Advice for an Entrepreneur in Need of Guidance

Monday, February 11, 2008 at 01:11pm by David Askaripour in Life

A friend recently confided in me and asked for some guidance on running his business and how the decisions / choices he’s making affect the lives of the people working within his organization. Below, I answer these questions with my own insights and thoughts.

I don’t seem to get that time is money. I usually think that is the same if my website is finished tomorrow, next week or next month. I’m too relaxed sometimes and the problem is that the people I work with get very frustrated because they can see how the time passes by and little or no progress is made. They don’t see results and the motivation in them just goes away little by little. I always wait until it is the right time to do something (until all the planets are aligned) and that rarely happens, so I procrastinate all the time as opposed to get started and figure out how to overcome the obstacles along the way.

Time is not money. Time is time. And you have all the time in the world. It boils down the expectations that you establish within your organization. If you are the sort to set specific dates and schedules, then think wisely about how you’ll meet those deadlines “before” you set them. Or, if you run an organization that goes with the ebb and flow and ups and downs of life, then maybe setting set schedules is more of a hindrance than benefit. For instance, someone such as myself hates to set fixed deadlines for anything, and I find that I get a lot more done when I have more freedom to flow with a project, as opposed to trying to control it.

I often don’t want to see the reality. I know that sooner or later something bad is going to happen (e.g. we will running out of money, a key employee will quit, our vendors won’t deliver on time) and I pretend that the problem isn’t there and will take care of itself. More often than not, this doesn’t happen and I end up with a much bigger problem. I just pretend that the problem doesn’t exist because it feels better to think that everything is all right, even when it isn’t, but then it hits harder.

Think about this — you are going to DIE one day. Now that’ll put things into perspective for you real quick. And, to many, that’s not even really a “bad” thing. While running a business, or “just living,” bad things are going to happen — there’s NO way around that. Embrace that. Accept that. We need the bad things to happen to truly appreciate the good things. Alan Watts describes life as a wave. The wave in comprised of the low point (the trough) and the high point (the crest). We need both the trough and the crest in order to wave in life. Just don’t get fixed on the trough; realize and accept it. And know that a crest is always ahead of you.

I usually do things the easy way, not the best way. For example, I know a vendor will not be very reliable, but he already sent the samples, price sheets, photos, etc. I would go with him even though I know I will have problems in the future because selecting another vendor, getting new samples, price sheets and photos is just “too much work”. I take the easy road and I end up being screwed by the unreliable vendor. The main reason I do this is because I don’t delegate much stuff and I am so overloaded with work that the least I want is more stuff on my plate.

Think of this in an analogy of the chess game. Sometimes you need to move your knight about 3 ranks back just to go 1 rank forward. In life, like chess, you have to sometimes go through a necessary hell and necessary bullshit to get to a point that you want to be at. And sometimes not. Think about the here and now — today. What will make your “todays” much easier and better for your business? Don’t think about a week from now or even a year, think about how to best improve your present situation. Thinking this way will shape your tomorrows and the actions you take “today” will reverberate into the future.

I don’t trust other people as much as I should. For this reason, I don’t delegate much, and I try to do everything myself. I believe that if I do it, then I can be sure it will get done right. The problem with this is that A) I can’t do everything, I just don’t have enough time and B) By doing the little stuff I lose focus about the big picture, and that leads my company in the wrong direction. The main reason I don’t trust people as much as I should is because most of the times I tried to delegate something, the job wasn’t done right or at least not the way I wanted it.

Okay, here are two good options: 1.) If you see the potential in the people you are working with and you “feel” that their heart is truly aligned with your organization, then spend as much time as it takes for them to understand how things should be / get done. 2.) If they are just going through the motions for a paycheck and really have no desire to carry out objectives and further, intuitively grasp what needs to be done / improve on what needs to be done (in the absence of you looking over them), then you have to release them from your organization — they are dead weight sinking your ship.

