Many business owners have learned, (usually the hard way), that they can’t do all of the work of running a business by themselves. Burn out, disorganization, missed deadlines and forgotten clients have led them to the conclusions that it’s best to work with a virtual team if they want to succeed.

But virtual teams come in all shapes and sizes. There are virtual assistants, who usually work alone and then there are teams that collaborate together in order to work for a number of clients. Figuring out which one is best for you comes down to answering several questions about your business and about yourself.

Once your business is growing and is no longer small enough to be run by one person, you are looking for a team with a balance of virtual skills. The best teams will be mid-sized, neither too small (unable to offer a variety of packages), or too large, where at some point they become unmanageable and disorganized or have too much work to dedicate their attention accordingly.

You want the team you are working with to be motivated and made up of strong communicators. They need to be flexible, in order to work on various projects simultaneously and they also need to have the initiative to direct themselves without constant input from you. An effective virtual team has members with crossover abilities,that learn as they go. Their technological skills provide them with the base to build upon previous experiences, so the longer they work as a team, the more they improve and this can only be done with a team that isn’t too large.

One of the most important requisites of any team that you hire should be the ability to grow a close relationship with you. Rather than working as boss and employer, team members should work with you as mentors and suggest ways in which you can improve upon what is already a good thing. The team should understand you and what you would like to do with your business and they should also care about it as if it were theirs.

Finding a team that is just right, with services that are useful to you from infancy to maturity is what you are looking for. Their abilities should be varied and you should be able to find everything you need in one place with one team.

Success for your business means looking around and picking the team that is not too big, not too small….but just right!

© Chris Draper, DemGen Inc. 2014

image courtesy of redbubble

Working in the virtual realm, it’s helpful for us to share more about our team, so you have the opportunity to get to know them on a personal level.

We’d like to introduce you to Will…

While not jet-setting around the world, Will has coordinated the collective output of various teams and projects for over a decade. He especially loves working virtually, and openly welcomes the challenge of engaging clients and support teams cross multiple time zones.

Born in Canada, Will completed his Master’s degree in International Relations at the University of Wales in the UK.

His passion is helping others with strategic planning to help their businesses excel.  He embraces finding solutions to creative and business challenges.

With DemGen, Will acts as a Future Vision Map Strategist and Business Vision Advisor, helping clients to realize their ideal future business vision and implement the steps required to reach their goals.

Will believes that virtual workspaces are the key to the future – both in terms of creating happier workforces as well as a healthier global environment for the next generation; he essentially ‘walks the talk’ by connecting with team members from around the world, and consistently demonstrates that working from anywhere and everywhere is an accessible reality. Will notes that the majority of ‘remote’ colleagues he has worked with feel their virtual workspace is important to their overall job satisfaction – in no small part due to the flexibility it offers – and that the quality and timeliness of their deliverables has only improved since abandoning their office cubicles. For all of these reasons, Will remains excited about helping others embrace the unprecedented freedom and significant benefits to be gained from ‘working in the cloud’.

In his own words: “I love working online and enjoying the freedom that comes from a virtual workspace; simultaneously I both live to work (I love helping others free up their lives) and work to live (I love connecting with clients from beachfronts, lakesides, forests, mountaintops, castles, golf courses, and other exotic locations all over the world).

To that end, working for DemGen has been a dream – collaborating with an incredibly talented cloud-based group of professionals in support of a wide variety of clients – what more could a virtual enthusiast ask for?”

© DemGen Inc. 2014