Do you ever find yourself bored with your current business?
Starting and ramping up a business is exciting, however running the day-to-day operations is a whole other thing.
Entrepreneurs are classic ‘starters‘, and once the business is up and running, they think about starting the next thing.
That drive is life-creating and so important for our economy! The trick is to set up your business so it is self-sustaining before you move on to the next thing.
If you take your eyes off the ball too soon, you’ll risk decline in market share, poor cash flow, failure of tenuous divisions, employee attrition and becoming technologically adrift.
Now, why is it that you get bored?
Entrepreneurs get bored for different reasons:
- You are doing the same job every day, and it gets monotonous.
- Your business is in fire fighting mode, and you are getting burnt out putting out the fires.
- You are being pulled into the weeds, handling details that your direct reports (or their direct reports) should be handling.
- Your business is stuck and not growing.
- Everything is working well and you wonder what’s next.
Do you recognize yourself in any of these?
Even the best entrepreneurs realize when it’s time to move on.
Just look at Sergy Brin, who co-founded Google. He just stepped down as President of Google’s parent company, Alphabet, so he could focus his energies on his next dream, a high tech moonshot research lab called “X”. Exciting stuff! Much more fun than running boring meetings.
Howard Schultz, founder of Starbucks, also stepped down last year. It was time for someone else to take the reins and drive the business forward. He was an excellent entrepreneur, one of the best, but he knew when it was time to bring in a professional CEO.
What about your business?
The truth is, an entrepreneurial business cannot survive without someone at the helm driving the innovation and competitive spirit of the business.
But this doesn’t mean you have to be stuck in weeds.
My best landscape, lawn and irrigation clients develop a solid leadership team, and some bring in a second in command to run all of the operations. This allows them to focus their energies on their next entrepreneurial “moon shot” or the next evolution of their business.
But don’t forget, unless you literally hire a CEO to run your business, you still have a critical role to play.
- TORCH. Being the torchbearer for the original purpose of the business. Reminding new employees and current management what original premise allowed your business to grow so powerfully in the beginning.
- COMMUNITY. Building new relationships in the business community to continue to drive the business forward. You can’t coast on your original relationships that you originally used to build the business.
- TOGETHER. Ensuring the culture remains healthy under fast growth. A fast growing company can crack at the seams, and someone must watch for these cracks and ensure the core culture is maintained and not lost under fast growth.
- NEW, NEW, NEW. Identify new ideas, new products and services, and new technologies that can expand the impact your company has on your target market.
- TRENDS. Looking around the corner for the trends that will impact your business. The future is already here…it’s just hiding around the corner. Your job is to see it, and make sure your business is prepared for what’s just around the corner.
- ALIVE. Keeping the vision alive and the employees excited about what the company will look like in the next 5-10 years.
Your challenge is three-fold:
To realize that getting bored is natural and you need to plan on it happening.
To build up a champion leadership team to take over day-to-day operations.
To keep your critical role in mind, as you explore your next “moon shot.”
