I asked for help today.
I’ve owned my business for almost a year, but am not where I would like to be with it. To be honest, I haven’t put the amount of time or attention into it that it needed.
I’ve realized that I can’t really do this on my own. That I need someone in my corner, someone encouraging and driving me.
I am a resourceful person. I’m a creative person. I have tons of ideas and goals and thoughts in my head, and I need a coach to help me arrange everything into useful categories. And to keep me on task when I feel like slacking off! (Because that happens to all of us small business owners, if we’re honest!)
And I realized something. I might not be alone in feeling this way.
If you own your own business or practice, you are an entrepreneur. You’ve had to learn things the hard way, had to do things you didn’t know how to do, or fake-it-till-you-made-it on some things. You’ve also had to do a lot of this alone. As a small business owner, you have to. You don’t have the resources to hire an in-house graphic designer, a full-time marketing guru, a computer tech guy, a full-time personal accountant, a janitor, a maintenance man, a social media whiz… and the list goes on.
I get that. As business of one, I know the feeling of not knowing how to do it yourself, but deciding between figuring out how to do it and hiring someone to do it. You have to decide carefully where to spend your hard-earned dollars.
That’s why I tried to do it myself all year. I knew I was smart, I knew I could do a good job. I didn’t want to spend any money than what was absolutely necessary.
But I hit a point, and maybe you’re there now, where I realized that my business would benefit from another person being involved. Someone in my corner, helping me wade through the details and see the big picture. Someone to challenge me and expect great things from me. And when I was looking at their website, I felt relief. I can finally offload some of the pressures I’ve been carrying all by myself. And that is well worth the financial investment to me. And I know that the trade-off of business growth and renewed vision that I will experience will far outweigh what I put in.
Maybe you feel that way. Like there’s an area in your business that is just overwhelming you and you just can’t see the big picture. Or a part of your business that you really don’t like spending time and effort on. If it is cleaning toilets in your office, maybe the best investment in your business would be a cleaning lady who comes a couple hours a week and does it for you!
If it is the jumble that is your finances, then bringing someone alongside your business who understands your business and wants it to succeed can be such a relief! Entering data into a computer and balancing your books might not be your idea of a fun time, and if it is holding you and your business back or causing stress, it might be time to bring someone into your corner!
As I realized again today, it’s so good to have an adviser, an encourager, and someone to drive you to bigger and better things.
Can you do it yourself? Probably. Should you? Now that’s a question only you can answer.
I hope that you will figure out your daily stressors and be able to place them in someone else’s hands to take care of. It is a big step, especially if, like me, you like to know what’s going on in all aspects of your business. But in the right hands, it will only make things better for you in the long run. If it’s your daily bookkeeping, contact me and we can see if we’re a good match. If it’s cleaning your toilets, I do have the number of a great cleaning lady! 🙂
I’m very much looking forward to meeting with my new business mentor and hearing her wisdom. I’ll probably wish I had met with her months ago! I hope you don’t wait as long as I did!
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