If you have a group of people working with you - in your office or from home, employed or outsourced - does that mean you have a team? Well that depends how you work together.

Small Businesses need to be build a team, a Small Business Team. A team is defined as a group of people who co-operate in such a manner that it achieves more than the sum total of the individuals achieve each, they are united around a common goal and are accountable to the team for their actions.

Examples of teams are:

• Work Teams
• Sales Teams
• Customer Service Teams
• Virtual Teams

I would suggest that small business owners need to form teams around their small business and start-up business, like SOHO-, SME, SMB-, Micro-, Lifestyle-, Home-, DIY-, Hobby-, Boomer-, Professional-, Personal businesses, too. This will achieve scalability, higher efficiency, more professionalism, in other words to grow your business with less growing pains, like struggling cash-flow, excessive financial and administrative overheads and much more.

In fact keeping business failure at bay, may very well depend on your ability to form these teams, in your office or virtually.

In a modern business context we also call these teams Small Business Communities or Small Business Networks. Even a small business may have different types of networks - as indicated above - you can have your office team, while your small office team member for sales may also belong to a external sales network (team).

As you can see we live not only technologically in a networked world - we live in a world of teams, communities and people networks. The benefits especially for small business and even more business start-up, can not be over emphasized - teams perform functions so important for small business success:

• achieve better work results than individuals,
• are ultimately more scalable and flexible than larger organisations,
• offer a wider range of services and products than individuals,
• offer the opportunity of “brain-storming”,
• motivate each other,
• develop more skills and confidence
• show more commitment to each other.

Whatever you do, employ new staff, hire a consultant, work with an accountant, think my-team, think my-community and think my-network - because you are building your Small Business Team. Do it even before you open your door for business, during the business start-up phase.

So, back to my question for you: Do you work with a Group of people or do you have your own Small Business Team?

A couple of days ago I mentioned the excellent posting from Kathie ” Virtual Assistant or Virtual Worker” followed by my own post of yesterday “Grow your small business - success or failure will follow“. This all leads us to the next question what to do when you decided you are going to get help for your small or start-up business.

Kathie highlighted two options, the virtual worker - who like her husband works as a contractor or the virtual assistant who takes care of certain work on a timeshare basis for an indefinite amount of time. The only other option is employing staff full time into your business.

Virtual Assistants will enable you to outsource - what I call non core business processes, like bookkeeping, call handling, typing, etc. - to a professional person, well equipped to perform these tasks for you in a cost-effective manner and I do not mean cheap, I mean cost-effective. It is also noteworthy that you will not have to provide office space, work-tools, computer, heating, etc. for virtual assistants, as they usually work from home. look at it this way, you are getting a professional on a timeshare basis, and believe me when I say, having you phone answered in a professional manner makes a lot of difference to your business, or keeping up with your bookkeeping, so you know where you are - this all will make your business much more professional. Businesses and people like to do business with professionals.

Virtual workers can be from a “Temp-Agency” or a from contracting firms. These relationships are for finite projects or to fill a cap, due to permanent staff illness on a temporary basis - they are limited by time or project. So again you can afford to bring in professionals, to perform tasks for you or your clients.

Both of these relationships are good for your cost-planning because they are not fixed, permanent costs, they are variable cost, meaning, when the project is finished the contract for your temp-workers, contractors finishes too. If times are harder for your business and you need save cost it is often easier and faster to terminate a virtual assistant - but remember to explain your decision, so that when your small business is doing better again you can start working with your virtual assistant again.

Employing people full time should only be considered for “essential, ongoing and full-time” work, this way you can provide a more secure workplace for your employee and look forward to a peaceful and unstressed work environment.

Building a support network community for your small business and start-up business, like SOHO-, SME, SMB-, Micro-, Lifestyle-, Home-, DIY-, Hobby-, Boomer-, Professional-, Personal businesses is essential to your survival. Remember, the contractor you hire today, may hire you tomorrow on a project he or she is working on - networking is the way to go.

An enormous amount of personal and business information is available on the internet and in the hands of unscrupulous people it could do a lot of damage. Taking the seriousness of this matter into consideration the House of Lordsí science and technology committee published a proposal to protect people against cyber crime and hold start-up-, personal- and small business, and IT security vendors responsible.

The proposal focuses on protecting customers data and personal information. The Lords called for the setting up of an online e-crime reporting system that would include the creation of security breach notification laws and how they will be enforced.

McAfee and Datamonitor, the analyst firm, conducted a survey that included over 1400 businesses. 30% of the respondents said that a major security breach could be fatal for the business.

“We feel many of the organizations profiting from internet services now need to take their share of the responsibility. That includes the IT industry and the software vendors, the banks and internet traders, and the internet service providers,” said Lord Broers, chairman of the committee.

