Often as a business owner you will find that every important decision falls at your feet. It isn’t an easy thing to have to navigate at times. But a necessary part of entrepreneur life. There will be some harsh realities that you face, some will have a real impact on your business day to day, and some will impact how you work and feel. It is good to be aware of the situations that you might find yourself in as a business owner yourself, so here are some of the harsh decisions you may need to make in the future in order for your business to be successful and thrive.
Valuing your time
One of the biggest things an entrepreneur and business owner can face is placing a value on their time. The truth is, you may want to be part of every aspect of your business, but there will not be enough hours in the day once your business starts to progress. Outsourcing certain aspects of your business could be the answer, and things like using expert contractor accountants for your accounts or having an IT team in place to deal with website issues and your online presence might be worth the investment. Freeing up your time for the things where you can make the most difference.
In addition you should be making sure that you delegate the work you need to. Too many entrepreneurs are doing too much work themselves that can be delegated and free them up to handle the work that builds their business.
How to expand and when?
It may be time to start thinking about the future, and the decision you might be faced with could be if it is time to expand, how you are going to do it and when you are going to do it? Expansion could mean moving out of the home into a business location. So it could be that you need more space for stock, or perhaps you are hiring staff, or it could be that you want a professional space to meet with potential clients or customers. It might be that you want to expand the products that you sell or the services that you offer. Hopefully enabling you to increase profits within your business. You need to decide when you can do this and whether the investment is there to make it happen.
Is it time to hire staff?
It might be time to start hiring staff for your business. This could be a different prospect to overcome. It might be that instead of outsourcing, you think it is worth it to have someone in-house do that specific job role. It can be hard to determine if you can commit to this, or indeed if you can hand over that specific role. But it certainly means that your business is moving in the right direction.
Is it time to jump in completely
When I first started my business I had a number of income streams and between them I made just enough to live on. Over time though, my digital agency began needing more resourcing and I had to make a difficult decision to leave other projects to focus on my agency.
It’s a tough call to make, but a necessary one if you want to get the most out of your growing business,
Are you doing what you can to market your business successfully?
Finally, it might be time to start thinking about whether or not you are doing enough for your business in terms of marketing. There will always be new areas to focus on, things that you can do online, or advertise locally where you might not yet have tried. However I have personally experienced that the most valuable way to marketing your new business is to drive attention around your personal brand.
Let’s hope highlighting some of these decisions gives you the confidence to make the right choices for you and your business in the future.
