It’s a quote that has stuck with me throughout my life, despite the repeated efforts to get to various destinations in the fastest way possible. From these attempts, I’ve learned that fast or alone isn’t the best route to attaining your goals, and in many cases, it can be detrimental to your success.
In entrepreneurship, there are many tasks that founders have to do on a daily basis. More burdening, is the hundred other matters that occupy brainspace while they try to move their venture forward. For the founder, completing these tasks supplies the dopamine hits that motivates them to continue toward their goals. Often, many of the tasks are necessary, but likely can be done by outsourcing to a team of professionals to complete.
A founder's time is valuable. It is the one finite commodity that if spent right, the returns on its investments can be life-changing. Time is the most sparse resource for the entrepreneurial minded. Each passing hour has hidden in it an opportunity that if you miss it, can’t be captured in another moment.
Entrepreneurial success is best attained by focusing only on the tasks that move your business forward. For example, if a founder finds the most success in gaining business through writing blogs and circulating that content to her prospective clients, she must spend a substantial amount of time doing this or finding the right person to do it. In this example, her writing serves as a “barrier remover” which can introduce her business, its impact and importance without the sales pressure that most patrons are used to. Every activity outside of your three to five most pressing, productive activities should be achieved through technology, internal personnel or outsourcing.
Outsourcing has grown popular with entrepreneurs. With time being scarce, it allows the business owner to delegate tasks that are impactful to proven professionals. This way, time is recaptured, quality work is done, taxes are saved and efforts can compound simultaneously.
One of the most important components of ownership is the financial health of your company. Often, entrepreneurs at every stage are handling the management of both their personal and business finances by themselves when, in fact, the best time to outsource this is likely to be before the business has even taken off. This approach often leaves the business owner with incorrect data and incomplete plans that can lead to poor decisions for their dollars.
Below outline four critical players that should be on every entrepreneurs power team:
A great financial advisor should not only offer financial advice – information on your personal financial health, investments, and networth – but should also be a quarterback that is able to facilitate the quality completion of pertinent tasks in other areas of your financial life. Whether by referral or by using an internal team, your chosen advisor should be able to help your business track its financial health, highlight risks and shortcomings, and help you to reach business objectives through data.
You can consider a true advisor, a counselor that will help you look at your business objectively, and provide the resources that help you to alleviate the natural stress of entrepreneurship.
This member is severely overlooked on the power teams of entrepreneurs. Good bookkeeping provides near real time data of a business’s financial health. Components, included but not limited to, revenue, assets, cash, and debt allows business owners a look under the hood after they’ve completed their most pressing productivity activities. Your firm's books should be reviewed quarterly at minimum, but as often as monthly. A great bookkeeper will give you the data for you and or your advisor to analyze together.
You can’t make sound business decisions if you don’t have the financial data. By employing a bookkeeper, you’ll be empowering yourself to make more informed decisions that will drive your venture forward.
A good accountant is only as good as the data presented. It is important to have a great bookkeeper because they will equip you with the information that your accountant will need to be most effective in preparing your taxes. It is table stakes to have a profit and loss statement, income and expense reports, sales data, reports on vendors and payables, and payroll data.
With this information, your accountant will be better prepared to save you money on taxes and fulfill your tax objectives.
Most businesses do not need to pay a lawyer on retainer, but having access to a business lawyer could help with complex questions, and unique cases that you might run into. At minimum they should be able to offer counsel and services on business taxation, equity, legal documentation and intellectual property. If you are a larger company, it may be wise to consider retaining an attorney who can help with the variety of needs that comes with growth and scale.
Building a power team may seem like a tough mountain to climb, but there are a number of companies that wrap these services into a one-stop solution for you. At Yarnwat Wealth Management, we’ve tasked ourselves with alleviating some of this burden so that you can go out and build. You can use this link to schedule your introductory meeting and receive a complimentary diagnostic check today.
In our guide you’ll learn the financial essentials for any business, marketing hacks, and the best ways to optimize your dollars.