THE GOOD TIMES AND THE BAD

I was inspired by an article that appeared in one of the local small business publications that talked about the challenges that we as entrepreneurs face especially during these more difficult economic times and of course that got me thinking..

BED OF ROSES

It’s certainly no bed of roses, in the days when you may have been employed think of all the decisions that the boss made without you having to even know about, now you are the boss.  And when people said that it takes tenacity and hard work with incredible focus to get to the top, did you ever really believe them?  But looking back I’m sure you can appreciate where you have got to and how far you still have to go, but hey, that is why we are here, we’re in it for the long run..

COMMUNICATE

…in it for the long run, growing up as part of the X Generation we certainly grasped the concept of instant gratification, that was what it was all about, get in the car at a time when petrol was so cheap and go where ever you wanted, TV had just hit the scene and in the 80’s many of the X generation were already being fed TV as a staple diet, then came Mnet, Video Machines and Fax Machines and some of us even had computers at school, we really got into the instant stuff, but one thing that we missed out on was learning to communicate effectively, of course a huge generalization but still quite accurate, and so the 30 somethings like myself grapple with that. 

All I can say is force yourself, acknowledge your weakness and push through, but realise that if you don’t improve that skill it will get you into stacks of trouble. Communicating clearly with Customers and Suppliers is a challenge, I often sit back and think about some of the mess ups I have made and I ask myself how much of this was as a result of poor communication and people hearing but not listening.  Do you hear or do you really listen?

FIND A MENTOR – SOMEONE YOU CAN TRUST AND SPILL YOUR BEANS TO (OH AND BE REAL)

We all need someone we can trust to spill the beans to, both on the personal and the business front, especially in small business the realms of personal and business collide more regularly than in an office/ corporate environment where the mighty board sit and spill their beans while the rest of the worker bees buzz away at their corporate stuff keeping work at work and personal at home.

 Running a small business means that in many cases you are the business and in my case we are the business, and I have a mentor that I can trust with my life, wow that’s few and far between but it hasn’t been an easy ride.  That trust thing - not that simple, saying it as it is - also not that simple, but if it wasn’t for my mentor and friend I think I’d be back buzzing away aimlessly as a worker bee in the hive of a corporate company probably wondering what the purpose of all this buzzing is.  So actively look for that mentor and learn to spew it out..

KEEP YOUR HEAD ABOVE WATER WHAT EVER IT TAKES

Do you want this, or has it got too tough?  Sticking to THE PROJECT your main business, your vision and your passion must be the most difficult aspect of running your own business.  When those big deals fall through and the pending break though results in bitter disappointment, you need to ask yourself ‘Is this what I really want?’ 

Really wanting this life of a small business owner, life of the small guy with big dreams slogging at it with no results getting yourself so bogged down that you forget to lift your head up, and see how much progress you have made and how close you actually are to the big break.  Well at the end of the day it’s like that walk in the Drakensberg where you see the destination ‘not far off’ while it is actually kilometers away, ‘they’ say 1000 days and ‘they’ are probably quite close to the truth, 1000 days of persistence and growing and learning and experiencing something that more and more South Africans are experiencing.  All I can say what a blast and what a ride … stick to it and work at it you will start to see the fruits of your labour..

Brendon Burmester

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