Questions

I am 30 years old former model entrepreneur. I have been having my business for 1,5 now. I do everything myself and I work usually from 12 till 16 hours a day every day with no weekends.All my time I invest in my business and since I get more cliends I get more work. I tried to hire people but they don't do the job as well as I do myself and I loose the client. I tried to teach and motivate them but it seems like you gotta be likable and have a talent to be successful in it, so I decided to do stuff myself. For this 1.5 years of hard work I started to feel like I am exhautsed and turning into machine and no massages or gyms help me to get energy and inspirartion back. I started to make money but I feel apathy for pretty much everything. How do you guys keep your motivation high and stay focused? Mayve I just need to find the same minded partner and make business with someone who will motivate me?If so, if there is any web resurses where I can find someone brainy and business driven? Thank you so much in advance. Diana

Diana,

I ran a consulting company for over three years. I ended up divesting myself of that business earlier this year. We were ranked as one of the 250 fastest growing companies in our sector by an industry analyst two years in a row (2012 and 2013). I was working hours even more extreme than you for the first year.

We did great work and grew very quickly so it was hard to keep up with the growth. We made mistakes and we alienated some customers as we grew. Yet, I knew early on that I would need to hire people to help me grow. I tried to document as much as I could about our systems, processes and procedures. That way I didn't have to spend as much time training replacements.

The trick is in finding good people to work for you. If you are hiring people and they make your life more difficult (clients are upset, etc...) then you need to change your hiring strategy.

Your company has a unique way of doing things. Judging from your description, it's a very stressful and high demand environment. If you are going to hire someone then you need to hire someone who is a good fit for that kind of environment. Try and find someone who has been an entrepreneur in the past and don't be afraid of making mistakes that alienate some customers. If you didn't make mistakes you wouldn't be human. Just try to ensure those mistakes don't put you out of business.

My advice is as follows:
* Take 10-20% of your day and document what your doing. Draw diagrams if you need to, but make sure you understand the work to be performed.
* Hire People based on their passion not their skills, and train them.
* Work hard to ensure you create a relaxed work environment for the people who work for you. It takes much more time and money to retrain new people than to retain people.
* Take responsibilities for the failures of your people, offer training not blame to keep them working hard.
* Plan to take a trip after new people are in place to do the work. Think about where you want to go and imagine yourself relaxing.
* See a doctor about the stress and apathy, this kind of stress takes a toll on a person, it might be necessary to get on something like blood pressure meds to keep you healthy.


Answered 10 years ago

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