Becoming an entrepreneur and starting your own small business can be a great pathway to that perfect work-life balance. Wouldn't you like to have the freedom to decide when and how hard you work, AND plenty of time and money to pursue all your greatest passions in life?
Sadly, many small business entrepreneurs never realize the dream of work-life balance, mostly due to a few big errors they make right out of the starting gate. If true work-life balance is something you’re dreaming about, here are four attitudes you need to check as you contemplate your entrepreneurial path:
Do what you love, love what you do. It’s a great sounding piece of conventional wisdom, but making a job of the thing you love most – be it cooking, photography, personal training, or whatever
– is great way to ruin the passion fast — especially when it’s tied to a personal talent that’s not so easy to delegate to others. Before you go down the passion-as-a-business path, connect with people who’ve done it before, and spend a little time imagining how it’s going to feel coping with customers who are evaluating your work.
When I love what I do, it won’t feel like work. Except when you no longer have any choice about working long hours, including nights, weekends, holidays, and through all kinds of inclement weather. Many small business opportunities — especially restaurants and retail — come with extremely inflexible, long hours. What’s more, the best places to locate such businesses, malls and major shopping centers, usually have their own rules about what days and how long you need to be open.
I’ll work hard by myself for a few years, then invest in employees. The best way to ensure your small business fails to deliver a work-life balance is to neglect to invest in hiring good employees to work for your business from day one. A big problem with trying to do all the work yourself is that you never find time to focus on the important things —such as marketing, sales, and financial performance management — that actually make your business grow. The result is a stagnant business that never really yields the kind of income growth that delivers the essential freedom you’re seeking.
I’ll figure it out as I go along. Picture the following scenario: You’re a really great baker so you decide, "Hey, I think I’ll open a cupcake shop.” One of the first things you do is go out and scout available store locations. Since you’ve got limited startup funds, you settle for a less-than-ideal spot.
Because the location is not great, your shop struggles. Then, one day, in walks a slick salesperson with an expensive marketing scheme. You spend the money, but it doesn’t work. Turns out, it was the wrong marketing tool for your kind of business. By the time you've sorted out your business snafus with marketing and territory you've already lost a considerable amount of income. So much for freedom and work-life balance!
The moral here is that few people possess all the knowledge and skills they need to start up and succeed in a small business. If you’re serious about cultivating work-life balance and want an opportunity that has great hours, recurring revenue, and comes ready made with all the know-how, tools, and personal coaching you’ll need to succeed, get in touch with MaidPro Franchising today!
Check out how Jesse Zook created his perfect work-life balance with a MaidPro franchise.