INSIGHT business coaching
Building a Team as a Solopreneur Leads to Success You can’t and shouldn’t do everything, so building a team will help your small shop expand its capacity BY KATHRYN DILLON
M
any of us entered the design and fabrication business because we love textiles, architecture, and creating or enhancing spaces that are functional and beautiful. Looking through all of those shelter magazines, watching HGTV shows and scrolling through Instagram makes design look easy. But we all know that it is not nearly as easy as it is portrayed, especially when you factor in all of the behind-the-scenes work that takes place for that room to be deemed photo-worthy. In order to grow our businesses and prevent burnout, we need to work toward building a team that consists of people who excel in the tasks we don’t excel in. A team member is anyone who helps your company perform a business task, even those you may only use occasionally, like a tax accountant or a web
22 | wf-vision.com | Mar + Apr 2019
designer. In the November + December 2018 issue of Window Fashion VISION, I discussed working in your sweet spot by taking the time to discover your core strengths or talents and how they are best used in life and the workplace. For many creatives, the business side of design can be a challenge—accounting, marketing, procuring products and managing the flow of production. For the single-person workroom, it’s important to determine which types of window coverings you fabricate well and can earn a profit from versus which ones are best to contract out (or gain hands-on education about to increase your skill set). As a solopreneur and lifelong learner, I can easily get trapped wanting to learn how to do all aspects of the business instead of contracting or hiring another expert to do what they do
