Everyone Needs These 5 Types of People in Their Support Network
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Main Agreement
- People outside your organization will always give you something your team never can: an honest, real-world perspective with nothing to gain by telling you what you want to hear.
- Surround yourself with the right people in the right rooms and see how quickly your business and thinking change.
Yours most honest feedback it will never come from within your organization.
Most entrepreneurs are building their circle the wrong way. They pursue investors, collect business cards at networking events, and add connections on LinkedIn they’ll never speak to. Meanwhile the people who actually move the needle of their success, the ones who quietly fill the gaps between vision and execution, are nowhere to be found.
I’ve spent years studying what separates entrepreneurs who succeed long-term from those who burn out or flat out, and the pattern is almost never about strategy or capital. It’s about who’s in the room. As I wrote in a Previous part of why women in business need each otheryour network is one of the most underrated assets in your entire business portfolio.
Here are the five types of people every entrepreneur needs in their corner, and women already proving why.
1. One that pressure tests your thinking
According to CBI Insights, 42% of startups fail because they build something the market doesn’t really want and most of them didn’t have anyone in their corner willing to challenge the idea before it was too late. Entrepreneurs tend to believe in what they are building, which is both their greatest strength and their biggest blind spot.
What every founder needs before going any further is someone who can take what’s living in their head and determine if it actually works in the real world, not just in theory. Someone who will challenge assumptions, identify what has real appeal, and build a clear path from concept to execution without letting passion trump reality. Laura Fortey built Flow State Founder, an accelerator for women in business based in Vancouver, Canada, with a growing global community, around this very gap.
2. The one that builds your bottom
Once the idea is proven, you need the systems to support it or the whole thing collapses under its own weight. Office workers lose an average of 40% of their working day due to poor organization of informationand inefficient administration costs businesses up to $4,000 per employee per year. Founders are not immune to this, in fact they are often the worst offenders because the same visionary brain that builds the idea resists the systems needed to scale it.
As I pointed out in The 10 Dangers of Being an Entrepreneur (And How to Cope With Them)Operational risk is one of the most underrated threats to any growing business. Stephanie Millward it’s the kind of operator that steps into that void and brings order to the chaos, helping founders build the backbone that makes growth actually possible, not accidental.
3. The one that makes you actually sell
Between 30% and 50% of sales go to the seller who answer firstyet 80% of sales require five follow-up calls and 44% of reps give up after just one. Most entrepreneurs don’t have one sales problem; they have a trust problem. They think the sale is manipulative or desperate, so they hold back and watch the opportunities come out the door.
The truth is that selling has always been about connection and trust, and once you lose that one-on-one relationship with a customer, it’s nearly impossible to get back. Entrepreneurs who thrive for the long haul aren’t the loudest in the room; are the ones who show up with integrity every time and understand that the customer always has a choice; your job is simply to give them a reason to choose you. Janreeta Doel is shattering the used car salesman myth one by one, reminding entrepreneurs that selling is something we all do every day without calling it that, and that, done honestly, it’s one of the most powerful skills a business owner can build.
4. The one who keeps your body in the game
At the age of 35, 100% of women start losing weight bone densityhowever, most will not be tested until age 65. Osteoporotic fractures are more common than heart attack, stroke and breast cancer combined, and almost all can be prevented with early intervention and proper supplementation. Most women don’t think about bone mobility and health until something starts to hurt, weaken or slow them down, and by then the window for easy prevention has already passed.
Laura van der Veerthe founder of LUVA, a dietary supplement company built around bone, muscle, joint and mobility health, is advocating earlier awareness and early action for women at every stage. Your body is not separate from the performance of your business; it’s the engine that drives it, and unlike your revenue or team, you can’t replace it when it breaks.
5. The one who keeps the lifestyle stable
With alcohol consumption in the United States now at its lowest point in nearly 90 years, the curious sober movement is not a trend; it’s a shift in how ambitious people are choosing to protect their long-term energy and clarity. Kristin Zerbinfounder of Hoochy Booch, built a kombucha brand that shows up at weddings, festivals and big events, making the healthy choice enjoyable, not a sacrifice. The lifestyle choices you make in the spaces between jobs are quietly shaping how long you can sustain what you’re building.
Here’s what most entrepreneurs are missing. These five people should not be formal business contacts, coaches or paid consultants. Some of the most valuable people in your corner will be the one you’re sharing a meal with at a backyard BBQ, the friend who understands sales, or the woman who’s building something in wellness that makes you think differently about your energy. People outside your organization will always give you something your team never can: an honest, real-world perspective with nothing to gain by telling you what you want to hear. Surround yourself with the right five people in the right rooms and see how quickly your business and your thinking change.
Main Agreement
- People outside your organization will always give you something your team never can: an honest, real-world perspective with nothing to gain by telling you what you want to hear.
- Surround yourself with the right people in the right rooms and see how quickly your business and thinking change.
Yours most honest feedback it will never come from within your organization.
Most entrepreneurs are building their circle the wrong way. They pursue investors, collect business cards at networking events, and add connections on LinkedIn they’ll never speak to. Meanwhile the people who actually move the needle of their success, the ones who quietly fill the gaps between vision and execution, are nowhere to be found.
I’ve spent years studying what separates entrepreneurs who succeed long-term from those who burn out or flat out, and the pattern is almost never about strategy or capital. It’s about who’s in the room. As I wrote in a Previous part of why women in business need each otheryour network is one of the most underrated assets in your entire business portfolio.
