When You Know it's Working
Having a successful business is great. Being that successful business … is not so great. You don’t work; you don’t get paid. And the better the work you do, the more people want you to do the work. For early-stage business owners, especially those of us who earn a living through service-based work, turning down new business is not an option. Turn a job down and you risk closing a door. Yet keeping that door wide open is impractical, exhausting and ultimately, I think, a roadmap to failure. Sooner or later you’ll burn out. Deadlines will slide, quality may not be as high … it becomes an exercise in self-sabotage.
When you hit that point, you’ve got two choices: get bigger or get smaller. Either way, you can’t stay where you are. Here’s an update on how I’m getting bigger.
A few months ago I blogged about making a leap of faith this year in my business. First up was finding office space and hiring an assistant to free up some of my time. Of course the first Catch-22 here is that these things take time, and as busy as things have been for me, time is what I absolutely didn’t have. Compound that with some travel, a bad bout with pneumonia, a personal loss and what feels like a jet stream of new business, and I was going nowhere fast.
Then came the Advanced Pre-Emptive Tax Strategies seminar about a month ago. The funny thing about Diane’s seminars is that those of us at the back of the room are still learning and experiencing much of the same things as those of you sitting in the seats. This seminar was absolutely phenomenal in the amount of energy and ideas it generated, not to mention kick-starting the 40 or so people who were there. My take-home lesson was that it didn’t matter how busy I was – I had to find the time to get bigger, or plan to get smaller.
So with the help of Craigslist I started looking for space and people. The space wasn’t too hard. There are quite a few executive office buildings in Reno, where you can get a couple of hundred square feet with utilities, shared common spaces and wi-fi for a good deal. Course you never know who your neighbors will be from month to month, but that’s another story. It’s like a frat house for businesses, in that sense. We’re currently sharing a floor with a very loud counselor (“Well [Bob], your problem is that you’re a CPA and a [bleep] drunk!” was shouted through the wall the other day) as well as an employee drug/alcohol testing facility, (“Ma’am, if you can’t see the large sign that says “Drug and alcohol testing this way” you may want to hold off for another day”), and a medical office with really bad taste in music (Air Supply? Really??). But the space is clean, serviceable, cheap, fast wi-fi, and I feel much the same way I did with my very first apartment – kind of excited to be growing up!
People was the next step. This one was more frightening. My field is relatively specialized – this is not a corporation mill, and I need more than someone who can send out forms. That means training, which means time, and so on. Again, I went with the Craigslist option and got a huge response. It was nice to think that all these people thought I was worth responding to, but sad to see so many people had none of the qualifications I had specified. Then an email came in from another paralegal looking for some extra work. We got together and something clicked. Her background is different, but having paralegal training is a huge bonus. She already knows why it’s important for paperwork to be drawn up correctly and for everything to be properly spelled! Plus her background in Wills and Trusts will allow us to begin offering estate planning services; something I’ve been wanting to do. And she was up for the challenge of helping me to sort things out do we could grow. We made a deal and went shopping the next day for office furniture (hey, girls bond over shopping, what can I say).
This past week we got into the nuts and bolts of how my business works and how to make it better. There was lots of training, lots of mistakes, and lots of explaining. But towards the end of the week, two things happened. The first was that I realized on Thursday that even with all the delays, re-dos, etc., we had gotten more done together than I could have done on my own that day. The second was that when I left Friday afternoon, my desk was clear. For the first time in a long time I didn’t just get tired and go home. The hard work’s not over though. I’ll be putting in quite a few more weekends. But knowing that we’re already accomplishing more together than I could on my own tells me that it’s working. And that makes all the hard work worthwhile.
(P.S. If you would like to know more about our new Estate Planning package, email me at info@businessfirstformations.com.
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Megan, great post. My favorite line, of course, is “Bob, your problem is you’re a CPA and a ^&*% drunk!”
I think I need a T-shirt made up.
Congrats, Megan, on all the big steps!
What’s really neat is that Myra and I both see the growth potential in what we’re doing. She’s begun documenting our training sessions into a manual that she’ll be using to train the next person, and so on. I suspect our one little office will expand sooner than I thought.
There is an irony that your post followed my post yesterday. We’re both experiencing growth and, with it, the highs and lows of being a business owner.
Every time I start to question what on earth I’m doing, like the times when my employees made more than I did, when business was either feast or famine and then the computer quits… that’s when I would think about what it would be like to have to work 8 - 5 (or more) and ask for time off.
Having my own business - I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Great that you are taking the "big" step! I've been there more than once and it's tough. Finding the right person to work with you is key...I hired a personal assistant a couple of years ago and it just isn't working the way I envisioned it. Your post is reminding me that I need to address this or continue to find I'm just limping along.
Years (19!) ago I decided learning transcendental meditation (yeah, the same one the Beatles are famous for!) and we had to watch a tape by the Maharishi himself. He made a comment that always stayed with me..."when you think you don't have the time is when you need it the most." Seems like that's the way it is with most things! Best of luck with your growing pains!
I was talking to one of my clients about a month ago after the last seminar I did in San Diego. She told me some advise she’d gotten from her step father who was a very successful business man.
He said that whenever you wonder if you should get rid of an employee, that means you must do it right away. The fact that you would question whether you should make a change means that you’ve already thought about it at some level. Otherwise, you would just never even question whether you need to do it. If it’s in your consciousness, questioning whether to keep an employee, you already know the answer.
For me, every time I’ve agonized about getting rid of an employee and then finally done it, I always discover so many things wrong that I wish I had done it months before. I have NEVER regretted firing someone, only regretted not doing it sooner.
