Many online entrepreneurs such as myself are spurred to try their luck in the world of business due to a desire to be independent (in more ways than one, risks be damned). Here’s what I figured — if you are finding yourself with a lot of experience and a little over the hill as compared to your colleagues, then I believe that your career track should eventually lead you to the point where you decide to become an entrepreneur or perhaps a highly paid independent consultant, if you haven’t yet managed to rise up the corporate ladder to become an executive. After all, doing the grunt work for someone else gets pretty old after a decade or more, doesn’t it? Unless of course, you’re set up to receive a pretty good pension or something equivalent down the road.
If you choose to be an entrepreneur, you’ll have to be willing to sacrifice a few things for the kind of freedom you only get by being your own boss. And if you happen to be the type who embraces this type of work, then you’ll find that it can be pretty addicting. If you’re creative, or good with people or you’re a big picture problem solver or a visionary, then you have a shot at being a successful online entrepreneur. What more, if you happen to be well-rounded in the workplace, then you are fairly well equipped to strike it out on your own. If you aren’t, then get a few partners that can fill any gaps you’ve got (with regards to skills, roles, responsibilities and even financing) and think about creating a partnership. I would suggest finding a lot of support this way because frankly, running a business is a lot of work.
So how do you manage a business when you have so little time and so much work in front of you? Here are a few suggestions:
1. Get partners. This is what I mentioned earlier. Support for your business that’s financial, emotional and operational can go a very long way. Ideally, you’ll want to work with someone who’s as enthusiastic as you are about your project, but who complements your skills and expertise pretty well. Find out how you can share responsibilities with your partner. In some cases, someone may provide the funding while you do the work (or vice versa). In other cases, it’s all about sharing the sweat equity. You’ll eventually have to set up your company or business to reflect this arrangement.
2. Manage your business professionally. Use contracts, document your work, and use business tools to keep yourself organized. When you’ve got more people in your team in order to spread the work around, you’ll find that it becomes much more important to run things more formally. Documentation and organization become important: you’ll have to develop a system for running and managing your venture in order to make things flow smoothly.
3. Hire your own staff. If you don’t have partners, and you need help, support or resources, then think about becoming THE boss and hiring people to cover roles and responsibilities you can’t do yourself. Where are you going to get the money? While financing is one option, you may not want to start off with too large of a money pit right away unless you’re comfortable about the financing risks and are confident about the returns you’ll be generating. If you’re cash-strapped, then see if you can hire one person at a time and try them out. As your business expands, then add more personnel. Some businesses may require a large amount of startup capital to get going; this is particularly the case with traditional businesses. In this case, you’ll need to assess if you’re prepared to shoulder some debt or face dilution of ownership.
4. Cut back on your projects. This may be hard to hear if you are a Type A business owner. But if you’re not interested in diluting your stock through a partnership or company, or you’re not able to hire employees to help take on some of the work from your plate, then you’ll have to think about backing off some of the things that you’ve got queued up until you’re truly ready for new tasks and projects.
5. Prioritize your work. It goes without saying that you’ll need to prioritize the stuff on your plate or risk spreading yourself thin.
6. Avoid overpromising and making too many commitments. If you find yourself burning out, step back and de-stress. Nothing is worth your sanity and health! Financial success is great, but not at the cost of damaging your health and your important relationships.
How Are You Dealing With A Time Crunch?
I always wish I have more time to spend on the various projects I’ve committed to. Being booked solid and with so much happening, I’ve had to face the entrepreneur’s dilemma pretty often: should I multi-task or keep focused? Recently, I’ve decided to stay more focused on certain specific projects to keep things more manageable and in order to do the best job I can on stuff I’ve prioritized on.
Regardless of how much work you’ve got lined up, see how well you can maintain balance in your life. All too often, very busy people end up sacrificing a lot for their ambitions and dreams. Many of us feel that there’s never enough time to do everything we want. And for some, time constraints will mean giving up experiences with their family or sacrificing their health, if they insist on aiming high (or refuse to maintain realistic goals and expectations).
So how are you managing your time? Do you find yourself having to give up some important things in life in order to pursue your major business goals?
Created November 27, 2006. Updated August 15, 2011. Copyright © 2011 The Digerati Life. All Rights Reserved.
{ 9 comments… read them below or add one }
I know exactly how you feel! I recently found myself working on an online business project that I think could work out – and before I knew it, E-Commerce News went on without updates for almost 48 hours (with traffic plummeting as a result). Was quite a grim experience and an excellent reminder of just how important it is to maintain the right balance between commitments in my life – and how easily your gains can be erased by only moments of inattention (I reckon it might take me weeks to recover all the traffic that I have lost as a result of my failure to update my blog yesterday).
George — unfortunately, traffic can change on a dime, which is something that many site owners do worry about. I’m trying to figure out how I can balance things more effectively as well, so that we can keep up with all our commitments online and offline!
I agree. The biggest omission people make when creating a budget is time. I’ve had very successful projects that really consumed me in the start-up phase. Although my return was good, it’s hard to put a value on the time lost to being overloaded.
George, very interesting. Would you mind elaborating on how much traffic you lost and why exactly it happened? Somewhat frightening for the bloggers out there.
Tom
I was always a cheerleader of multi-tasking, until recently, when a celeb entrepreneur gave me the advice that the only way you can succeed as a parent and business person is to keep the worlds separate. In other words, no more checking the Blackberry at the playground — or working while Nick Jr plays in the background. When you divide the worlds, you’re better at both!
I believe in hiring your own staff. There’s only so much work that one busy blogger can get done on their own. It’s amazing how far I’ve seen strong teams go together.
I can’t stress enough the importance of the first point you made about getting partners. I have been working my ass off for the past 2.5 years (and recently full time) building my online business and at this point I’ve recently started working with a partner. From my ~3 years of this journey to create a successful online business, it’s one of the most valuable tips that I would give ANYONE who is considering a similar path. Being able to talk about your ideas with someone who’s as excited about them as you are is in and of it self incredibly valuable. Even more valuable is the emotional support that you receive when times are tough (in my case, when an idea we invested in heavily didn’t work out), this emotional support is absolutely essential to succeeding.
Overall great post, well researched, very informative.
I’m lucky enough to have a partner in my spouse. And our income is shared so that means pure profits to us without any third party.
One thing about being self-employed, there’s no such thing as a “break” unless it’s self-imposed. That means, everyday is the same and you may or may not take time off when everyone else does!