Building Your Success Team Part 2: Recruiting Your Dream Team by Michael Neil (www.successmadefun.com)

Let me tell you some hard truths about my family - my three year old is an incompetent human being. She can't drive a car, she gives terrible advice, and quite frankly, her cooking leaves a lot to be desired. "But Coach" , I hear you cry. "That's OK. Cut her some slack. She's only three!"

Hmmm....

Here's my question - at what age does it stop being OK to not be good at things? Should I start judging her as incompetent and less than when she's four? Fourteen? Forty?

Perhaps more importantly is at what age will it stop being OK to her - because that's the age where we will begin to teach her the myth that asking for help is an admission of inadequacy. Oh, we won't mean to, of course. But when her teacher rolls his eyes and tells her to "just work it out for herself", her well-meaning parents huff in frustration and do it for her, and her friends all laugh because she didn't know the answer, she'll learn.

And unfortunately, then she'll become as limited as each one of us, trying to make her way dependant on only her own meagre resources in a world of knowledge and possibilities that expand by the nanosecond.

Fortunately, there is a cure. It's called "other people's resources", and it's the secret of success...

Today's Experiment:
Once you have identified someone you would like to be a part of your success team, (see yesterday's tip), the next step is to contact them. Today's experiment gives you an excellent process to use to make your contact successful. (This is assuming you already know the people you want on your team. If not, your next step is to find someone else who does! Read The Coach's Guide to Quantum Networking for more ideas on this one.)

In one of my favourite success books, Simple Steps to Impossible Dreams, author Steven Scott offers the following advice for recruiting mentors which I have loosely adapted for recruiting members of your success team:

1. Your "Dream Team"
Make a list of the people you would like to be on your success team. List the names in order of preference, starting with the potential members of your "dream team".

2. Relationship Inventory
Go down your list and note the status of your current relationship with each person. I like to use a home-made rating system as follows:

We regularly help each other out
5 Points

Our relationship is good
4 Points

They owe me a favour
3 Points

I owe them a favour
2 Points

Our relationship is poor
1 Point

(Note: Some people find the logic in my point system a bit puzzling. I find that people are more motivated to help when the relationship is strong than when they "owe me one".)

3. Research!
For each person on your list, write down everything you know about them - likes, dislikes, interests, and passions. Don't be afraid to ask around and do additional research - the better prepared you are, the better your meeting will go. (Plus it means you can put off actually contacting them for a little while longer! :-)

4. Prepare your approach!
Use what you know and what you've learned from your research to decide whether to make your approach formal or informal, general or specific, overt or covert. While "Hey - wanna be on my success team?" may work for some of the people on your list, it's liable to get you kicked out of as many rooms as it gets you in to.

At the very least, you should be able to say exactly what it is you would like them to help you with and why in less than a minute. Example: Bob, I'm always amazed at how much smarter I am when I'm talking with you than the rest of the time. Would you be willing to let me bounce my business ideas off you before I approach the banks?

5. Make contact!
The old rule about asking for help was : In person is best, on the phone is second best, and a letter is a distant third. These days, however, you may find e-mail gives you access to people you would never have been able to speak to in the past.

Whatever your means of communication, try and be brief - most people worth getting help from value their time!