Small businesses, internet services, banks, software vendors and the IT industry need to start taking responsibility for e-crime and protect themselves and their customers against them. Small businesses need to consider outsourcing processes such as accounting that they aren’t comfortable handling. An online shop must take all the necessary precautions to protect its customers.

A On-Demand Small Business Infrastructure can dal with a lot of the security concern small business and start-up business, like SOHO-, SME, SMB-, Micro-, Lifestyle-, Home-, DIY-, Hobby-, Boomer-, Personal businesses must have.

A chain is as strong as its weakest link, and this saying holds true for a small business and start-up business, like SOHO-, SME, SMB-, Micro-, Lifestyle-, Home-, DIY-, Hobby-, Boomer-, Personal businesses also. It is crucial that employers look into the work-life balance of their employees and motivate them to stay healthy and fit.

With the working day extending to more than the 9 to 5 routine, often employees are sitting in front of the computer for hours at end and this affects their health as well as their energy level.

Peninsula Businesswise conducted a survey to study the health of office workers and 82% respondents said that their working hours and conditions did not allow them time to exercise and this was affecting their health and well being.

Start-up-, personal- and small businesses need to motivate and encourage their employees to exercise and stay fit and could consider offering them discounted membership to local gyms. With global business practices office workers are often working at odd time and work conditions should be such that allows them relax and keep fit.

“Employers simply need to be aware of this growing issue in the modern business environment, whilst also ensuring they carry out the duty of care they must have for their employees,” says Peter Done, the managing director of Peninsula.

Flexible working conditions should be considered and an online office can help keep remote workers to stay in touch with the office.

I guess the start-up-, personal- and small business owner should take the same advice for themselves.

Hat-Tip to GrowingBusiness.co.uk

Yesterday I wrote “What the hell, let’s do it” and today there is a story about people in the United Kingdom not believing in themselves enough to start a business.

Whether it is their natural tendency to stick to the time tested and traditional route research indicates that while the British have great business ideas they don’t have enough faith or belief to make turn them into reality. This is an alarming trend as the growth of our economy is dependent on the innovation and versatility of its entrepreneurs.

In a research study by business advisers Inventva it was reported that while 13 million people in U.K. have a business idea not even three million actually do anything about it.

The Director of Inventva, David Thomas says that potential entrepreneurs need to ask themselves five basic question before they decide if they should do something about their business idea and these include:

* Does the business idea fill a gap in the market or is there a need for it?

* Is it worthwhile to try to make the business work?

* Would you enjoy working on the start-up?

* Is it viable from a business point of view?

* Do you have the resources to make it possible?

Budding entrepreneurs need to make the most of the technology that is available to them and should look for a business infrastructure and IT solutions for accounting, cash-flow, etc. They should also consider outsourcing certain business processes that would leave them free to focus on core business activities.

As I wrote before if your fail, who cares(?) - the most important thing is you gave it a go - so, come on, what the hell, let’s do it. If you don’t try you will always wonder what could have been. Starting a small business, like SOHO-, SME, SMB-, Micro-, Lifestyle-, Home-, DIY-, Hobby-, Boomer-, Personal businesses can be fun and is not that difficult, some times doing it part-time can be the answer.

Hat-tip to startups.co.uk.

While most of us want to achieve professional success a majority of working people are now unwilling to do so at the cost of their family and health. Employees are preferring to turn to businesses that offer them flexible working conditions that allow them an opportunity to find a balance between work and home.

This is a strong equalizer when it comes to compete for the employees with big business. An interesting research study by Mitel indicates that small businesses are more open to adopting flexible working conditions not only for the employees but also for the business owners. Small businesses are willing to utilize the internet and IP telephony to allow remote working.

” ….. 72% of small businesses were willing to allow their workers to work from home as compared to the 44% of bigger businesses and corporations. …”

Small businesses are making use of online business infrastructure and using it effectively to focus only on core activities. Having an online office is an excellent way for employees and employers to keep in touch with the office and also with clients and customers. Since the internet can be accessed at any time it really doesnít matter where one is and can log on and make crucial business decisions.

Working styles are changing globally and on-demand small business infrastructure is paving the way, not to forget it is more eco-friendly too.

I usually complain about the Government not knowing what small business needs.

Here is an example of some good advice for small business, the Health & Safety Executive has a web-page called “Myth of the Month“, you should have a look at it .

One myth I would have believed is the myth of the month July 2007:

The myth: All office equipment must be tested by a qualified electrician every year.
The reality: No. The law requires employers to assess risks and take appropriate action.

HSE’s advice is that for most office electrical equipment, visual checks for obvious signs of damage and perhaps simple tests by a competent member of staff are quite sufficient.

There are more “Myth-Busters” on the web-site.