3 Real-World Tested Strategies To Scale Your Virtual Company to $1 Million (And Beyond…)
Michigan. North Carolina. Tennessee. Colorado. California. Georgia. Florida. New Jersey. Jamaica. The Philippines.
This is our team. 10 locations, 13 people. All on a mission. Together. To dominate the health and fitness industry. To transform the bodies, minds, and souls of millions.
We are blessed. Each of our dedicated teammates are humble. Hard-working. Drama-free. Trust-worthy. In some ways, we are more family than corporate colleagues.
And we’ve all joined together, as one virtual force, to grow a multiple 7-figure businesses. One which has reached millions of people from over 100 countries.
How did this happen? In a virtual environment, no less?
It’s not by chance. It’s by design. By cultivation. By making and learning from mistakes.
You can do the same. The process is repeatable. By anyone. Without the mistakes—if you heed my warnings below.
Because in today’s fast-paced, commoditized marketplace the experience, the skill set, the personality, the culture of your team—that’s your real competitive advantage.
Your team is how you scale outside yourself.
You’re human. With flaws. With weaknesses. And only 24 hours in the day.
You need thoroughbreds in your stable who are faster, stronger, more experienced than you are in certain areas.
But how do you build a Virtual Squad of Victors when you don’t see them in-person every day at work? When your company headquarters is located at 123 world wide web avenue?
One Word:
Trust.
You must trust your team. Treat them like self-sufficient adults. Expect they will complete their work, meet their deadlines, and crush their goals.
You need to cede some control. Give your team the reins. But with strategy.
For entrepreneurs, this can be hard. You birthed your baby company from the most basic elements of entrepreneurship. The fragile seed of an idea and an egg of persistent execution.
But it’s worth fighting through the fear. Through the unknowns. Through the doubt. Even when your team makes business decisions 1000’s of miles away.
Because then you can live a lifestyle rooted in freedom and philanthropy.
The freedom to travel. To take extended vacations. To work on other passion projects. To have open time blocks in your schedule just to think.
With a team of devoted superstars who support your way of life—in a sort of indirect way.
You just need trust. Lots of it. Not only in each individual on your team, but in the systems and operations within which they work.
Otherwise, you will always worry with anticipation:
“What will they screw up next?”
I’ve learned many tough lessons over the years about virtual team building. Most, if not all, could have been avoided. I just didn’t know what I didn’t know.
Please don’t make the same mistakes. Instead, simply apply the 3 real-world, actionable strategies revealed below I’ve used the past six years to build our stellar team of virtual virtuosos.
These strategies [almost] guarantee you will NEVER experience the same untimely, unfortunate incident I encountered with our first employee in 2012.
An incident, which when it happened, sowed the subtle seeds of mistrust in my mind. And formed the stranglehold of control I wielded over our team for quite some time.
The ONE Employee Email That Tarnished The Biggest Product Launch of Our Lives
I don’t know what we were thinking.
We were only a few days away from the biggest product launch of our lives, the pinnacle of everything we had worked so hard for the previous 4 years.
And we decide to take a business trip. To a mastermind. Where we work on our laptops the entire journey anyway.
We don’t realize how much work is still ahead of us.
Yet, there we are. Shaun, my business partner. And me. Flying home from Denver on Sunday, punching away on our keyboards like two rabid courtroom reporters.
We have over 100 affiliates ready to promote our new product at midnight. The tick of the countdown clock is deafening.
Our ensuing, adrenaline-fueled escapade feels like the inaugural Internet Marketer’s version of the Amazing Race:
6:45 am —Meet in Hotel Lobby…We’re Working.
7:00 am—Take Bouncy Shuttle to Airport…We’re Working.
7:45 am—Scramble Through TSA Charade to the Gate…We’re Working.
9:00 am—Sneak Out Laptops and Not Get Kicked Off Plane…We’re Working.
2:00 pm—Land in Detroit Airport and Stop at Restaurant…We’re Working.
4:30 pm—Race to my House to Establish Office in Kitchen…We’re Working.
The saga continues throughout the night…until we finally pass out at 4 am.
A little after 8, we both wake up. Shaun drags himself to his car for the ride home.
Whether we succeed or fail, we know we left every ounce of blood, sweat and tears on the field. There was nothing left to give.
I drop in front of my laptop, open up our e-commerce account, and hit refresh.
The sales fly down the screen like an unrestrained vertical stock ticker on CNBC.
The initial launch results reveal it will be a huge success. Thank God.
However, my beaming smile is short-lived and quickly fades to a ferocious frown once I open my email for the first time of the day.
I receive an unexpected, ill-timed message from our customer support guy, Henry. (The guilty party’s name has been changed for privacy sake):
Ryan,
I’m sorry, but I can’t work for you anymore. I hope you understand.
Sincerely,
Henry
My brain explodes with fear. With anger. With astonishment.
What??!! We are only a few hours into our first major launch and our ONLY support guy quit!??
I should have known better than to trust him.
Once I cool off, I realize I need to take control of the situation—FAST.
Otherwise, we’ll have thousands of upset, refund-seeking customers on our hands.
The real truth? This unfortunate incident is MY fault.
