I’d consider myself an intermediate entrepreneur. I have nearly eight years of self-employment under my belt. I know the pitfalls of entrepreneurship well enough to avoid them (relatively speaking), and I now am able to offer a considerable amout of help and guidance to newer business owners. I don’t have a million-dollar company or any full time employees, and I haven’t been on the cover of Entrepreneur magazine–yet.
I’d also have to say that in the past two years, I’ve had to overcome some of the biggest challenges of entrepreneurship. I made some whopping mistakes in my first years, but the challenges of the intermediate entrepreneur are a little different. I think the challenges we face are both harder to recognize and can be more difficult to overcome–mostly because we’ve been doing business for a while, and teaching an older dog newer tricks isn’t exactly a cakewalk.
The five following unofficial challenges are ones I have either had to face myself or see my peers struggling with on a regular basis. I’d love to hear what you would to add to the list.
I Bought Myself a Job
After about four years of being a solopreneur, I wanted to increase my income. But the way my business was set up, the only way to make more money was to put in more hours. I didn’t want more hours… and thus, I began the process of moving my business from a one-woman show to a semi-outsourced model. I had to go through the whole process all over again in my third business and, strangely, the second time was harder than the first.
Part of the differences can simply be attributed to the difference in business models. But I can also say that when I did it the first time, I knew I could always go back to my old way of doing everything myself if I had to. This time around, it was a much more permanent shift, and it was scary. It was a big risk; I was worried about quality control and ballooning project management. And if it didn’t work, I knew my business wouldn’t make it.
Thankfully, it was one of the best decisions I have ever made. I also didn’t sleep for about a month as I went through the toughest part of the transition. Billing out your hours is a great way to run a small business. But in the end, people and time have a finite amout of scalability. If you want your business (and income) to scale beyond what you are physically capable of, you need to stop being an employee and start being a manager.
Losing the Big Picture
When we first start a business, it is so incredibly easy to see the big picture–sometimes to a fault, as we can tend to gloss over the details. But after years of running the show, managing those details becomes our everyday life. And it becomes harder and harder to think outside of the box if your nose is constantly to the grindstone.
I know this happens if I have spent three to five months or so just focusing on to-do lists. Although there is a time and place to be focusing on the details of running a business, entrepreneurs are born and bred to be big thinkers. It’s not in our nature to be the detail person.
It’s times like this that I know I need to hire a coach or do some co-consulting with one of my peers. I’m working with an amazing coach right now who has helped me to break out of my day-to-day grind to refocus on growth. It’s been a refreshing and much-needed change to get back to doing what I do best: dreaming big and putting a plan of action in place to make it happen.
Living Within the Limits of 24/7
My second business was a service-based business. So when I went to expand, I naturally thought of finding other service providers to bill out their time in addition to mine. But I never thought beyond billing hours.
And oh, how I wish I had.
I could have written e-books, I could have organized seminars, I could have built an advertising-supported website, I… coulda, woulda, shoulda. These days I work really hard to diversify my income sources, and I make it my number-one priority to add new sources of revenue several times a year. Some of my biggest money-makers from a year ago are gone today–and I’m still in business today because I have never kept all of my eggs in one basket
The ADDpreneur
Honestly, this is probably my number-one ongoing challenge: staying focused and being disciplined. I’m not the only one; I have watched multimillionaires run their businesses into the ground (and sell their mansions in the process) because they couldn’t stay focused and took their business in a new direction every month.
Whether or not you believe in ADD/ADHD, the truth of the matter is that many entrepreneurs share the same traits as people diagnosed with this disease. Although I believe that many of my strengths are tied to being ADD, focus and discipline are something I have to work on constantly. I doubt that will ever change. I’m thankful I know myself well enough that I can catch myself when I get off track. But if you can’t do that, all I can say is make sure you have someone in your life or company who can do it for you.
Keeping Up with the Times
Earlier in my career, I loved–loved –learning new things by just jumping in and doing them. I still love learning, but I’ve recently come to a point where I am feeling, shall I say… old(er). I may still get carded when I order a glass of wine (OK, rarely), but honestly, I’m no newbie anymore. My industry (internet business) changes rapidly. Things that worked a year ago don’t bring in the same results today. This means I’m having to learn new things all the time.
My passion for what I do keeps me going, but honestly, I have a couple of projects that have been sitting “on deck” for about six months that I should have moved to the front burner a long time ago. But I have let the learning curve be my excuse for not getting it done. I’m not one who likes to admit to using excuses in my business. So again, I’ve been working with my great business coach to bust through my resistance to getting this stuff done.
Overcoming Challenges = Business Growth
Some of these challenges I’ve successfully worked though. Some are still active challenges in my life. I can say with 100 percent certainty that every challenge I have overcome as an entrepreneur has also been my fuel for growth. It’s so ironic and sometimes frustrating that these challenges seem so big and difficult when they are in front of us. Yet when they are behind us, they somehow shrink into tiny gems of knowledge.
If I could bottle up and sell that shrinking process I would be on the front cover of Entrepreneur magazine, I’m quite sure of it. Until then, we get to face our fears, climb over mile-high mountains, and get stuck in the quicksand every now and then.
And honestly, I’m grateful that I get to take this journey as an entrepreneur in this life. The rewards of running our own businesses make us feel lucky to have these problems in the first place.
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Interestingly, as I was coaching one of my small business clients a couple of months ago, the same theme emerged. She was struggling with ways to grow her business, and was looking at one of her competitors as a bar for setting her own rates. She didn’t feel like she was as good as he was, so she valued her work less than his.
