Every Monday morning I struggle to make sense of running a small business. It’s not just that weekends are always too short to properly re-charge. It’s mapping out the week ahead and seeing how busy it’ll be. Again. How there’s things I’d like to change — but where’s the time? We’re already flat out working for clients the way we do now, and there’s no time left to implement the changes.
And why am I doing this anyway, when I could have more money and less stress in a “regular job”?
Against this background, it was good to see Hugh MacLeod’s “Random Thoughts on Being an Entrepreneur“. Some which particularly resonate:
1. Everything takes three times longer than it should. Especially the money part.
8. You can either be cheapest or the best. I know which one I prefer.
18. People remember the quality long after they’ve forgotten the price. Unless you try to rip them off.
25. Bill Gates may have a million times more money than me, but he isn’t going to live a million times longer than me, see a million times more sunsets than me, make love to a million times more women than me, drink a million times more fine wine than me, listen to a million times more Beethoven String Quartets than me, or sire a million times more children than me. Money can only buy you so much in this world. Of course, Mr Gates will know this as much as any man alive.
Interestingly, none of those directly match the thoughts I’m having about the business, which are:
- The business is doing too many different things. If we want to be “the best”, we can only be the best at a small, focussed set of services.
- The folks always saying “Oh, that’s too expensive” will say that no matter how cheap the price.
More on these subjects soon…