Do Business Well

If you ask around, you’ll find that most of your friends, family, and even office colleagues would like to run their own businesses. If you then ask them why they aren’t currently self-employed, or why they haven’t even begun to plan their venture, you’ll probably uncover a litany of excuses, from a lack of time to a chronically overdrawn checking account to simply not knowing what to do first.

Often, these excuses are easier to tackle than aspiring entrepreneurs think. Indeed, they may realize this but lack the fortitude required to start a business, and are instead using one of these other reasons to mask the lack of self-confidence they have about their own abilities.

This probably won’t be the first time you hear it—nor certainly the last—but starting, running, and then succeeding at your own business takes a lot of work; in fact, usually more work than money. It also requires that an entrepreneur be comfortable with keeping lots of balls in the air at once. This requirement can be nerve-wracking for people who have never run their own business, since, especially in a large corporate setting, employees tend to be held responsible for one kind of assignment or department, with strict orders never to stray from it.

In addition, as a business owner, you will be required to set goals for the company and then do everything possible to fulfill them within the specified time frame, budget, and available resources. Sounds easy, right? Not so fast. Especially if you’re starting a service-oriented business where you’re the chief cook and bottle-washer, and as CEO, you have to answer phones, write checks, and placate customers, all within a five-minute period.

Therefore, it’s important that if your primary reason for wanting to start a business is to make a lot of money, you should realize that the steps you will have to take to get to that point—not to mention the time it will take—may require more than you want to invest.

Similarly, if your main reason for starting a business is because you hate your current job or boss, you’d better rethink your strategies. There will be times in your business when you will have to repeatedly work fourteen hours a day, or bite your tongue when dealing with a difficult client, and you may actually look back fondly on a previous job because: you never worked more than an eight-hour day, or you could hand the disagreeable tasks off to a coworker. In most cases, when you first start your business, it’s you and only you who will have to answer to clients. Later, as you add employees to help with the workload, clients still may prefer to work with the owner, and when you’ve underestimated the time it would take to finish a project but promised the customer you’d have it ready by nine the next morning, it’s you who is on the line, not your boss. You are the boss.

In any case, as a business owner you’re going to have to love your work enough to continue to work through difficult situations. If you start a business because you’re unhappy with your current professional or personal life, there may be times you regret starting your own show; but if the work is enjoyable and stimulating, the topic is entertaining, and you love what you’re doing, you’ll be better equipped to deal with the occasional downside of being self-employed.

That’s why taking the time to honestly evaluate your motivations for starting your own business and closely examining your personal strengths and weaknesses will not only help pinpoint the areas to watch out for, but this research may even help you to refine your business idea.

Get a notebook to jot down thoughts, ideas, and observations that occur to you as you read this. You’ll also use this notebook to write your answers to the questions in the quizzes that appear throughout the post These exercises are designed to help you create a vision of your future business and your future entrepreneurial life—as well as to help you succeed in business beyond your wildest dreams.

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