Venturing out and starting your own business can be a challenging, but rewarding undertaking. If you’re a sole proprietor or own a small business, you likely got started because you’re passionate about the work you do. Today we’re going to talk through four issues that entrepreneurs and small business owners often face and how to face them head on so you can keep powering forward, alleviate stress and avoid burnout.
Issue #1: Lack of Clearly Defined Vision
Without a clearly defined vision for your business, your business will coast. You may coast into some success, or you may coast into some failure. By defining the vision for your business and making it clear for your team and those you work with, your actions become more strategic and intentional, and you go from allowing your business to coast to actually driving your business intentionally.
How to overcome this issue:
Take some time to define what you want out of your business. What are the goals that you, the owner, have? Once that’s defined, you can articulate that vision to your team and become intentional with the next steps you take to get there.
BONUS: Need help defining your vision or getting your team on board? Check out Girlfriday Small Business Optimization Services.
Issue #2: Lack of Planning
Many times sole proprietors and small business owners begin seeing business growth only to quickly become overwhelmed by the day-to-day operations that come with owning a business, feeling like they’re always chasing fires to be put out, leaving less and less time for business development and the parts of the business about which they’re most passionate. Once you’ve defined the vision of where your business is going, it’s time to put a plan in place. It’s best to work backward from the goal, setting mile-markers to work towards in the future. This way, you can take these goals and mile markers to plan for the year, the quarters, the weeks, and the days.
How to overcome this issue:
Set aside dedicated time each day to plan ahead. Figure out a time where you can minimize distractions and interruptions to focus on thinking through what needs to happen, and putting it down on paper. Don’t overwhelm yourself and leave some room in your day to handle those little extra issues that arise. By doing this, you will have a better handle on your day, week, months, and years ahead in business.
BONUS: Need some help with planning? Check out Girlfriday’s free Savvy Accountability Planner!
Issue #3: Hiring the Wrong People for the Job
If you haven’t already figured it out, you can’t do it all alone. As your business grows, you’ll quickly find that you can’t play all the roles yourself. From products and services, internal operations, marketing, networking, and hiring – the roles can seem endless. Often, business owners and sole proprietors find themselves in a position where they need to make a hiring decision – and they need to do it quickly. They may put up a job posting and have a flood of resumes arrive in their inbox. Filtering through them all, scheduling a time for interviews, and onboarding the new hire can become a stressful undertaking, and doing so hurriedly could result in hiring someone less than the best for the job.
How to overcome this issue:
Take the time to put a plan in place for hiring. Keep written job descriptions on file so you don’t have to reinvent the wheel each time. Know what you’re looking for in a candidate, to help you quickly narrow down applications and resumes to only the best. Prepare any policies, procedures or handbooks necessary to help you more efficiently onboard a new hire. If you’re a sole proprietor, you may choose to make use of a virtual assistant service to help you develop these pieces and keep the business running smoothly through this type of growth transition.
BONUS: Looking for help with onboarding employees or policy and procedure development? Check out Girlfriday’s Girlfriday Outsourced Executive Assistant Services!
Ultimately, by clearly defining your vision for the business, planning ahead, and having a hiring strategy in place will help you keep things running smoothly and minimize some of the challenges that can arise when running your own business.
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