Editor’s note: This article was first published in September 2011, and its time references are relative to then, such as this year she will open the third.
At some point, all of us draw up a plan (plan A) in which we set out to become… whatever it may be. We acquire the knowledge we need: some of us go to university to improve our chances in the job market, while others shape our careers from the start with the idea of one day running our own company, and so on.
Once we’re well into our plan, the unexpected tends to crop up. Or, quite simply, once we reach the goal we fought for, it turns out it doesn’t fulfil us, doesn’t satisfy us, and we don’t feel professionally accomplished. To give an example, a few days ago I was listening to several American entrepreneurs, specifically a lawyer with a brilliant career and an executive at a large US corporation.
The problem for these two women wasn’t the crisis: their respective companies had weathered it perfectly well so far. Let’s focus on the lawyer’s case.
Her problem was how much of herself she gave to her job. She had no time for her family. She got up at 6 in the morning and didn’t get home until night, in a life packed with company meetings, clients, judges and trials, on top of frequent travel. She earned around $400,000 a year, but she herself said she couldn’t take any more. She felt overloaded, unfulfilled and on the verge of a kind of work-related depression, so she started thinking about plan B.
Plan B
It’s the plan many people have to carry out out of necessity when there’s no work: starting their own business. In this woman’s case, though, it was a personal choice, a way to feel professionally fulfilled and have more time for her family, without having to be in a constant struggle with her superiors at the firm.
This entrepreneur looked into business opportunities that matched her passion. As a girl she had dreamed of owning a restaurant, so she wanted to focus her business idea on that sector.
She travelled around Europe and Asia to see what kind of idea she could bring back to her country. In the end she settled on a restaurant specializing in Greek food, and she threw herself into it with great enthusiasm. In less than five months the premises were refurbished, the staff hired and everything ready to open. And open it did.
The business has done well from the start, because she did a good marketing job to get the word out, so you could say that from day one a lack of customers has never been her problem. Even so, plan B didn’t turn out the way she expected either.
Once again, it isn’t the money: it’s a profitable business. Nor is it that she doesn’t like what she does. Simply put, this entrepreneur hadn’t counted on the commitment your own business demands.
She expected to put in long hours at first, but thought that after a few months she could gradually cut back. That hasn’t happened.
She has to get up at 6 in the morning, organize lunches and dinners and, once the staff have gone home, balance the till and close up the restaurant. Her day is completely full, and in the moments when she could rest she usually gets a call about a supplier, a breakdown or some other problem. On top of that, the kind of business she chose gets the most customers at weekends, so she can’t take those off either.
This entrepreneur has just discovered that the business needs her attention 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, and for three years she hasn’t been able to take a single day off.
When plan B fails, move on to plan C
Once you reach this point, as an entrepreneur and for the sake of your health and/or your family’s wellbeing, you have to make a decision. Either you back out and return to your old job, which would feel like failing in business when that isn’t really what happened, or you move on to plan C.
Plan C is the one used by the executive we mentioned. Of course, a woman who already had experience running companies had an advantage over our lawyer.
It has always been said that a business can make you its slave, when really the business should become our slave and give us a monthly return, ideally on its own. I know: it’s easy to say in theory that the business and the money should work for you; putting it into practice is another matter entirely.
Plan C is about growing as a business owner instead of standing still. Back to our examples: while our lawyer has spent three years in her restaurant working full time, our executive also opened a restaurant, a traditional one aimed at company executives, with one difference. After six months, she handed the business over to a second-in-command so she could focus on opening a transport company. Later she set up a food import company.
See also: How to come up with business ideas
Once she had the transport and food businesses, she became her own restaurant’s supplier, so in the second year she opened a second restaurant, and this year she will open a third.
The difference in quality of life between the two is that one has to be at the restaurant 24 hours a day, while the other can manage her businesses through one or two weekly meetings with her managers. She practically only goes to her restaurants to eat.
Two different business mindsets for two people who started out with basically the same capital and the same business, with one small difference: one had a growth strategy and the other only had enthusiasm.
Strategy leads you to a better quality of life; enthusiasm on its own can turn into a business nightmare.
Further reading
- Common mistakes made by Hispanic business owners
- The difference between Hispanic and American business owners
- 5 ways to grow your business
- Why new businesses fail
Featured image: Alpha, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Flickr.
