Session: How to Not Do Everything Yourself
Speaker: Laura Roeder

In my talk at BlogWorld LA, How Not To Do Everything Yourself I’ll be discussing how an online business can move from being a one-man show to creating a team of dedicated, proactive people that you love to work with.

One of the most important ways to bring in great people is to have a stellar culture. When you’re the best person to work for, you’ll naturally attract the best and brightest people to work for you.

But most online businesses see “culture” as something reserved for brick and mortars – it usually refers to free snacks, company picnics, or memberships to the local gym. What does it mean when people are working remotely, or when your “company” is just you and one virtual assistant?

Here are three easy ways to build your unique culture at a small, online business:

– Use yammer as your water cooler

My team loves yammer, a free online tool that serves as an internal twitter for companies. We use it to keep each other updated on what we’re doing, but also to give praise and link to a youtube joke or two.

– Mail small gifts

When I read a business book that I love, I make sure to send out a copy to my entire team. (Amazon makes this quick and painless.) Just because you don’t have a physical library doesn’t mean you can’t share learning with your team, and books also make a great token of appreciation.

– Use skype to get face-to-face

There are many subtleties that are lost in the written word and even on the phone – luckily we have video skype to keep us all connected. Every month I have scheduled one-on-one time with each person on my team via a video skype chat. This means we have time set aside to catch up, work through issues, and brainstorm on how to improve. I also use video skype for phone calls as much as I can. (And if you’re like me, your company culture will also include a “pajamas-acceptable” dress code for those skype calls!)

For more strategies on building a stress-relieving team, come see my talk on Monetization: “How to NOT Do Everything Yourself” at BlogWorld LA on Thursday November 3rd at 2:45 p.m. And in the meantime, here what Laura has to say about the track and why she attends BlogWorld:

Laura Roeder focuses on helping small businesses with training programs such as Your Backstage Pass to Twitter, Creating Fame and her book, Facebook Fame: The Facebook Marketing Bible for The Small Business.

 

Tagged with: #BWELA blogworld la