I have something to confess: Heart of Business is a bigger business. It’s still teeny-weeny compared to the Big Guys. Even an average “small” business, like my family’s business was, does a few million dollars a year.

However, when I think about where we were, actually I was, a few years back, that place many who are dreaming of having a successful business are now, I realize we’ve past into another level.

For folks in the position we’ve now come out of, overwhelm is a frequent companion. Between marketing, systems, running the business, and then actually providing services, not to even mention having a life outside that, it can get pretty insane.

And then, you look at something like Heart of Business, or any of several successful businesses around and you wonder, “How in the heck can they get it all done?”

Here’s Where Personal Branding Betrays You

Businesses the size of ours tend to still have a very visible front person. If you don’t look carefully, or if they haven’t taken pains to show you what’s going on, it can look like the business is that person.

This can lead to incredible feelings of inadequacy, because you realize that you are barely keeping up with what you’re doing. How in the heck could you ever handle what they are accomplishing? Crazy!

Let Me Pull The Curtain Back

I think we’ve been pretty transparent, but let me pull the curtain back a bit more so you can understand that I’m not doing all of this myself.

People involved in Heart of Business:

1. Me. I do my fair share, and I’m still wearing a number of hats that I’d like to hand off. For instance, I still end up being the IT go-to guy far more often than I’d like. But it’s getting better.

2. Holly, my wife… except now she’s with the twins, so we have to take her off the list temporarily, just for a couple of years.

2. Kate Williams, Director of Projects and Development. Kate is a bona-fide full-time on-the-payroll, health care benefits and all employee of Heart of Business. She works amazingly hard and wears many of the hats Holly and I used to wear, plus some hats that were just lying around unworn that desperately needed a noggin to sit on. She edits, she writes, she connects with customers, she handles details and projects, she collaborates and dreams. Amazing.

3. Jim Brosseau, Head Trainer. Not that he trains our heads, although he does that some, but he’s the first person aside from Holly and I to work directly with Heart of Business individual clients. He also played a pivotal role in the beta “train-the-trainer” program we just ran with a handful of people, as well as helping too in strategy meetings and planning for growth. Plus, he’s started to give public talks. He also makes a mean raw, sprouted cracker.

We’re also in the process of adding one more contractor to provide client services. You’ll be hearing about her soon.

4. Jason Lay, Intern. He’s just starting on his path to become a Chinese medicine practitioner through the National College of Natural Medicine (NCNM), and already he’s wanting to learn about heart-centered businesses. He agreed to intern with us, and for a double-handful of hours a week, we’re giving him all we know. He’s tech and web-savvy and has already handled some critical web-related projects that we… just… couldn’t… get to. We’re humbled that he wants to be here with us.

5. Eric Grey, Intern. Coincidentally enough, he just graduated from NCNM, has started his own clinic, and still wants to learn more about heart-centered business practices. The thing is, he’s a total David Allen, Getting Things Done disciple, and is also a popular blogger in the holistic health field. We’re amazed to have him. He’s handling admin stuff for us, and looking at it from larger systems perspective. Very cool.

6. Adam Kayce, Bright Coconut. We’ve hired him for two projects now doing what he does superbly well–-really solid Wordpress-based web design. Clean, workable, dependable, fantastic. He helped us redesign and launch the current heartofbusiness.com and is currently helping us relaunch The Business Oasis.

7. Trisha Cupra, Professional Website Makeovers. Even thought we’d already found Adam and have been deliriously happy with him, Trisha came into our life to help us with our new html ezine design, which is a whole ‘nother thing from the website. Since then, she’s been supporting us weekly in getting the ezine out, and is starting to work with other design projects we have. She’s really, really good.

8. My Mastermind/Brain Trust group. Molly Gordon, Jen Louden, Michael Bungay Stanier, and Eric Klein function as my board of directors, my own little slap-happy, all-too-happy-to-slap-me compassionate, loving, self-development group. I joined after they were already formed, and they had already named it a “Brain Trust.” But since I have always talked about these kind of groups as mastermind groups, I’ve never been able to entirely shift my vocabulary. We talk as a group at least twice a month, we get together in person once a year, and we’re constantly in communication with each other through a private forum and phone calls. They have totally saved Heart of Business’ butt, and my own, numbers of times.

9. Karen, Michael and Nicole, Balance Your World Bookkeepers. Finding affordable, flexible, accurate bookkeepers has been more challenging than we expected. Especially when we decided we didn’t just want to hand in reports once a month and get reports back that were four weeks in the past. We wanted to know what was happening in the business right now. These folks know small business, are totally efficient and trustworthy, and are helping us stay on top of our numbers day-to-day. You might not need that level of service if you are running your average self-employed service business. But, if you do, here they are.

10. Fabeku Fatumise, Sankofasong. I’ve known we need to take our audio content up a notch, but haven’t known how, until now. Suddenly, I realized, we didn’t need a musician, we needed a sound healer. Enter Fabeku. He’s creating intro/outro music that really supports the deep intention we’re bringing to our content. I can’t imagine this will be the only project we’ll do with him.

11. Steve Alverdes, My Tax Man. Last on the list, but not least, is Steve and the gang at My Tax Man. Small business accountants, they handle our payroll, our taxes, and are available for conversations and consulting during the year when we need to understand how to do things right, or how financial decisions, like hiring an employee, is going to affect us. No, strangely enough, they don’t have a website. Even so, as a third-generation business, they seem to be doing just fine. If you want to find them, here they are.

That’s A Long List of People

Lord forgive me, I hope I haven’t forgotten anyone. To tell you the truth, when the payroll can handle it, we’d love to have some more dedicated admin help. If it’s not too late, let me say: “Please Don’t Freak Out!” Please don’t freak out. If you are currently self-employed and don’t have any help, don’t look at this long list and think, “I can never afford it. I can never get there.”

We didn’t start here. We started with “I.” My first step ever was to hire some office help a few hours a week. Holly helped out, too. Eventually I hired a virtual assistant. We’ve been through several bookkeepers. Of course, I needed an accountant from the get-go.

Anyhoo, it’s been a long journey, filled with mistakes, missteps, and experiments. But over the years it has become crystal clear that in order to be successful, “I” needed to become “we.”

I was team-phobic. I didn’t think I wanted a team. I didn’t know how to handle a team. But, sure enough, to really have the business work, I needed a team.

Start to Build Your Team Now

If you want to succeed in business, start to build your team. Start to gather the people around you who can support you. No, you don’t have to do it like I did. You don’t need someone on a payroll, you don’t need employees.

But you do need a team. Otherwise, you don’t have a business that is going to succeed. You have a gerbil wheel that will eventually roll away.

Any other sage advice? Or questions?

If you’ve built or are building your team, what sage advice do you have? If you are struggling and suddenly realize you need a team, what questions do you have?

Let’s take it to the comments.