I am really bad with the finances. I’ve had 3 companies so far and with the 3 of them I ran out of money along the way and that either killed the company or at least caused catastrophic disasters. I also used to make huge mess mixing my personal finances and company finances (e.g. taking money from the company to go out with friends or paying company expenses with my own personal money), but I got much better at this.

You need to sit down and meditate about money. Seriously. You need to think about what you really want to do with your life and how money will play a role in that (your) life. If you just want to spend money for partying purposes and having fun, then maybe you should get a 9 to 5 job to finance that. But, if you want to use money to further your cause, grow your company, and help others make a living, then step up and take responsibility over your finances. Learn to control yourself. See money as not only a tool to having fun, but also as a way to grow something great. When you have something great on your hands, nourish it. Don’t take in for granted and misappropriate funds to best suite “your” desires.

I build a company around what I would like to do or what I am good doing, not around a good business opportunity. This is for sure the worst mistake I’ve ever made as an entrepreneur. I usually ask myself “What would I like to do?”, “What would I be good at?”, as opposed to “What does the market want?”, “What will people be willing to pay for?”. For example, my current company, X, sells designer leather goods online, and our sales are pretty low. I know people who sell stuff very similar to our products, by visiting stores and boutiques and talking to the owners, showing them samples, and they sell so much! I wouldn’t like to do that myself, so I decided we should be an Internet business, because I love computers and Internet Marketing, not because that would be the best business model we could choose, or the best way we could market our products. I believe that the solution is obvious (find out the best business model and find the right people to do what I am not good at), but I’ve been doing it wrong so far.

All entrepreneurs / businessmen need to ask themselves these questions:

• Am I doing this just to make money?
• Am I doing this because it’s what I love?
• Would I still do this even if I wasn’t making a cent off of it?

If you do things solely for “money,” then under my definition of who an “entrepreneur” is… I wouldn’t believe that you are one. And that’s okay. Maybe you just like “business” and seeing how you can come up with ways to make money. And you can do both, of course. Just make sure that you don’t blend the two, or you’ll tangle yourself up. Set aside some “money making” projects just to keep the funds rolling in. That can be in the form of a “business.” Then do things that you seriously LOVE — with the total understanding that if it never generates money, then that’s okay.

I am often not willing to do what it takes to succeed. There are things I just don’t like doing. For example, making cold calls. Ideally, I should delegate these things to someone who is really good at it. But the thing is that to hire that person, I would need money, and I won’t get money until I don’t make the cold calls myself and get some sales. It would be great to hire people willing to work just for a commission (a good one), because that would mean no risk for me and no money up-front, but the truth is that most good salespeople want to make sure they will get a paycheck even if the sales are not that great, specially at a company they don’t even know it exists. This is the only issue I don’t seem to find a solution for, except for making the cold calls myself, which I would hate doing in the first place. Do you think is part of being an entrepreneur doing things you don’t like doing?

Don’t force yourself to do ANYTHING in life. If you don’t like making cold calls, then don’t do them — ever. People have this backwater notion of life that disgustingly bleeds into entrepreneurship, stating that “you have to do whatever it takes, no matter what.” I say no way to that. When you force yourself into doing things that you really don’t want to be doing, you totally pollute your mind and body with stress, drama, problems, etc.. which leads to regressions, never advancement. Do what you can do within your own capacity of passion and likes. That sort of momentum of you continuing to do what you can do, at all times, will lead to all the solutions you are seeking, i.e., finding someone to do the cold-calling. It all comes down to your energy and what you are projecting. And trust me, for anything you can think of in life… cold-calling, business plans, programming, whatever it may be… there’s someone out there that will be willing to lend a hand for free, for an equity stake, for an exchange of services, or for what I would call a “ridiculously” low price (such a price that would be commensurate to that person’s particular situation in life).

I wish you the best my friend and I thank you for asking me these important questions. Because through these questions / answers, I believe people will find the answers and inspiration that they need. Anyone that may have alternative answers, please feel free to comment and voice your ideas. We can all benefit from this discussion.

[image credit: by HaMeD!caL]

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