In the first part of this two-part series, we outlined the first three roadblocks to small business startup - credibility, capital, and innovation. This week, we'll look at the next three - growth challenges, employees, and the entrepreneur's nemesis - delegation.
At first glance, an entrepreneur might ask, "What's wrong with growing fast?" The answer is that all too often an entrepreneur's business grows too fast, which can be a curse, instead of a blessing. When your business grows, you hire more and more people, more and more responsibilities have to be anticipated, planned for, and managed, and assigning the right resources to different revenue streams can become a nightmare.
It's important to write down the standards and guidelines for performance of all those aspects of growth, and that's something many entrepreneurs have never had to do. Most entrepreneurs don't think too much, if at all, about training manuals and sales promotion programs and guidelines for new staff, for example. Systems for measuring staff performance are important to a growing company, but too many entrepreneurs are either ignorant of how such systems are designed, what they're intended to do, and where they should be implemented first. The simple task of setting up a structured means of communication between managers can be daunting, when you're used to flying by the seat of your pants. These are instances where hiring for management depth should be your first priority.
Good help is hard to find. It always has been, and always will be. But that doesn't mean the entrepreneur has to put every potential employee through expensive human resources examinations or testing, or that you should consider bringing on an HR specialist too early in the game. It's possible to hire smart, committed people, if you put a little work into it. Ask your friends and associates, even your clients, what they'd do if they were in your shoes. Many customers will be honored to be asked, and they'll be doubly pleased about dealing with you when they know you're growing, but paying attention to their needs, as well as your own.
It's harder to create an environment in which employees want to work than it is to hire employees, and that's what an entrepreneur with a growing company should spend time working on. To accomplish that goal, you provide them with the latest affordable technological advantages, and challenging and rewarding work. And you keep doing it.
Finally, a few words about that sixth roadblock - the entrepreneur himself (or herself). One of the biggest faults of most
entrepreneurs is they don't know when or how to properly delegate responsibilities. It can be their biggest roadblock to success. As an entrepreneur, we start out doing everything ourselves. We know our business inside and out. But how do we evolve, as our businesses evolve? It's been said that the key step in moving from being the founder of a wee small business to being the CEO of a growing corporation is knowing when to delegate.
Letting people do their jobs with interfering can be a very difficult challenge for an entrepreneur. But you have to learn to step back, because to be successful, you have to leave people alone to do their job. You have to trust them. As they trust you to lead them. If that means stepping back and concentrating on infrastructure when you'd rather be selling, so be it. If it means expanding your influence with potential new customers or organizations instead of watching over the development of your product or service, so be it. Know when to keep a handle on things, and when to get out of the office, because of all the traps, gaps, crunches and shortages faced by entrepreneurs, finding the strength to change is the biggest challenge of them all.
Lorne Peasland is a former advertising agency owner and national media consultant, the founder and past-president
of the Canadian Home & Micro Business Federation, and author of "Influencing Public Opinion - A Communications
Primer For Political Candidates, Community Activists, and Special Interest Group Spokespeople" (ISBN 0-9697364-0-1).
He is a home-based marketing consultant, writer and speaker, and publisher of HomeBizNews, a syndicated Web-based weekly for entrepreneurs. He can be contacted through either of his web pages at
http://www.accept.ca/homebiznews/lorne.html or http://www.accept.ca/homebiznews/pms2.html, via e-mail at
lorne@pacificcoast.net., or by phone at 250-708-0250.