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Entrepreneurship is tough.
Anyone who has the passion, drive & focus to start their own business needs to be applauded. After all, they’ve voluntarily signed up to the business equivalent of the Hunger Games. You can be challenging your inner Katniss Everdeen (I VOLUNTEER!) one minute & the next you’re sipping on a poison berry smoothie made by the office dog, unsure of where it all went wrong.
I mean you’d have to be crazy to opt into playing a game whereby the longer you survive, the more likely you are to die. After all, you only have to look around to see that longevity in business can, sometimes, mean nothing. Goldman Sacks, Woolworth’s, Toys R Us – I mean history has proven that.
& yet, so many do. Why? Because, if you’re that way inclined, it’s such a rewarding, enjoyable & gratifying journey.
But, while it’s great to read those motivational blogs about how “starting a business has been the best thing I’ve ever done” & “I’ve really never looked back – you can do it too!”; what about talking about the challenges? What about those that struggle? Those that immensely enjoy what they do, they are successful but they run into a tough time? What do they do?
Well, hopefully, this honest blog will examine that. With some suggestions, pulled together over the many many years of being in the fortunate position of talking & working with Entrepreneurs, around how to overcome the understandably tough times that every entrepreneur runs into at some stage during their business career.
So what can you do?
Surround yourself with like-minded people
You’re not special. I’m sorry but you’re not. To quote my mother.
But it’s true. Whatever type of recruitment business you run, you aren’t the first & you sure won’t be the last. After all, Recruitment Entrepreneurs are Improvers rather than Innovators when it comes to businesses. & that’s a very positive position to be in.
Why? Because for every struggle you go through (& even the ones right now) there are 101 people who have gone through the same. That’s why the first piece of advice is to ensure you surround yourself with those types of people. People who have seen it all before – they might be running their own agency right now or they might have already ridden that wave. Whether that be a mentor you talk with on a regular basis; a group on LinkedIn full of like-minded people or even subscribing to a podcast where you hear from people in the same position as you on a daily basis.
Surround yourself with those types of people & create a professional network that you can bounce ideas off, celebrate with & even just “rant” to. If you’re unsure where to start – go to LinkedIn right now, search for businesses owners within a 10-mile radius of you & get connected.
I apologise if I sound glib about it – but honestly, do it.
Trust in the process
Look, we’ve all been there. You have a rubbish day, rubbish week or even a rubbish month & you start to question everything from your morning routine to the way you write your emails.
Entrepreneurship is tough enough without trying to reinvent the wheel every time you have a bad day. When things aren’t quite firing in the direction you’d hoped, what’s the best thing to do? To trust in the process. To trust the individual (you) that’s got you to the point you are now.
You run your own business. You’re a fricking Entrepreneur – you must have been successful enough, confident enough &, in some cases, crazy enough to take the leap & start your own business; so trust in the techniques & strategies that got you here.
Now, of course, that’s not saying you shouldn’t innovate. Of course, you should; but the fundamentals of recruitment (as a good example) are the same – have the assurance & the confidence to trust in what you do. Yes, you might be having a bad day but what, you trying to tell me Leo Messi doesn’t have a bad day?… Well maybe he doesn’t, but you aren’t him so just re-read the above & trust in your skills.
Awareness
See the issue as it is, not worse than it.
One of the biggest challenges, when you run your own business, is remaining objective. Now I’m a very emotional professional – I can go from 0 to 100 back to 0 pretty quick & I admit that sometimes it’s a detrimental trait, but at least I am aware of it.
To be able to remain objective in your business will mean that, when the tougher times come or the challenges crop up, you are able to approach them rationally rather than compound them with being (as my colleagues call me from time to time) overly-passionate about the situation.
But it’s a skill &, again, I am not being glib & suggesting you’ll read this blog, seek out a challenge & things will be as smooth as the best Sun-Pat on the market. But having that awareness, that realisation that sometimes it’s far more beneficial to sperate yourself from the business; to view each challenge (& success) with a pair of objective eyes – it will really make your long term relationship with your business much more enjoyable.
Closing thoughts
Challenges will always be there. If you aren’t running into challenges in your business then you aren’t growing; a business without challenges is stagnant &, albeit I might not know you personally, I am sure you didn’t start your own business to become stagnant.
So that’s what I’d suggest. Surround yourself with like-minded people; trust in your process & be aware that running your own business is like opting into the 100th annual Hunger Games armed with nothing but a Jennifer Lawrence Autobiography & a nerf gun. Great fun but not without its challenges.
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