It’s easy to get into a pattern when your coaching business is a one-person show. You know exactly how you like things done and can slide into the zone for maximum efficiency. But as your business grows, you may want (or need) to bring someone onto your team to keep up the pace and better serve your clients.
Whether you already have a team in place or your super-team is around the corner, this blog is designed to help you stay on track and inspired. Because you quickly learn that the way you operated on your own just won’t cut it once you add a team to the mix. I know, because my business went through a similar experience.
Two years ago, my whole team worked in the same location. We could get away with being a little loosey-goosey with our project management because we had team meetings almost every morning. Everyone was naturally on the same page because we were under the same roof. Check-in amounted to pushing an intercom button.
When we started to telecommute though, it became obvious we were lacking a good system to keep everyone on the same page. We would have disjointed conversations over multiple mediums (e-mail, chat, phone), and it added up to a lot of extra administrative work. My team was frustrated and I was exhausted, so we started looking for a solution.
That’s when we found Asana. Light bulb on!
Asana is an online project management program that helps us organize and keep track of assignments, set deadlines and plan ahead for new projects. It’s basically the home base for all our operations. Each of my team members can use it to keep track of their own daily tasks as well as their roles in upcoming program launches. And everyone has access to the calendar, so they know what’s happening across each other’s schedules.
But I think the best advantage to Asana is that I can maintain a culture of support, trust and acknowledgement with my team even though we don’t meet in-person as much as before. I feel it gives my team more autonomy yet still allows me to stay on top of the status of certain projects. I can check in whenever I want without feeling like I’m hovering. And because my team can see all they’ve accomplished over the week, they have a guidepost to measure their success and take pride in exceeding their own expectations.
Here’s what Asana looks like in action for my team…
I have five assistants with five different personalities, so Asana adapts to their needs by putting them in the driver’s seat. One assistant, whose days are very routine, gets a ton of satisfaction checking off her daily to-do list. Another assistant doesn’t like to be bothered with the minutiae of a project (I’ll admit it, me too!), so Asana helps us stay on the same page without having to get bogged down with the details. And a third assistant, who loves the details, can create as many subtasks as she wants in a way that supports her without me feeling overwhelmed.
Needless to say, it’s been a relief to have all of our tasks in one place. As an owner of two businesses, having one container for all the moving parts where I can communicate expectations and agreements has been invaluable. It clears up mental space for me to work on new improvements for my business and time to appreciate and encourage my team more.
Never fear, we still get together in-person. I don’t think anything beats hanging out face-to-face. But before we implemented a project management program, our team meetings were all business. Now it’s a chance to connect and have some fun. And I see so much value in that as the leader of my team.
Hand to heart, I’m not a spokesperson for Asana. I’m not getting some kind of kickback for writing this blog. I just want to share this useful resource with you so you have it when you’re ready to use it. And if you feel like it’s time to use a tool like this, then it’s probably long overdue.
Is your to-do list in four different places? Is your team dropping the ball because your communication is all over the place? Do you wish everything was just in one place? These are easy indicators that you need a fresh way to organize your business and provide structure to keep your tribe happy and your list growing. And for my team and I, Asana has been that lifeboat.
How do you keep your team on the same page? What are your favorite resources for organizing your business tasks? Let me know in the comments below.
