Business Ownership vs. Business Management: The Entrepreneur Dilemma
If you are an entrepreneur, does this situation sound familiar?
You had a talent – graphic design, photographer, accounting - you turned into a business. Fueled by passion and excitement, you came up with a name, built a website, launched social media accounts, and landed your first few clients. So much fun!
You are finally doing what you have always wanted, and your schedule is filling up. Wait, it is filling up too fast! Between meeting with clients and fulfilling their requests, you’re suddenly working 60 hours a week, and all of those other business management duties like replying to emails, marketing your services, balancing your budget, and growing the business still must be completed.
No worries, your business is booming so marketing and getting new clients in the pipeline can wait. You will handle the business stuff another day.
Then out of nowhere, you have openings in your schedule as your other projects wind down. You find yourself scrambling to handle the neglected business management duties.
You get some traction, and the phone is ringing again, and your schedule is full.
And repeat.
The Never-Ending Cycle
Have you been caught in this cycle of high and low work while never actually growing your business? Entrepreneurs get it. Entrepreneurs also think they can do it all. Unfortunately, it is not the case.
You did not open your photography business, accounting firm, or graphic design agency just so you could spend all day focusing on budgets, marketing, and writing business documents.
The truth about entrepreneurship is that doing the work you set out to do and actually running a business are two separate and full-time jobs. So how do you follow the passion of your business while still making sure everything is running correctly and sustainably in the background without working 80 hours each week?
The Two Big Entrepreneurial Fears
Beyond workload, two common fears hold many business owners back:
1. Time Management. You love the work but struggle with the backend tasks that keep the business running.
2. Fear of Delegation. Letting someone else handle parts of your business can feel terrifying.
· What if they do not do things how you did?
· What if they do not understand the direction of the business?
· What if they do not get along with your clients?
· What if they ruin everything?
These are fair questions. It is always a risk to bring someone new into your business especially when you are just starting out as they will be a prominent person in your business.
In order to fix each of these dilemmas, let’s work through a few more steps on understanding the difference between doing the work and managing the business. Avoiding delegation leads to burnout and stagnation.
How to Fix the Cycle: Define Your Two Job Roles
The first step you need to take is to define your two distinct job descriptions. Write out a list of duties that belong to your work and another list that belong to business management.
This list will be unique to your company but the way to separate them is very straightforward.
Ø The Work: Does the activity directly make money? In other words, are you charging someone for the activity? If someone is paying you to do the work, that is an activity for the work column.
Ø Business Management: If no one is paying you to perform the activity then that’s an activity for the business management column. These are things like posting on social media or paying bills. While they are important to running the business, no one is paying you for the time you spend doing those activities.
Get detailed in each category. Activities such as ordering supplies or responding to incoming requests are important activities that cannot be overlooked.
Accept What You Shouldn’t Be Doing
Now that you have lists of everything you have been doing (or should not have been doing), it is time to decide which of those activities you are not good at, the ones that you truly dislike doing, and the ones that drain your energy.
Be honest with yourself here. It may feel brutal to dissect your business this way, but we all have our strengths. In fact, you are more likely to have strengths in your work category since those activities are the reason you opened your business in the first place, right?
Grab a highlighter and highlight the activities you are not good at and the ones that drain your energy. This is the first step to finding out exactly where you need help in your business to create an atmosphere of growth.
Now you have a list of activities that you are great at and want to focus on. You also have a list of activities which you may not be so great at and can outsource.
Options for Outsourcing
Outsourcing aspects of your business may feel terrifying since you are giving up an element of control. However, it is the only way to let you focus completely on your strengths while not causing burnout or letting your business fail. The good news is that you do not have to jump directly into hiring a full-time employee, which may still be a financial risk at this point.
When deciding how to go about outsourcing your activities, consider each of the following for every activity.
Technology
There seems to be a technical solution for nearly every problem nowadays. Budgets and accounting can be made easier with technology. Scheduling your social media posts ahead of time can be expedited with technology. Allowing clients to book directly into your calendar without 20 emails back and forth can be done with technology.
Consider which of your activities can be automated using technology and analyze the cost based on how much time you spend on that activity.
Contractors
If your activity cannot be automated with technology or requires a special set of skills, hiring a contractor can be a great option to get you going rather than running out and getting a full-time assistant.
