Running your own biz can be a lonely affair. You often work alone, have little interaction and steer your own ship. I used to be pretty solo in my early days. Now it’s quite different with an ever-expanding team – but still when you are at the head there is no one else to really turn to. I’m all for airing my problems, or challenges I should say (sorry team!) but if you don’t have a big team then this might help:
Brainstorm with friends and family
Take them out for drinks and use your friends or family as an advisory panel. You might not always like to hear the advice back but when you talk things through outloud it really helps.
Create a group
Contact other business owners and set up a once a month breakfast biz, working lunch, drinks after work. Talking to other people even if they are not in the same field helps enormously. Gem and I have met some amazing business minds when we’ve been in China, all running multi-million pound companies and all happy to share, advise and lend an ear.
Hire
Try as soon as you can to stop doing everything yourself and hire people. This will free you up to spend more time on strategy and moving it forward.
Involve others
Interns, college students, friends – advertise for volunteers there are lots of people willing to assist and who knows they may eventually be your next CEO!
I leave you with a few quotes… from by Steve Jobs “Great things in business are never done by one person, they’re done by a team!”
And particularly important today I feel:
“No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent.”