Great entrepreneurs never do everything themselves, yet for us average business owners, this is a great and costly temptation. Fire Pits It means we are doing the wrong kind of work (WKW).
Almost invariably, the justification for engaging WKW is to save money. “I don’t have to pay for that,” or “I can do that myself.” It is a sure way to defeat. Here’s why.
Economic activities of all kinds have a certain range of value expressed in dollars. There’s a defined amount that you can earn by bookkeeping, weeding farm fields, doing laundry, stocking shelves, or tending a retail storefront. how to get a girlfriend There’s a range of what you can earn by doing technical writing, graphic design, training development, or providing chiropractic care. Almost every industry and work activity has such a range. The enormous danger to the entrepreneur comes when you choose to do the lowest value activities.
I attempted to break into organic farming on two separate occasions. My reason was that I love working outside with my garden—planting, weeding, harvesting, processing. I love the physical work of it, the fresh air, the quiet countryside. granite countertops When I started, I realized I had to create an efficient production and marketing system, and did my best to do so. I felt that with increased organic prices, I would get the money it would take to sustain a little farmstead and live that dream.
It took me years to figure out what was wrong with my idea; the work I loved most was the lowest value work in the system. whey protein Planting, weeding, harvesting, and processing are manual labor, which I enjoyed, but whose economic value was extremely low. No matter how productive and efficient I would become, I was essentially competing with farm labor, and there is simply no way to make the economics work. What the farm needed was to have me focusing on higher value work, like what to plant, crop prices, marketing, etc. This doomed my enterprise because that is the work I like least. My insistence on avoiding those activities, and instead, working in the market garden, meant that most of my time was spent earning a farm labor wage, even though it was my own farm. Although possible to survive, I sought to prosper. This method was inadequate.
Here is another example. cell phone repeater A friend of mine is a physical therapist and after a few years working in a traditional office, she decided to go to work on her own. (A good step in my book.) We discussed her business operations one day, and it turns out that in an effort to save money, she does all the laundry for her business at night (two loads per night) and all her own claims processing (couple hours per night). In other words, in addition to running her practice all day, she is working all night! Janitorial Service San Diego This is a sure recipe for exhaustion.
Here’s why it is clearly WKW: She could have the laundry done for her by a service for about $30 a week. The claims processing is a little more. If she dedicated that time to getting another patient or two, she would more than pay for the service in a single hour of service rendered to that additional patient. She is giving up $150 per hour work (or substantial free time to pursue her own interests) in order to save maybe $10 per hour in costs. This is how entrepreneurs burn out. Pet Insurance
In my own case, the realization that the work I really loved could not be sustained forced a hard decision: cell phone amplifier Instead of turning the market garden into a business, I chose to exit the business and turn gardening back into a hobby. I learned what it would take to sustain a real farm in the world—lots of driving, marketing, selling, trading—realized it was at odds with what my dream really was—gardening, weeding, working the fields—and chose not to go down that road. I do not regret it.
When you are starting up a small business, there can be plenty of reasons to engage WKW in the beginning. You may have far more time than money, and learning what needs to be done in all aspects of your business enables you to instruct others later. cell phone signal amplifier However, the entrepreneur must search relentlessly for the opportunities to outsource or delegate such activities and replace them with real income producing activities. Such a move can put your income into hyperdrive, and begin to open the reality of your dreams to you.