For things like social media management, web development, content creation, or even virtual assistants you can find a contractor that best suits your needs.
Assistant
Whether virtual or in-person, hiring a full-time assistant is a big step. It is not the wrong step, but make sure it is necessary to avoid creating more work for yourself with higher overhead.
Also, do not pick an assistant who is exactly like you.
You may find someone you relate with well and you get along great. You have the same interests and the same personality. But you know what else you have? Someone who has the same strengths and weaknesses as yourself.
Find someone who complements your weaknesses but still understands the direction your business is headed in and the goals you are trying to reach.
Business Consultant
If you have made it this far and you are still not sold on giving up certain parts of your business or are struggling to decide which route is right for you, bringing in a business consultant early in your business life can increase your chances for success.
A business consultant can help you do all of the above while also jumping into your business goals and designing a roadmap for achievement. A business consultant will give you the most bang for your buck as they are professionals trained to step in, get hands-on, and make a business work. By the time your business consultant walks out the door you will have a business running as a machine and growing like crazy.
Develop Efficiency
The next step you want to take to separate the work you love doing from the work of managing a business is to develop efficiency.
Efficiency comes in the form of:
· Process Development. Develop processes that expedite the time it takes to complete tasks. Processes can be anything from how you track your expenses or send out billing to how you train new team members. No task is too small for process development.
· Schedule Management. Managing your schedule and learning how to control your time is absolutely essential to creating a balance between your work and business management duties. Block out time to complete necessary tasks such as scheduling meetings back-to-back and block out time for completing work. Treat the time you block out for yourself with the same priority you treat client meetings. Know what needs to be done ahead of time and tackle your to-do list for the entire allotted time. Not utilizing the time you set aside for business activities creates those long, after-hours workdays that we just learned to avoid with outsourcing.
· Business Automation. Automation comes in the form of outsourcing we talked about earlier. If your blog content is delivered to your inbox weekly from your contract copywriter, that’s automation. If your bills are paid automatically through your bank account, that’s automation. If your clients book their own meetings with you through your new scheduling program or virtual assistant, that’s automation. All these activities cut down on the time you are spending after hours to make sure things are running smoothly.
· Growth Strategies. Getting off the roller coaster of high and low business cycles by making your growth strategies more efficient is vitally important. Hopefully, some of these have been automated for you through things like social media management contractors or tools or content creators for web content and newsletters. Having those items removed from your schedule allows you to focus on the activities with the biggest impact like one-on-one coffee meetings with potential clients or attending networking events.
There are plenty of other ways to make your business more efficient. So, take some time to create the processes and implement everything you can to create efficiency.
Focus on Growth
Now that your business is running at full speed and you have been reintroduced to yourself and family time, it should be easy to shift your focus to the growth of your business.
The number one factor in determining whether your business will grow is customer satisfaction. And let’s face it, now that you are not overwhelmed with all your business management duties, you are absolutely rocking your work and your customers are more than satisfied. So where do you go next?
3 Ways to Increase Revenue Without Adding Services:
1. Get more clients. Getting more clients is a clear answer here. The more clients you have, the more work you can charge for. If your schedule is not already full then this should absolutely be the current focus for your growth strategy.
2. Raise your prices. If you are like most new business owners, you likely started with low prices to attract customers and gain experience. While this is a good strategy to get you started, it is not sustainable. If your schedule is full and your clients are happy, consider raising your rates for future projects.
3. Hire a team. If your calendar is full and your rates match your value, it is time to hire a team. This can be a daunting step as you have worked so hard by this point, and you do not want someone new to come in and ruin all you have built. Consider what we said above about hiring contractors first until you are comfortable with bringing in a full-time team. If you are looking to build a remote team, we have an article to help you through that process.
In Conclusion
You’ve put in the hard work, refined your processes, and built a foundation for sustainable success. Now, as your team expands and your business flourishes, you stand at the crossroads of leadership – ready to shape the future in a way that aligns with your vision. Whether you choose to step fully into the role of a business owner or bring on a management team to help drive growth, the possibilities are exciting. One thing is certain, you’ve proven that entrepreneurship isn’t just about doing the work, but about building something that thrives beyond you. And that, in itself, is an incredible achievement!
