Building Up Others Around You
Mike’s Blog 118
Working hard is important. And I believe I do that.
But building up a group of other people around you is just as important – heck even more important.
Its leveraging. Finding the right people is hard, and getting them up to speed takes some time and investment. But once you have a great team around you – life and business can take you to new heights.
So today I want to highlight some of the team members behind what we do.
##Claire Chen
Claire joined Global From Asia in January 2017. She was listening to the GFA podcast back when she was studying in the UK and reached out. I could see her passion in building a better opportunity for herself and she wasn’t interested in a “normal job”.
As the Cross Border Summit 2017 was coming up in April, I knew I needed help. And I had a feeling that GFA would do more and moe events (we had done the HK trip and QIanhai free trade zone trip in 2016 with positive feedback) – so she seemed like a great fit for this kind of work. We worked it out remotely and she came down after Chinese new year at the beginning of Feb.
It was a bit of “learn by fire” with the events, as Cross Border Summit was a huge success and sold out event we had to really double down our efforts to keep all the attendees happy and running smooth. She worked past midnight multiple nights and I could see she has the passion and desire to grow herself personally.
A cool thing was when we went to Rise Conference in July 2017 a HKTDC representative recognized her voice from the podcast!
So cool, she felt like a superstar. We caught it on video too and will include in the video blog.
To be honest- some people suggest not to put the team on the podcast as it may make them more popular than me, or have others try to grab them from the company. But I think the opposite – letting Claire get some air time on the podcast – as well as meeting others in the community is important.
##Andrew Voda
Andrew just joined in the summer of 2017. He found us while searching for Canton Fair events on Google (nice, our content marketing is working!) and saw our job post on the GFA Job directory (double nice – our new platform projects are working!) and applied.
I could tell from the call I had with him (while I was meeting with Meir about a GFA Experts Workshop on Amazon FBA – so clear) that this guy was a go-getter and wanting to take care of business.
He has been working remotely and is spending July down in Shenzhen with us before returning to Nanjing. Already in just a couple weeks he has done amazing things for the GFA movement. We have the GFA Experts platform filling out nicely – https://experts.globalfromasia.com/events-calendar/ and he came along for the Vietnam trip where he has helped us find chapter advisors, and did some epic networking at the Rise Conference.
We have been going to a new level here at Global From Asia and the team is doing amazing work.
##Amazing Team Around the World
I don’t want to leave out our amazing team helping from around the world!
Mindy has been working with us for years – keeping me organized with email and business executive projects – plus helping onboard and oversee our new team members. Sheryl – who was referred by Mindy – has been doing amazing work keeping our content schedule on track and high quality. Happi is doing great research and writing for our blog posts. Matt is so helpful for our community growth and feedback on how to write better sales copy. Jessa is keeping our Unipro Corporate services joint venture with Ray Ng going smooth. Anna is amazing at our social media strategies as well.
Of course, last but certainly not least is my amazing wife Wendy. She has been with me through thick and thin (mostly thin these days) and I couldn’t be here without her love and support.
Quite a few others growing in the team as well and let’s keep staying positive. Plus my friends and family and the network around us. I love hearing such positive feedback on our new content and updates – and these videos and blog posts. Let’s all support each other for growth and achieving the goals we want in our life.
##More Applying On a Regular Basis
What is most exciting is we are getting more and more job applications. From our various press coverage and campaigns – more people are impressed with what we have done so far and want to get involved. For example, our Shenzhen Daily featured article drew quite a bit of attention and we have a solid dude who wants to join the team.
While I prefer to call myself a blogger, I am also a CEO. And when I think of CEO, I think of 3 pieces
C = customers – need to get people who like what you are offering enough to vote with their wallets.
E = employees – as we have discussed in this post, need to get people who want to work with you on the team.
O = owners – partners and investors. To get people to invest with you and your vision for the long term.
Sure, there are many times we hire the wrong person. For me, I have made the wrong judgement call in businesses of times past – but the key is to learn from them and keep moving forward.