As the founder, business owner, and CEO of Virtual Latinos, these are some tips I want to share with other business owners that I have discovered and found useful through the years.
Listen to your team
Keep an open mind and space for ideas, comments, and feedback! Plenty of great ideas come from your team based on things you discuss or what they think you should implement to improve the company. I am proud to say that we have encouraged our team members to be very proactive!
I’ve learned that every team member’s opinion and voice is just as important as mine, as a CEO. I think the main advice I’d like to share is: be open to learning from everybody at all times.
Build an intercultural team
I’m convinced that leading a company with team members from different backgrounds, races, and cultures is very special. Furthermore, this gives a greater chance of becoming successful because the more diverse a company or business is, the more potential there is to learn from other people’s experiences and expertise.
Virtual Latinos is one of the best examples of that! Although we are all Latinos and speak Spanish, we all come from different countries. I strongly believe that having this wide diversity of people as part of our company makes it a lot easier to create content and engage with our community, especially because we’re hiring professionals from all over Latin America.
Respect all teammates
As leaders in the business world, we’re creating communities and teams. To really make these communities inclusive, you need to have complete respect for everyone. I think respect is the number one thing! You need to be respectful of everybody’s differences and backgrounds, and be open to every type of person as long as they align with your main values and vision.
At Virtual Latinos, we’re a fully inclusive type of company. We hire not only from different countries but also both men and women, regardless of their beliefs and sexual preferences; everybody is included and welcome. On our internal team, we have a whole mix of people. It’s really great to see how everybody is respectful and very professional, regardless of how they look physically, their sexual orientation, or their religion.
Lead by example
It might sound cliché! It seems obvious that every leader needs to set a good example for the rest of their team, but this is especially true for the CEO. Not only do CEOs have to be a good example to the leaders below them and the rest of the team, but the CEO also needs to act as a link and unite the whole organization.
Every leader can have different leadership methodologies and ways of leading their team, but the CEO has to align with the entire community as a whole so that everybody can look up to him/her.
Maintain a positive mindset
Part of the success of this company is that thoughts like “I could never do that” or “That’s not possible” never crossed my mind. Our thoughts have such an influential role in everything we do. I recommend that you try to be open to new things, even if you’re not an expert or don’t feel entirely ready to do it.
Don’t wait for perfection
Try not to perfect every aspect. Of course, you always want to do things the best way possible, but what I mean is that nothing will ever be ready if your goal is to reach perfection.
I’m a very detail-oriented person who usually likes to invest a lot of time in perfecting everything I do as much as possible. Now I can tell you, being less of a perfectionist is a much better approach!
Remember: always be open to feedback and to do things differently than you originally planned.
Learn to delegate
This was very hard for me because I always thought I was the best option to do most tasks related to my business, and that’s not the best way to be an entrepreneur at all! Now, instead of being on top of what everybody is doing, I trust that the people I hired will do the best job possible.
So, occasionally take a break and think about how delegating and outsourcing a piece of what you do could be the best way to grow a company!
I hope these tips can be helpful for some entrepreneurs and business owners, just as they were for me at some point!
