginning. Secondly, assess the discussion you had. Lastly, listen carefully while the person talks during the interview. Now, you can analyze how well they communicate and their enthusiasm for your business.

9. Prioritize Skills and Knowledge over Certifications

Hire skills, knowledge, & experience over certifications. Never choose solely based on certifications, as you risk getting a less skilled & less experienced team that may not complete your mission & vision. The candidate should prove they are capable of being productive by providing examples of their skills & knowledge, and not just a Resume that only states their achievements & education.

10. Find People that are totally willing to Commit to Their Role

For your business to survive and grow successfully, you need people that are willing to commit to work, including risks for the possible rewards, and can bounce back from setbacks, fears, and the other negative feelings or situations that can come as a result of hard & smart work.

Conclusion:

During the interview, let candidates know what to expect from the role. Once they have acknowledged, ask them directly whether they feel challenged (and why?) or motivated (and why?) by the business’s goals and by the culture of the company and team that they’re going to be working with – probably for long time. Always seek committed & motivated individuals !!!

Takeaways:

Always be careful when choosing your team members: 1) This is the #1 key to a good business team that’ll endure the tuff times and win. Each of your employees’ unique contribution counts and matters at the end – so chose a winner. 2) At each milestone, review the results and determine if each member of the team is making a reasonable contribution. If you can’t motivate them, then look for a replacement. 3) Don’t forget to give feedback to each member on how well they’re doing, and advice (if needed), on how they can improve. 4) Acknowledge good contributions at meeting, so they can feel pride in their accomplishments.

10 Tips for Choosing the very best Team Members for your Startup !!!