I noticed little signs leading up to the launch that something with Henry was “off”. Just not quite right.
I should have handled this better. And since we’re a virtual company, he can disappear with NO in-person repercussions or feelings of discomfort.
But now, with thousands of new customers pouring into our business, it’s a guarantee our customer support ticket spigot will swell from its normal trickle into a surging flood.
What am I going to do?…
Due to my lack of experience at the time, I do the only thing I can think of:
Answer EVERY customer support ticket myself. I’m the only person I can trust right now.
Tickets are popping into our support system faster than I can answer them. I answer one ticket, and three more arrive by the time my web browser refreshes.
I. Am. Angry. At Henry. I feel like he let me down.
I utter a few choice 4-letter words as I continue to pound away on my keyboard.
After answering my 527th ticket, I realize Henry would have needed more help. This is a lot for one person to handle on his own.
But he hadn’t even experienced the launch yet. He bailed before it started. And I would have jumped in to provide some relief.
Thankfully, I make it through our launch with my sanity intact.
And we acquire over 12,000 new customers over the span of those 5 short days.
So the gain was worth the pain.
Nevertheless, my ability to trust other people in our business suffered a serious blow by this one simple incident.
I Could Now ONLY 100% Trust Me, Myself, and I…
The business grind went on, as it naturally does.
I first hired a new customer support rep. She worked for me in a previous business. So I had established a little more trust with her.
Otherwise, I continued to handle all aspects of our operations and technology—by myself.
Email scheduling and delivery, web server maintenance, sales funnel setups, split test configurations, daily metrics collection, daily finances (outside of bookkeeping and taxes), the list goes on and on…
As long as I did all of this myself, I knew it would be done 100% RIGHT. (I tend to be a perfectionist, if you can’t tell.)
However, as we grew into a 7-figure company, my lack of trust hindered our growth.
Marketing and sales are significantly slowed when tech and operations become a bottleneck. You can’t ship into the marketplace fast enough.
So Shaun and I agreed. The team needed to expand. And I started to hire more people.
Even then, my mindset and strategy were flawed. They were still based on a severe lack of trust.
I hired people who were very inexperienced. They were hard-working and loyal people but required a ton of teaching and training.
Which means, in the end, I could manipulate their every move. They were Mario and Luigi and I held the joystick.
I wasn’t lifting up leaders. I was creating followers. Using my homegrown cloning machine.
This approach to leadership stifles growth. Suffocates innovation. And does not make your company an exciting place to work.
FACT: If our business was going to scale into the mid-7-figures into 8, I would have to learn how to delegate in an effective way…
…Especially since we don’t meet in a physical location.
Delegate decisions. Tactics. Strategies. A great deal of the day-to-day functions of our business.
I had to make trust my default option. Even when it may not be earned.
You should do the same.
Just don’t dump these responsibilities on members of your team without a process. Without a plan.
Now after years of mentoring, research and experimentation, I use a strategic set of systems and processes that have instilled trust across the entire organization.
And best of all has helped us grow in revenue and profits, year after year while being 100% virtual.
3 Real-World Tested Strategies To Scale Your Virtual Company To $1 Million and Beyond (Plus: A Fourth Bonus Strategy!)
1. Use a Ruthless Hiring Gauntlet
Trust begins with who you let in the front door of your company.
It’s much easier for you to trust someone who already contains the personality traits, values, experience, and knowledge you require for an individual position—and for the company as a whole.
Truth be told, our extensive hiring process deserves its own article. Maybe I’ll write it someday.
In the meantime, here are a few of the crucial points:
Applicants MUST fax in their cover letters and resumes using specific page lengths, font faces and font sizes.
Filter: Can they follow basic directions? Also, are they excited enough about the role to be inconvenienced?
Along with their cover letters and resumes, applicants must also complete a few small tasks related to the role.
Filter: Can they display at least a rudimentary level of experience and knowledge for the position?
Once the above is submitted, they fill out a Wonderlic aptitude test configured for the role for which they are applying.
Filter: How do standardized test results compare to what the applicant has shared thus far?
All of this information is used to determine who should be given an interview opportunity.
I don’t personally talk with ANYONE until they have made it to this point in the process.
Our Operations Director, Angela, handles it all.
And for some positions, she manages everything from job posting to hiring decision (see how my trust in others has blossomed over the past few years?)
Lastly, the new employee is put through a 90-day trial period.
The expectation is established that they might not make it through. Or, they may find our company is not a good fit for them.
Either way, you never know how someone will truly perform in your company until they are given the hands-on opportunity to produce.
2. Establish Meeting Rhythms
I know. Meetings. The word makes me shudder too. How much time is wasted in the corporate world while attending long, drawn-out, unnecessary meetings? A lot.
This still does not devalue them—if they are done right.
A consistent, non-negotiable meeting rhythm will keep your team focused, day-after-day, week-after-week, on the priorities and strategies that align with your company vision and goals.
This repetitive meeting rhythm is crucial if your team is 100% virtual.
Not to babysit. Not to hand-hold. But to keep everyone trucking along toward the same outcomes.
