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This week…
Challenge: How do I onboard and manage a virtual team or service?
Coach Response: Working with contracted teams and service providers are no different than managing employees. You have to do the same thing with a service that you do with any other employee. Be clear about what you want. If you don’t get the results you want, you have to directly address it. We have both a fractional marketing person and CFO and what I’ve learned to do after working with them is to ask them during the interview what their onboarding process is for us and then tell them what our onboarding process is for them. Then we talk about whether they are willing to give on any of their processes and are we willing to give on ours. There is a dance. We were close to working with a duo assistant team, but they weren’t willing to work in our systems and they would not bend. You work together on the give and take. The key that has kept us going is communication.
You have to hold onto the dream and be clear with what you want. There is someone out there who would dig in, troubleshoot, and ultimately fix things on the backend. Tell the person you have now what you expect and when you expect it. If that doesn’t happen, then they need to understand this isn’t a good fit because payroll, in your specific case, has to be right. You need to know that people are going to get paid the way they are supposed to be paid. At the same time, start looking for a replacement so you aren’t behind. You can ask for whatever you want, but hold her accountable to delivering SOPs. Then when you look at processes, you might be able to see some of the weak spots that require fixing so the new person doesn’t have the same struggle. When you hire that person, make sure you are clear in their job description so they know what they are responsible for coming in.
“Team” doesn’t just mean employees. We help you manage contractors and service providers that you’re paying to deliver a result. Join us in How to CEO that starts in February 16th!