Self-Employed Freelancers & Home-Based Businesses: Team Up With Other Small Businesses to Maximize Your Potential

The benefits to teaming up with other freelancers and/or small businesses are seemingly endless and can apply to many situations and settings.

We interviewed Allison Bradley, Ph.D., founder of Crossroads Collaboratives http://www.collaboratives.com, to give us some insight into the benefits, traps, and strategies of effective collaboration with others. Ms. Bradley's background is in psychology, crisis intervention, corporate consultation, and adventure programming. She works with small businesses, community groups, and human service organizations to help them collaborate effectively.

Ms. Bradley told us that the benefits of teaming and collaborating effectively with others, both within and outside of your small or home-based business include the following:

• You can create dramatically improved products and services.
  
• Effective teaming gives you the opportunity to draw upon a wider range of skills, perspectives, aptitudes, and experiences than you can without teaming.
  
• You can combine your areas of expertise with those of others to create a superior product, benefiting your clients.
  
• Teaming heightens the client's perception of your quality and credibility.
  
• You can increase your professional visibility by being involved with various team projects.
  You can strengthen your client and referral base.

Practical, real life small business benefits can arise from effective teaming within an organization.

Some examples: General Electric improved productivity by 250%, Sherwin-Williams cut costs by 45% and lowered the rate of returned goods by 75%, and Northern Telecom doubled their profits (source: Fisher, 1993. Leading Self-Directed Work Teams).

Specific freelance or small business projects can benefit from teaming and collaboration as a way to leverage the resources of a group toward a specific goal or outcome.

This is a way to access expertise in a focused, limited fashion. You might collaborate with a graphic design firm on a joint project, for example, rather than hiring additional full time graphic designers for your own firm.

One caution: EFFECTIVE teaming or collaboration is the key here. An attempt characterized by poor planning, ineffective communication, and unclear agreements can actually lead to more harm than good for your business.

Finding Fellow Freelancers, Small or Home-Based Business to Team Up With

Where you look to find people to collaborate with depends upon your objectives.

The steps to teaming with the proper freelancer or small businesses are the following:

1.Clearly define what it is you want to achieve. Lay out for yourself - in writing - exactly what your objectives are and what you currently have in terms of resources to achieve the objectives: human resources, finances, equipment, time.

2.Identify what your strengths are, what you can concretely offer a joint effort, and what you are looking for in a collaborator.

3.Lay out your vision of how you will work together. Then, seek these qualities in a collaborator systematically.

Some places you can look for small business teammates are

• through your business network
  
• through professional associations
  
• via advertisements
  
• through referrals from national organizations
  
• contacts through presentations, workshops, conferences, or speaking engagements
  
• Good, old-fashioned networking is often the quickest and most effective way to find collaborators.

Try 'mini-collaborations' as an entrée into the world of working together. Small, time-limited projects are a good way to get your feet wet, as well as leading to bigger projects and the contacts you need.

Legalities of Teaming Up With Other Freelancers or Small Businesses

When dealing with others, there are legal issues one should keep in mind before joining forces with others. Ms. Bradley told us that the best way to deal with legal issues is to be proactive.

• Be sure to clearly specify roles, timelines, guidelines, and accountabilities up front in your collaborative effort.
  
• Work together to create a mutually agreeable understanding, and put it in writing.
  
• Involve all stakeholders in the process, identifying specific ways their needs will be met through the process.
  
• If you run into a glitch, procedural or interpersonal, work it out fully before proceeding so that it doesn't come back to haunt you later.
  
• Don't assume anything. If in doubt, consult your attorney.

Common Problems with Partnering With Other Freelancers of Small Businesses

Everything isn't always perfect just because you team up with others to make a better product or service. There can be problems along the way. Some typical situations that can occur are the following:

• Lack of follow-through on plans
  resistance to new ideas or ways or working together
  
• interpersonal conflict
  
• conflicting agendas
  
• diffusion of responsibility
  
• ineffective planning
  
• 'turf' issues
  
• lack of project and meeting structure
  
• avoidance of open communication
  
• absence of common goals and vision,
  Ineffective leadership.

Eliminating the Problems Before They Happen

Hiring a consulting firm that works specifically with collaborative situations can be a great solution to the typical problems that can occur. One such firm is Crossroads Collaboratives. Crossroads Collaboratives helps people learn to collaborate effectively. They help you identify issues that affect work performance, get beyond symptoms to root causes of interpersonal challenges, increase awareness of self and others, develop specific action plans, plan and carry out your projects with maximum effectiveness.

They provide workshops, 3, 6, and 12-month professional development programs and coordination forums, as well as customized programming, facilitation, and consultation services.

Their programs are experiential - active and engaging - using a range of tools from outdoor adventure experiences to behavioral feedback instruments. Crossroads Collaboratives believes that people learn best through active, meaningful involvement with their learning experiences...maximizing the chances of generalizing their learning...not only at work, but also at home, and in all life arenas.

In Summary

Keep in mind that learning is a process. If your first attempt at collaboration or teaming seems like a disaster, don't give up. It just means you've got more to learn. Look at what happened - REALLY look at what happened, identify what went well, and what you'd like to change next time.

Look clearly at your own role. Don't deflect responsibility with a lot of 'they didn't' statements. Decide what you can do better next time. Then, implement those changes next time and keep at it. With commitment and effort, you'll develop a truly superior team or collaborative experience.

For more information, contact

Allison Bradley, Ph.D.
Crossroads Collaboratives
528 Wealthy Avenue
Kalamazoo MI 49006
616.343.6618
http://www.collaboratives.com
allison@collaboratives.com

 

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Marnie Pehrson may be contacted at http://www.pwgroup.com marnie@pwgroup.com. Click here to view more of their articles.
Marnie L. Pehrson is a wife, mother of 6 and consultant who has been helping talented professionals deliver their message to the online world since 1995. She creates Web sites such as LocateACoach.com, IdeaMarketers.com, and PowerOfLearning.com to help talented professionals promote their work. If you'd like Marnie to develop an online promotion plan for your business, email her at marnie@pwgroup.com or reach her various Web sites through http://www.pwgroup.com.Marnie L. Pehrson is a wife, mother of 6, author of 10 Steps to Fulfilling Your Divine Destiny and an Internet revenue consultant and online promoter who has been helping talented professionals package and deliver their message to the online world since 1995. Email her at marnie@pwgroup.com or reach her various Web sites through http://www.pwgroup.com.

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