3 Business Growing Pains I Didn’t Think I Would Have
When you first start a business, it’s certainly not all sunshine and rainbows. In fact, I’ve learned a lot in four and a half years in business…and growing pains are just one.
If your business succeeds (and stands the test of time), once you hit a certain point of success, you may find growing pains. Here are just 3 of them.
1. You just don’t have enough time in your day.
You’ve likely been putting in plenty of hours since the launch of your business; but after some success, you’re likely putting in even more.
It’s time to start prioritizing.
Are you ready to bite the bullet and grow?
Then it’s time to hire someone to help take the load off. Your first employee is, of course, a scary prospect for any business owner.
Consider starting with an intern from a local college or a part-time freelance employee. That way, you won’t feel responsible for full-time pay, benefits, and so on.
Or do you want to keep it just “you”?
Then you need to focus on what’s important. Keep the clients or jobs that are profitable, and get rid of the jobs (and activities) that aren’t productive or causing you to lose money.
Also, build in passive income streams (like selling a course or doing affiliate marketing) that don’t trade dollars for working hours.
2. You spend most of your time on administrative tasks.
Are you currently tracking how much time you spend on tasks and jobs? This is something we find a lot of business owners missing out on.
When you don’t track how much time you spend on billing, sales, and other admin tasks vs. actual work, you’re missing out on data that could make or break your business. By tracking this data, you may find you need to do more work for a single client rather than selling to more clients. (After all, gaining a new client is more expensive than keeping an existing one!)
Also, as we just mentioned, “trimming the fat” is an important part of growth. If you’re a sole proprietor, you may find that you’re spending a lot of your time on administrative tasks.
Of course, that means you’re not making any money while doing so. Instead, hiring a virtual administrative assistant to handle tasks so you can focus on the work and what’s important for the CEO.
3. You’re ready to completely redo the way you do things.
There have been so many times – and so many days – when I stop and spend nearly an entire day redoing the way I work through a project, a task, or even the sales process.
But that’s the beauty of owning your own business: it evolves.
Take each day at a time and learn from every phone call, sales prospect, and client interaction. Think about how you can do each task better and more efficiently…and grow along with your business.
I used to find this particular growing pain a frustrating one; but I’ve learned to embrace it. We all learn and evolve over time, so challenge yourself by changing over time too.
Have you felt these growing pains in your business?