It’s a normal situation for a founder, especially when the business is in its early phase to handle most jobs themselves, but what happens when that attitude drags on a bit too long and affects the functionality of the business?
I will raise my hand to this one. Call it ego if you will, but I still feel as a founding member of the business, that I should be able to, and with a god-like high degree of competency, handle any problem, task, or project without needing outside help.
I call this mindset ‘Entrepreneur’s syndrome.’
The concept is not difficult to understand. You are taking a lot on yourself by choosing to leave a secure salaried job and go it alone. You now only answer to yourself. Success, failure, paperwork, product development, paperclips, coffee, all the damn cold calls, it’s now up to you, and you alone.
And suppose you are like me, taking this serious plunge in my Late forties with a family. In that case, the pressure of providing a good enough living for the household as fast as possible puts an incredible amount of stress on yourself.
8 times 5 turns to 24/7
Now do not be fooled by the old lie that ‘once you are a business owner you can dictate your own hours.’ Your previous boss has now been replaced by your current customers and now you have the constant need to find more customers and this last part isn’t actually paid, is it? It comes from your own time. So, time is now money, and so to save time, you find yourself doing those small tasks that you maybe have little to no experience in doing, only because it would be quicker than explaining it to someone else.
This work creeps into your weekends, the task list reminds you at 3 am in the morning keeping you sleepless or any other free time that may present itself in the day.
3 years into my journey, I am only now trying to find ways to outsource what I can. I need to find ways to get free time for myself and for the family. I also need ‘play space’ to be creative and innovative. That cannot happen if I am in business mode 24/7 No. I cannot do everything by myself and maintain a high-quality rapid service and have a family.
“I feel like a snake eating itself.“
I received a great piece of advice from a previous boss on my first day in a Finnish engineering company. “No one knows everything. No one can. If you find yourself not understanding the problem, not finding the solution or just getting plain stuck, you smile to the client, keep a confident outer face and you call someone who does know. It is better for you and for the customer. So, it’s important to keep a list of people who know stuff. I often forget this advice and the syndrome kicks in and I feel like an incompetent owner. That’s when I get overworked.
Talented as I am at juggling, something must suffer and for us, the part of the business that is suffering from an ironic lack of attention is our social media presence.
Marketing is long, difficult, and sucks out the time that I need to be creative for my customers or to find new customers via in-person networking. I feel like a snake eating itself.
After all my pitch to new clients is all about helping businesses be more efficient with their time and advert spending. Generally, companies should outsource the stuff that is important but has a high immediate time expenditure paired with a slower value return, like accountancy and social media campaigning so they can focus on serving their customers.
So, is Entrepreneur syndrome a real thing? I dunno. For me, it feels like it does. I know now it’s a weakness not an outward show of strength. I am now strong enough to allow others to do the work and take my hand on that particular steering wheel, especially when I know they will have time and focus to do an excellent job.
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