Like most companies, we have annual and quarterly planning meetings. These are key. However, I want to focus on two other meetings, in particular, that move to a faster-paced drum beat.
Weekly Goal Setting and Review Call — Every person on our team has a weekly, 30-minute one-on-one call with their direct manager.
The content of this call is directed by the managed employee. They craft the agenda and provide it before the call.
The prime purpose of this conversation is to give them resources and remove roadblocks so they can hit their established quarterly goals.
This also gives the manager a few minutes to check in with the team member on a personal level. To make sure they are physical, mentally and spiritually in a healthy place (based on whatever they may want, or not want to share).
Daily War Room — This simple, 15 to 30-minute daily call has transformed our virtual company into what it is today.
There is only ONE goal for this call: To determine the #1 task we want to complete as a team in the next 24 hours.
What’s the biggest driver we can accomplish within the next day which will most push the business forward based on current resources, knowledge, opportunities, etc.?
This simple call keeps our virtual team focused on what matters most from one day to the next.
Otherwise, it’s very easy to become sidetracked by the laundry list of projects, tasks, and obligations which have a much lower impact on company growth.
3. Implement Situational Leadership
Have you ever had a boss who gives you little support and direction for a specific task—although you would appreciate MORE help?
Or instead, a boss who micromanages every task you perform even though you’re ready for more autonomy and decision-making power?
Situational Leadership eliminates these two very common problems by aligning the expectations of manager and employee based on the individual task at hand.
Originally developed by Ken Blanchard and Paul Hersey, Situational Leadership takes a team member and his manager through 4 distinct levels of leadership:
Your goal as manager is to align your leadership style (S1 through S4) with the developmental level of your team member (D1 through D4).
And these choices vary based on the task performed.
For instance, we hired a new email marketing specialist a few months ago. He is a very skilled and experienced writer. However, he’s also a novice in the world of direct-response email marketing.
So, after he was hired, he and I had an alignment meeting where we agreed upon the leadership levels for the tasks he performs on a weekly basis.
Out of the gate, we decided on a D1/S1 combination for everything.
Hence, I tell him exactly what to do and he does it. I also devote a lot of personal time explaining my thought process and context behind my various decisions.
Then, week by week (during our one-on-one calls), we determine if any of these leadership levels can be changed based on his additional experience working in the virtual trenches of our company.
This leadership paradigm establishes concrete expectations and appropriate levels of trust. It also eliminates the common communication frustrations which can often arise between manager and employee.
How much direction does someone need? It all depends on a variety of factors. Situational Leadership makes sure you don’t use too much direction, or too little, but that it’s just right.
(And in the past few months, our email writer has now graduated from S1 leadership levels to 2’s, 3’s and even some 4's.)
Bonus 4. Cultivate a Bigger Reason WHY For Your Company’s Existence.
Team members want to know why they devote their valuable time, attention, and energy to your business.
Yes, they need money to pay the mortgage and buy food. That’s a given.
More than that though, they want their work to have meaning. And significance. And purpose when they pound away on their keyboard to improve YOUR bottom line.
This “Bigger Reason Why” mindset is nothing new. It’s a concept that’s been plastered throughout leadership books and viral videos in recent years.
Nevertheless, your reason WHY is even more essential for a virtual company.
You don’t meet in a physical office. You don’t share common ground in the most tangible sense of the word.
This lack of in-person communication and experience can stifle culture and relationship-building.
Physical proximity strengthens personal connectivity.
This is why many long-distance romantic relationships fail so fast.
In my experience, a bigger reason why is the virtual thread which will hold a business team together—for the long haul.
For example, our company’s “surface why” is we help men and women OVER 40 loose weight and become a physically healthier version of themselves.
Although, this is only the beginning…
Our bigger, deeper why is to help people from all walks of life improve physically, mentally, and spiritually.
And you don’t have to become a customer to experience this change with us:
We donate a percentage of every sale to Living Water International. A Gospel-loving organization which provides fresh, clean water to needy villages around the world.
We participate in a Toys For Tots charity drive every year. (And fly out our team to participate in the shopping at Wal Mart).
We sponsor a group of children through Compassionate International and another ministry in India.
We partake in a yearly mission trip to install a clean water well in a needy village. Anyone from our team is invited to attend.
We regularly produce articles and videos which help our followers have a stronger, wholesome, well-rounded life. (With nothing for sale.)
This list is NOT intended to be a brag-a-thon. I personally believe all these blessings come from God, not us.
My goal is to only depict—with specifics—how we cultivate a bigger reason why in our company.
Trust.
Cultivated through effective hiring. Consistent meeting rhythms. Situational Leadership. And a bigger reason why.
This is how you build a strong, effective virtual team which can help you reach 7 figures and beyond, while also leaving your distinct mark on the world.
You’ll be amazed by what a dedicated, mission-driven team can accomplish when trust is established at the center of it all.
Of course, there are no guarantees in life. Your only customer support rep might still bail on you.
But the fruits of business success taste so much sweeter when you enjoy them with other people you’ve invited to eat at your table.
Even when that table isn’t sitting in one office building, but in various homes scattered around the world.
This story is published in The Startup, Medium’s largest entrepreneurship publication followed by + 381,862 people.
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