Why Startups Should Give Their Team Members Total Freedom

Traditionally speaking, employees work a strict 9-5 schedule at a physical location. And this works great with traditional businesses that need physical workers doing physical tasks.

But for entrepreneurs building digital startups, such as apps that don’t need a physical presence, a more modern solution is required.

Get a Worldwide Army of Workers

Imagine you are building a new app or tech company. You want to have a worldwide reach. You want to have influencers and engagement from across the globe.

You want people out on the street, rallying the troops, harnessing engagement, attracting influencers, users, and selling your product.

Uber is a great example of this. In fact, I just saw an Uber unit “on the street” set up at a gas station putting in the leg work and attracting more partners. Even in an already busy Uber market like Los Angeles, they are still pushing hard.

I see so many companies fail by making one huge mistake.

The lock up all their employees and team members in a room, and they don’t let them out. If you are trying to build a prison, you are doing a great job. But a modern tech company? No way.

If you have an excellent new app or startup with 20 team members, but they are all jammed into an office in one location—does that make sense?

Instead, hire people across states and even countries. Kick them out of the offices, and get them out there taking meetings, and showing off your product. It naturally expands your reach, promotes growth, expansion and networking opportunities that may not have otherwise been available.

Encourage Business Trips

I see a lot of companies not supporting business or personal “work remote” trips. They think their employees won’t be as productive.

I have found the exact opposite to be true on my journey of helping build globally recognized, mammoth companies.

In fact, my number one reason for success in one of my most recent businesses was entirely due to a chance business trip where I was able to network with the right people at the right time.

If I sat in a cube, that would have never happened. Same goes for my team members; I have seen a lot of positives come from business and personal trips.

People often argue against remote workers because they say they need a lot of face time. And they are entirely right, but for the wrong reason.

You want your team members out there networking and endorsing your product, not sitting around and being yes men/women for the boss.

It doesn’t even matter if those team members are salespeople or not.

You aren’t going to attract influencers, clients, customers by locking everyone in the office. Kick everyone out of your office this week and tell them to do some networking.

All Team Members Should Be Networking and Improving

I don’t care what your role is in a company; you can always be improving yourself personally and professionally.

I encourage all my team members to be out networking and expanding their knowledge.

In many industries where physical presence is not the end all be all, you don’t need to lock everyone in an office.

Make All Roles Performance Based

The common argument against some of these ideas is that employees will not perform if you don’t look over their shoulder and tell them what to do.

You can still look over your team member’s shoulder remotely and tell them what to do (if that’s your style) if you incorporate performance-based incentives.

Meaning, they get paid for performance. And in fact, their job depends on it.

Plain and simply, everyone has to get their work done, they have to do it well, and you will reward them handsomely for going above and beyond with incentives.

At the end of the day, I don’t care if my employee wants to work from Timbuktu, as long as the work gets done well, that’s all that matters to me. And I’m totally inspired by remote locations myself, so I get the appeal. Then, if they can combine that with a business networking/sales element, I’m even happier.