It does take more than one to run a one person show! You may be a solopreneur (someone who is a business of one) i.e. a councilor, web technician, accountant, business coach, yet to be truly successful and keep going when the going gets tough, you need a team of support of many. Let’s list some of the support you may need to run a truly successful business.It’s almost essential to have the following:

You need a web designer. Work with a company that knows more than just pretty graphics, flash and good copy. To be in the game you also need your website to be more than a brochure but a mean, lean SEO friendly, opt- in selling machine.

You need a book keeper. Time is money.  Did you go to school for finances? Then why are you spending your “free time” playing at book keeping? Consider how many more clients you could serve more efficiently if you delegated those lost hours of bookkeeping to a payroll company. I’ve seen owners of companies with five employees or more still spend their weekends doing payroll. Tisk. Tisk. Stop that if you really want to leverage your time wisely and let the professionals do it. For less than what you normally bill one client per hour, the headache can go away each month.

Hire a reputable business coach. I can’t stress how powerful it is to have one help you clarify your business goals and objectives and put a strategic plan in place for dominating your market and serving a niche market. This will help you hit the ground running when you first open your doors, launch a new product or revive a dying business. Also they can help you put a business plan in place that monitors your success in ways that quantum leaps your business years ahead of people with same technical training but no specific, measurable, accountable plan of action.

Get lots of sales training or a sales rep that knows how to sell! It’s one thing to be a good service provider and quite another to be great at sales to grow your business. There are some very top notch sales trainer out their that can blow your competition out of the water if you glean/use a 10th of what they teach you about counseling selling and knowing how to ask the right questions to get to the root of your prospect’s real problem or PAIN.

You need customers to run a successful business. Ding, ding, ding. I know it’s a silly notion to consider having a business without having customers yet with everything else I mentioned you can fake it till you make it. You can out source virtual assistants, payroll, marketing yet how do you outsource clients. Unless you have a few bucks and you can buy an existing company already with clients I don’t know what to tell you. They’re your bread and butter, your life line. Once you do have clients though do a great job for your current clients because they are cheaper and easier to please than finding new ones.

You need loving support of a significant other and other business partners to keep you going. People forget when they go out on their own that you wear ten hats not just one or two. It can be exhausting as well as exhilarating. Celebrate your loving support as often as you can because in many cases they’ve helped build your confidence and stood by you even when the going got tough.

(c) 2009 Written by Ruth Anne Wood ruth@365webapps.com