The very business you start is the same business that has the potential to burn you out and cause resentment if you don’t know what to watch out for. Jeff is mechanic. He is one of those people who just love cars. He likes fiddling with them and all the other things that have made him so good with mechanics. He owns a garage and people completely trust him. Jeff started this business because of his love for cars. However, as you may have experienced in your own business, you don’t just get to do the thing that you love to do. Right? Jeff is not good with operational details. He is bound to get the scheduling wrong, and that’s where even as a customer you may get annoyed with him.
So Jeff recently made a huge mess with a spare parts order, which lost the company money. His business partners have been on his case about his lack of organisation and the blunders he makes. However, Jeff is very good with customers as I mentioned. He is also good at acquiring customers and generating ideas to get customers. He also effortlessly enjoys teaching his team how to handle customers. He is currently experimenting with yet another scheduling/calendar app in the hope of becoming better organised. This is probably his tenth attempt at finding some sort of solution for this. He has also admitted that on some days he runs away from the office because he cannot face the pile of problems that are waiting for him.
This is a common dilemma for businesses. When you have a job, you generally go to work and do that job. He has hired mechanics who come to work and all they have to do is work on cars. They don’t get involved in how the customer came in, payments, ordering of spare parts, management of people etc. But if you are running a business, you don’t have that luxury and you tend to get involved in everything. Everything is your focus and your problem. This also leads to the delusion that you should be good at everything and many of us even start thinking that we are the best at something that we are actually very bad in. Then we get worn out, frustrated and beat ourselves up for not being able to do it well.
Many entrepreneurs like Jeff, are walking around as square pegs in round holes. In the beginning, you do everything. Firstly, you have time to do it. If Jeff was only servicing one to two cars a day this would be different. The other stuff like paperwork may not take that long or be as intensive for him to notice that he is actually bad at it. Secondly, it’s good for learning. However, as the business grows it becomes more evident that you cannot do everything.
Jeff needs to let go of the operational side of things and concentrate on the customer side of things and so do many of us in business. The same high he gets when dealing with customers and their cars are the same high somebody else will get when dealing with paperwork, spare parts, scheduling etc. They will do this faster and better than he ever will even if he took a course in operations. This frees up his time to do what he does best and brings value to the business. If he spent more time on customers, training people and generating ideas the business will actually grow. He will also enjoy what he does more.
Allow me to end by saying you are not in business to kill your passion but to provide an environment in which it thrives. We tend to overestimate the importance of what we do badly and underestimate what we do really well. Jeff was trying to improve on his weakness but he did not look at the importance of his strengths. Now it doesn’t mean that he will ignore the operational side completely but he will spend a lot less time on it. The person he hires may just need to develop some reports that he is able to quickly look at. Get to know yourself. What are you good at? What do you like doing? Why did you start this business? If you don’t get to do that, then the reason you may have started this business is not being met. Interestingly by you focusing on the areas that you enjoy, you will also be creating opportunities for others in your company to flourish. Learn to let go.
Waceke runs a course on Entrepreneurship. Get in touch with her on waceken@centonomy.com|Facebook/WacekeNduati| Twitter@cekenduati