Updated: April 15, 2020
Building your own business is exciting. With passion and commitment to your vision and mission, nothing else will seem to matter, and you’ll feel unstoppable.
That is until the time comes when you’re already running the business, and you begin to feel drained and exhausted because there’s just so many things you need to do.
Some entrepreneurs will find the strength to push and persist through this stage; while most, will just give up and look for other opportunities. Sometimes, this is when they go back to being an employee.
If you’re planning to start a business soon, then I’d like to share the secret to overcoming this challenging business phase, which often drives newbie entrepreneurs crazy and running towards the exit door.
Early Business Mistakes That Entreprenuers Must Avoid
Entrepreneurs are multi-taskers. We like to do everything, and be in control of all aspects of the business.
I’ve learned that this attitude is one of the biggest reasons why small businesses fail to grow. Because if you want your business to scale up, you have to learn how to delegate.
Don’t be afraid to hire and train people who can run your business.
I know someone who can’t cook a hard-boiled egg to save his life, and yet he owns a successful office cafeteria where he spends most of his time doing what he loves – eating.
He hired an experienced cook to run his kitchen. He also has an accountant in his payroll who takes care of his books. And a cafeteria manager to supervise everyone, including the training of his service staff.
Because he did all that – he can now focus on doing what’s important for the business. And that is looking for ways to increase his revenue.
As a business owner, you should focus on revenue-generating activities rather than on tasks, which you could just easily outsource or delegate to others.
My friend above asked his mother to come up with the business name, hired a graphic designer friend to do his logo, paid his brother to process the business registration, and treated me to free lunch in exchange for photographs of his food to use in the menu.
Not only that, he simply accepted whatever his mother suggested, he approved his friend’s first logo design, and never said a word when I was shooting his food and simply agreed to whatever I wanted to do.
His reason: “I can always change them later on. I just need something that works now.”
Indeed, entrepreneurs should spend less time on aesthetics so they can spend more time on capturing sales opportunities.
That’s why while we were all doing all those tasks, he was in turn, busy with talking to suppliers and negotiating terms with them.
He was also calculating his food pricing, and drafting his marketing plan.
So in summary, these are the three things you should always remember if you’re just starting your business:
- Learn to delegate tasks.
- Focus on growing revenue.
- Spend less time on design.
I hope you were able to learn something new today, I’m planning to write more articles about entrepreneurship soon and if you don’t want to miss them, then you can just subscribe to Ready To Be Rich.
well said… I would like to be an entrepreneur as well. thanks for the article.
reading your articles becomes a habit. Thanks for sharing your expertise.
Love how direct to the point (and short – which leaves me more time to focus on my “revenue-generating tasks”) this article speaks 🙂 I know now what to prioritize for today. Thanks and great post as usual, Fitz.
this topic would be my reminder on my future bznesses.
Great advice, Fitz! 😀
Thanks for sharing this!
OMG Kuya Fitz this is so timely! I was having a hard time these past couple of days because I’m bombarded with a lot of new clients and projects that I can’t possibly handle all of them and that I know that I have to hire more people. Only thing though is I’m so anxious to do that. But I know that I have to do it if I want to grow my biz. Thank you for this! Now to look for potential “employees”.
Thanks everyone for the great comments.
@Mary Jane – try out 199Jobs and see if some of our jobbers can help you with your requirements. 😀
It’s a good read Fitz. However, I think I’d disagree on the third item, design. It might work for some businesses but not to all. There are certain businesses where having an attractive design and presentation are prioritzed first before anything else. Nonetheless, this one is still a great article. :]
Wow sir Fitz, you make it look like a no-brainer article haha!
But a lot of budding entrepreneurs (honestly, including myself) focus on things/activities that are not income-producing.
I am also guilty that I want everything to be perfect first before launching.
But, I also realized the importance of the ready-fire-aim strategy so I have been pushing myself to become greater and applying lessons such as this.
Thanks!
nice article!
I LIKE THIS Quote:
“As a business owner, you should always focus on revenue-generating activities rather than wasting time in “less-essential†tasks which you could just easily outsource to others.”
[…] is one of the keys to success. As an entrepreneur, you need to focus on building your business and not waste time on things that you could just […]
I think this is reason why most entrepreneurs fail. But if you don’t have enough money to hire or delegate, I think doing everything is necessary but if you have the means to hire or outsource and still skimp and wants to do everything, that is really a failure.
“I just need something that works now.” That’s my favorite here. Everything can be changed later.
I also like the thing about delegation. It creates work for others. It’s not only the business owner who earns and learns, but the people around him as well.
Thank you very much!!! Overflowing knowledge God Blessed you