Entrepreneurship and Focus

One thing about entrepreneurship is that it is all consuming. I knew this going in, but it is different than I expected. Instead of being flat out busy doing business development, serving clients and jumping through miscellaneous hoops, it is easy to get pulled in many, many directions: both business and family related.

In my dealings thus far with the entrepreneurs Big Vox strives to help, it seems that that we are all faced with the same challenges and in doing so end up lacking the focus needed to drive any of our projects to unparalleled success. We find ourselves debating the benefits of any one project without moving forward on anything, and delaying in taking the next step, losing potential opportunities.

I can understand the perceived safety of having many "irons in the fire", but it is necessary to set some time aside to lay out goals, expectations and time to be spent for each initiative. We mustn’t forget we also need to allocate time for family commitments, lest we spin out of control, spending our precious start up resources without a clear concept of what we hope to achieve, while alienating everyone who means anything to us.

Big Vox helps give a voice to small business by putting professional marketing within reach. But to do that, first, we need to help folks stay focused on their goals and learn to quickly evaluate potentially profitable businesses, from time and resource hogs.

Lessons learned:

1) Be reasonable with your business expectations. Know you need to set aside time for commitments outside of work.
2) Don’t get sidetracked doing only outside-of-work commitments.
3) Avoid too many irons in the fire. Quickly separate the potential stars from the dogs and move on.
4) Plan, plan, plan.
5) But don’t forget to execute.
6) Practice what we preach.