How We Built 7 Offices in 4 years

It’s Wasn’t About Building a Business, It Was About Building a Team

At a time when my business was falling apart, my kid sister and her now husband began building a company that was based on helping people plan their financial futures. Who would’ve thought that one of my greatest lessons in business would come from my kid sister?!

Since I was struggling financially, I decided to learn what they were generously willing to share. A few short months later I earned my licenses in securities and insurance and joined in on their venture.

Our greatest challenge, which we successfully turned into our greatest asset, was the management of human resources. Most businesses recruit from the same talent pool as their competitors. How were we, being so young and new to the industry, going to recruit and manage agents who were older and more experienced than us?

When recruiting agents, it was attitude over skill. Skills we can leverage and develop over time   – attitudes and character are inherent. Competitive advantage doesn’t come just from hiring better people, but from a superior ability to develop the team.

We appreciated the value that each person brought to the collective team. Gone are the days of dictator-type management styles. That may work in the military but it seldom works in today’s marketplace. People become a liability to the business if they feel too restricted or feel undervalued, because their attitude and energy influences others.

My brother-in-law is programmed with a mindset for success. Competitive by nature, he sought out the top executives in the business and duplicated their formulas for success. The result? We did what many traditional business are afraid to do. We were totally transparent.

Being completely transparent takes a world class level of thinking – utmost confidence and a lot of faith, because the traditional form of management, (hierarchy or dictatorship), is replaced by empowering team members. Which means trusting them to make good decisions and follow through as well as allowing them to make potentially costly mistakes. This really takes high level facilitation from someone with true leadership qualities. Although I can’t say that it works for every business, it definitely worked for us.

Everything about the company was shared with each team member – the financials, commission structure, all the resources. This provided a level playing field for everyone and removed traditional hierarchy.

However, what it really did was instill the critical foundation of trust and respect for management.

Team members took ownership of the business. It wasn’t just a job or means to a paycheck. It was a vehicle for professional growth and it became a reflection of their character. This provided a platform of inter-dependence. A culture where individuals were allowed to be their creative selves, take certain initiative, and perhaps most importantly view mistakes as opportunities to grow instead of as failures.

From a management’s perspective, accountability of team members becomes so much more manageable. This resulted in higher morale, increased retention, healthy team rapport and a training model systematized for growth.

The company is only as strong to the extent that employees feel they are more likely to be successful with this company rather than another. So we encouraged and supported professional development of the team and respected their personal needs.

A culture of public acknowledgements and rewards, of even the smallest successes, was deeply instilled in management.

My brother-in-law knew the importance of investing in people. He wasn’t cheap. He had a reward system for just about anything that could be viewed as a success. It turned out to be a key investment that built a structure of perpetual successes, not just monetarily but in the loyalty earned from investing time and genuine care into each team member.

We facilitated advanced training programs from leading industry experts that added to our team’s professional market value. We held regular social get-togethers to build individual relationships and strengthen team rapport.

The importance of gaining support from a team member’s family cannot be emphasized enough.

We worked together and played together in order to deepen relationships that gave more value to the team. We weren’t only working with each other, we were working for each other.

My sister and brother-in-law were only 21 when they started this business. I was about 27 when I joined them. A lot of emotional blood, sweat and tears literally went into building the company. In less than 4 years, the duplication of the training model and management culture resulted in the expansion of 7 locations with over a hundred active agents. Collectively, the team helped the lives of many thousands of individuals and families.

Due to relocating, I left the business. I’m forever grateful to my sister and brother-in-law for having experienced world class leadership that can be applied in any field.

One key principle you can immediately apply in your profession or business is the formula for facilitating successful meetings and debriefings. I’ll be posting it soon.