David’s Black Book (entry 4)
Originally written 7.16.05
I gave a phenomenal speech last night in my business resources class. It was a 20 minutes speech on “Building and Running a Cross-Functional Team at the Age of 21.” I captivated my audience. Everyone loved the speech. One of my best ever. After the speech people told me how awesome I was and congratulated me profusely. That felt good. Someone, and older lady in my class, asked for my business card. Over the past 2 years I have become a very powerful public speaker…
In the past 6 weeks or so I’ve given many pitches in an attempt to build my business team. Currently, I don’t really have a team. People seem to be interested one minute and not interested another minute. Frustrating. I’ve already had around 5 people come on board, but none of them really stayed on for long…
Building a team is definitely not easy. It makes me stronger as I continue this building process and as I start to understand what it takes to put together a group of like-minded individuals. I won’t quit…
As an entrepreneur, you should seek to become a good public speaker. Whenever you get the chance to speak in front of a bunch of people, go for it! This will help you build confidence and the ability to pitch your business ideas to potential partners. I love giving speeches and it has helped me build relationships with tons of people over the years.
I wrote this diary entry around a time when I was in the process of building a team for my business. And let me tell you, it wasn’t and still isn’t an easy task. It really takes a lot out of you. You better be ready. From this team building process I have learned that many people will become easily interesting in your ideas and visions, but most won’t have the true desire to really follow through.
One of the biggest problems I’ve had with building a team is the money issue. The first thing that people seem to want to talk about is “how much money do I get?” And to be honest, that is a huge turnoff for me. When I think of business, I think of how I can build a great service for people, not always about the money. Sure, like and entrepreneur I want to make some cash, but I like to think about the money secondary, never at first.
You’ll find that some people will just want to be a part of your business to share in the profits, not to share in the vision and mission of the company. Beware of these people, they’re poisonous to your business. I was once working with some software engineers who had been in the business for 10+ years, and at every meeting the only topic of discussion seemed to be money this and money that – it was a mess. I knew that they didn’t share in my vision and that was the end of that team.
Are you in the process of building a team? Share your thoughts.
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