And, Megan, I think I’m obsessing on the counselor’s statement. Bob’s problem isn’t just that he’s a drunk? It’s because he’s a CPA AND a drunk?
I would just love to meet this counselor some day.
I can just see it now ” Diagnosis: (insert name) your problem is, you’re a (insert profession here) and you’re a ^&*% drunk” (TM). What with all the Print-on-Demand technology available, there’s an online T-Shirt business waiting to happen!
My intention here is not to completely derail this thread, however, Mary and Megan’s comments sparked a memory of my first yoga classess. There was a family-owned Italian restaurant next door to the studio. We would be sitting there in Lotus pose, meditating, and at least three different times there were loud outbursts in Italian and knives thrown into the shared wall between their kitchen and our sacred (yet rented) space. Then the police would arrive…….
MW: ROFL!!!
Mike and I keep spouting the line at each other … “Well Mike, the problem is that you’re [insert activity here] and you’re a [bleeping] drunk!” He doesn’t drink though, which takes some of the fun away.
I’m with you on the business owner and employee points. At the same time, I know it’s not for everyone and thank heavens - or who would help us in our businesses? But I can also see how fine the line is between having compassion as an employer, when life gets in the way at times, and yet making sure the job gets done so there’s enough money to cover those times when life gets in the way.
Some musings on employees:
As a business owner who has hired and fired, and as an employee-manager who has hired and fired, you really need to clearly identify the business needs and find employees whose skills match the current business needs. Too often, one can run across a good person, but they don’t have all the skills to really do the job needed well. If you start thinking things like, “… but they can do X and that might help us someday…” then you’re setting yourself up for problems unless you have a training plan identified to help them do why you are hiring them in the first place. In larger companies where you have a good person in the wrong job, often a transfer to another department that does need their current skill set is a good deal for both the company and the employee. Small companies don’t usually have this luxury.
If they don’t have most of the skills needed, then you are incurring a higher risk by hiring them in the first place. I once hired an individual to do sales but they did not have a lot of experience with the type of sales my business did. I knew it going in, the individual was up front about it, and we had a training plan to help develop the area of weakness. Despite the training, the employee wasn’t able to achieve the results easily obtained by others with more experience. I ended up letting them go because it was hurting my business. I debated about letting them go before the end of the probationary period, gave them the extra month and a half to improve, but ended up going with my earlier assessment because performance didn’t change
There are a lot more skills needed for a business owner to hire and manage employees, but there is definitely overlap when it comes to delegation. Since one goal is to be able to work “on” the business instead of “in” the business, then employees can be part of a solid strategy to get there.
Good comments Penny. I’d add one more - their value system. I’ve hired people “assuming” that they knew what it meant it start for work at the right time, stay through the day, be polite to customers and each other …and found, amazingly, some people who felt that was all unimportant.
How about someone who calls in response to your ad and wants to know if they get out of bed and come in they’ll definitely have the job!! Honest, it happened to my husband years ago! LOL
Love it! Some of the replies I got from CraigsList were along that line … “I can only work here, here and here, and I need this, and I want this … and when can I start?” Ummm … never?
I was really surprised at how many people said “tell me more about your job opening and I’ll decide whether or not to send a resume.” It made me wonder about whether the high rate of unemployment is entirely due to a faltering economy.
I spent a fair amount of time writing my employment ads so people would self-screen. I still had some real interesting telephone interviews, “well the job listing said evenings but I’m available days”, and “you mean I have to SELL?” when the ad title was SALES-PT.
Our state has a free unemployment resume database for employers to post openings and applicants can search for jobs. I used this, along with other advertising, to find applicants. I was continually amazed at the number of people who did not spell check, use proper grammar or punctuation.
I continually saw really bad writing skills in the career objective statements, job duties descriptions and comments fields. It makes me wonder how some of these people graduated from high school.
That, combined with the “me” attitude that Megan described, explains a lot more of the unemployment numbers than blaming the economy. There are a lot of people out there who don’t have even the very basic job skills but expect special treatment.
The staff member I let go thought they were being discriminated against, so we had to deal with that as well. They didn’t have any basis and I had plenty of performance data, but it still cost me attorney fees to review the letters we sent that were required by state law.
But I’m still not against employees. Somebody has to create jobs!
I saw a tremendous amount of spelling and grammatical errors, too. In my business it’s a non-starter, so those entries got a courtesy look-through only.
I did some English tutoring a couple of years ago at a local college … it was scary. I know that Internet-speak has changed things, and our language is continually evolving, but if you don’t know what the rules are, how do you know how to stretch them, as opposed to just creating gibberish?
When we lived in Maryland a furniture store started to run television ads for bedroom “suites” as bedroom “suits” because of the widespread mis-pronunciation of “suites” as “suits” - just how bad is that! It was like fingernails on a chalkboard every time I heard it!
And I agree about resumes…if they can’t even have it proofread, even by someone else, they aren’t a candidate for me, no matter what their qualifications.
“Bedroom suits”: For people who just can’t relax unless they’re uncomfortable.
It takes “business professional” attire into a whole different realm, doesn’t it?
LOL
OK, my other pet peeve that I hear everywhere is “fur” instead of “for” - “I’m going to the store fur some milk.” My kids are so tired of me correcting them, but it has become so prevalent you hear it constantly.
Interesting, I just got an invitation to enroll my employees in a business writing class and the following quote led the e-mail:
A recent survey of 120 American companies showed “1/3 of employees in the nation’s blue-chip companies wrote poorly and that businesses were spending as much as $3.1 billion on remedial training.”
—The New York Times
We’re not imagining it…that’s why one of my “dreams and goals” is to help find solutions to the education system in this country.