5 THINGS THEY DON’T TELL YOU ABOUT OWNING A small BUSINESS
Small Business is defined as a privately owned corporation, partnership, or sole proprietorship that has fewer employees and less annual revenue than a corporation or regular-sized business. I’ve been actively involved and invested in building and sustaining personal small businesses since 2009 and during this global pandemic, I’ve learned even more about operating small business than ever before.
Starting a small business is a very invigorating and empowering process. Often times we keep our dreams of creating a successful business alive by fast forwarding to the fruits of our labor in our minds without properly detailing and understanding some of the frustrations and/or pitfalls that may arise.
I decided to write an article about 5 things I’ve learned along the journey of owning multiple small businesses over the years that they didn’t tell me about.
Nobody Owes You or Me Understanding: Your financial, logistic, and/or internal team issues does not matter to anyone outside of your privately owned entity. I had to learn and accept this vital truth through years of building from scratch. My experience has been based in product design and manufacturing. With manufacturing of any product, you will face challenges that the average consumer will not understand and nor should they. They are strictly paying for a product, not a rant on your difficulties in innovating, developing, funding, and/or shipping said product. This is something you will have to overstand when entering a small business endeavor. I believe it’s therapeutic to acknowledge the strenuousness of willingly taking on such a feat, but it is not responsible to rely on those challenges to explain away why your product is either faulty, late in delivery, or lacking in sales. You are only responsible in generating and executing solutions.
Don’t Take It Personal: Launching a small business will forever be something to be proud of because it takes tremendous courage and sacrifice. Entrepreneurs do things of this nature to build legacy. So innately, we desire the approval, support, and genuine interest of our family and friends. But what happens when that level of intrigue and monetary contribution doesn’t meet your level of expectations? What if you received NONE of that support? Would it discourage your dream? Would it build resentment towards those people you love unconditionally? These are real questions to have answered before embarking on your journey, because as the first point stated, nothing is owed to you or me. You will experience a slew of emotions as a small business owner, but NOTHING should discourage you from the dream you set in your mind. Your dream and purpose should never be dependent on your surrounding cast of close family and/or friends. Your motivation to succeed should be based on your confidence to learn from your mistakes and improve with every passing day. Always stay in the mindset of business is business and personal is personal — it will save you tons of emotional energy so you can redistribute that to your growing business.
Natural Disasters Can Be Your Worst Enemy: 2020 has introduced the world to a new challenge in the form of an unvaccinated virus. Depending on who you converse with, the year of COVID-19 will either be classified as a natural disaster or international health crisis. But if you interviewed a small business, they’d most likely label this year as a disaster. Natural Disasters or Acts of God can do BIG damage to your small business, especially if as colossal as a global pandemic. According to Oberlo statistics, there are currently 31.7 million small businesses in the US, which makes up approximately 99.9% of all businesses stateside. Whether we consider hurricanes, wildfires, or earthquakes, when they strike, they tend to strike small businesses the hardest. While around 54% of small business owners have general liability insurance, inside of the most common policies it doesn’t cover situations of the COVID-19 magnitude. So, what are small businesses to do when they don’t have the cash flow to cover exorbitant amounts of salaries, rent, and 3PL logistics for months on end? This lack in financial sustainability then effects the business-to-business transactions that keeps the entire ecosystem alive and well. These are things that young businesses don’t think about and if they do, they don’t have the financial means to commit due to the bootstrapping stage of their start-up. No one could truly prepare small businesses of a year — not days, or weeks — a year of this enormity. Only if your great, great grandfather could give you the guidebook to keeping a business alive during the 1918 pandemic would you be in luck…..somewhat.
The Importance of a Proper Business Plan: A business plan is defined as a formal written document containing business goals, the methods on how these goals can be attained, and the time frame within which these goals need to be achieved. So, by definition, without a proper method you’d have no clue of how to achieve the goals you set out to conquer. A proper business plan is your atlas to a destination of success. When you take a wrong turn in your entrepreneurial journey, you can refer back to the plan to see where you lost your way. I’ve also learned that it’s ok to edit said plan. A business plan is a high level hypothesis to the way of return on investment. The bird’s eye view of your path will in most cases change once you’re on the ground-level laying the actual groundwork and navigating the ever-changing environment. Change is the only constant — embrace it. Also, don’t let the time frame in which you projected to achieve your goals distract you from continuing your journey. Absorb the reasons why it’s taken you an extended amount of time and adjust accordingly.
You’ll Fail More Than You Win: The journey towards a successful, positive returning small business will be long, slow, and merciless ride. You will make many mistakes. What I failed to learn prior to commencing this 10+ year experience was the definition of “mistake”. Webster defines the noun as a wrong action or statement proceeding from faulty judgment, inadequate knowledge, or inattention. A growth mindset defines mistakes as “learning opportunities” as opportunity is defined as a set of circumstances that makes it possible to do something. The reprogramming of your mind and your will to achieve must be ironclad in strength. You will endure so many long nights, uncertainty, negative bank accounts, and slow growth that you will contemplate giving up. Owning a small business is one thing, but growing one is a completely different task. Understanding your “why” is so essential because of those reasons. Why are you risking so much financial stability for this goal? Why are you willing to invest so much time into something that isn’t guaranteed to be victorious? Why should your small business survive when 45% fail during the first 5 years and only 25% of new businesses make it to 15 years or more? My personal why is based in the desire and purpose in building generational legacy — I deem it as a requirement to my existence in this lifetime. What’s yours? Define it. Write it down. And go execute it.
One more thing….nobody told me it would be easy either.
