Personal Growth Supports Business Growth
Seek knowledge and advice to expand your comfort zone and your company.
By Margaret Reynolds
Entrepreneurs often jump into business ownership because they are good at something. They know how to bake great cakes, so they start a bakery; or they know cars inside and out, so they start an auto body shop. Most entrepreneurs start a business that suits their passion. As the saying goes, “Do what you love and the money will follow.”
As a company grows, however, entrepreneurs take on more and more responsibilities beyond their area of technical expertise. Assuming a business is successful, the entrepreneur is increasingly faced with operating infrastructure decisions that he or she knows nothing about.
So what do you do when your business begins to grow beyond your comfort zone? Uncertainty causes stress and self doubt. Planning lets you prepare for personal and business growth. Ask yourself a series of questions so that you can expand your comfort zone by seeing the road ahead:
What is Your Dream?
If your dream is to have a national cookie franchise in malls across the country, you might make different decisions than if your dream is to run a catering business from your kitchen. It is likely your dream will change over time, as most people dream too small. How you structure your business will vary depending on your dream.
What Does it Take?
Next, ask yourself what it takes to run your business every day. Learn as much as you can by reading books and seeking advice from experts. You may have come from a corporate environment where all the necessary systems to do your job were already in place. Now you have to choose systems yourself, such as phone services, network provider, IT support, etc. If you don’t have expertise in these areas, decisions can be intimidating. These are decisions you will continue to address as you grow, so learning as much as you can and finding a trusted advisor will give you peace of mind. If you are an established company, you should have a board of advisors with expertise in different areas.
Who Can Help You Get There?
Who do you want on your team? Our tendency is to hire people like ourselves who have experience in our industry. That approach has several severe shortcomings. It may work well in the short term, but long term it limits growth. You will continue to get more of the same.
If you are growing quickly and you just need someone to help you manage it, a second set of hands may be all you need. But if you want to grow in new ways or embrace change down the road, someone who doesn’t think like you do, but shares your values, is a better choice. Think long and hard about where you are going and who can help get you there, not who is available, which family member needs a job or who you will get along with the best.
Hiring team members with skills complementary to yours allows you to learn and grow personally as you grow your business.
Challenge Yourself
Growth—business and personal—comes from asking the hard questions, getting an outside perspective, doing your homework and being willing to challenge yourself. As a colleague said the other day on Twitter, “Success doesn’t breed success, just habit. Challenge breeds success.” Jump out of your comfort zone, ask for help and insight, be thorough, put the right pieces in place and then commit thoroughly to your dream. Then, enjoy the ride!
Margaret Reynolds is managing principal of Reynolds Consulting LLC. (816) 350-7680 // This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
