The Lazy Entrepreneur

I felt guilty about shirking work today.

So I called a mentor, to ask for advice. A kick in the butt rather, as I was feeling discouraged about my work. I'm in the sales line, and I'm not doing my bit to chase sales, and I was looking for a realistic voice to tell me to just, do, it. I am good at sales, just that I'm not enthusiastic about it.

So I asked this person, what do I do?

And he told me, "It's not something everyone enjoys dear, that's why it's called work."

I was silent for a while, feeling the much-needed shame.

He continued, "You'd been very blessed to be in jobs that you loved, but to be rich there's no shortcut. Nose to the grindstone, keep at it. That's how empires get built. Unless you marry a rich man, like so many girls aspire to do."

I snorted, and told him, "I want to build it myself. Even if I were to marry a rich man, I want to build something myself. Besides, if I can buy love then I don't want it, it's no good. And I'm an entrepreneur on the way to greatness.

"How many rich men are there, anyway?"

I could hear the laughter in his voice when he said, "A few."


Ah, such youthful pride. 

Pooh.


And so I hung up, feeling like an inexperienced, unseasoned naive child. And I wrote a story:


Once upon a time there was an entrepreneur. He felt guilty when he did not do the work he was supposed to do. He knew it needed to be done, but he just wasn't doing it. Because it's sales.

He's not lazy, this entrepreneur. He was passionate about his work, liked the work he did and was pretty good in his area of expertise - but the thing that gets the money in, he loathed doing even though he was good at it. Because well, when people said "no" to him, he felt they were saying "no" to him.

He hated that, because he was selling his services.

He didn't want to expend the resources to employ a salesperson as he's just started up, the website, the office space was already pretty expensive. Social media only goes so far before you have to pay, again. And from the efficient, passionate and enthusiastic person he was, he suddenly became "lazy". 

Then he became sullen, because he was worried, which soon became resentment. He was on a downward spiral until he found a few friends who helped him publicise his company out of goodwill that he got more clients. 

And with the revenue he employed telemarketers and salespeople, and lived happily ever after.

The end.

---


Of course, there's more to a business than that, but hey, that's the gist mainly.

People become lazy when they dislike the things they do. Nobody can be an expert in all areas of running a business, but once an entrepreneur recognises that, it's a matter of how time before something gets figured out.

But here's the rub: a good entrepreneur does things that he's good at, even if he were to hate it. In the above case, if it were to be difficult to get a salesman, then I would suggest a partnership so someone will be bringing in the bacon.

Meanwhile though, if you're an entrepreneur like myself who's still in the early stages of growing your company and is thus doing everything yourself - let's hang in there and let's do this.

You grind your nose, and I grind mine. We'll meet 5 years down the road and compare the size of our chequebooks. -grin-