I'm not a business man!

cormie

I've come to the realisation that although I've been doing various entrepreneurial endeavours since the age of 13 and am currently running a successful business started in 2007, that I'm not in fact a business man in the traditional sense. I've no desire to be filthy rich and the thoughts of expanding a business and all that's involved with that, is not attractive to me.

I believe I'm more of an ideas man than a business man and I've another few ideas I'd love to pursue which I believe could make great businesses. The problem is, they'd probably need a lot more dedication than I could give being involved in my current business and then obviously the more things I start, the more difficult it would be to follow up on other ideas too, then on top of that, I wouldn't want to neglect the quality of service being provided in my current business, so I'm at a bit of a stale mate.

I'm not an academic person, I could never study and the thought of reading anything more than a few paragraphs is daunting. Maybe that's why I'm on boards so much, everything is one post at a time.

The ideal situation and what I'd like to be able to do, would be to set something up, the way I see it working in my head, have it ready to grow and then pass it on to someone else who can make that happen, while it still is somewhat my creation and of course, I'd still have some stake in it (a strong voice but no day to day responsibilities).

I've ideas from websites, to beauty products, to gadget inventions and beyond and I'd like to have a go at them, but I'm finding it hard to get going on any while I'm involved in the every day necessities of running my current business (taking phone calls, booking jobs, doing jobs, taking vans to mechanics, emails, website maintenance, book keeping etc) and I don't think there's enough hours in the day for me to have that doubled or tripled with another few businesses.

I want more time to myself too, I haven't had a holiday since 2006 because I feel I can't. I feel my current business has potential to be far more busy than it currently is. I'm happy just getting by at the moment and don't scout for any work at all, it's all just word of mouth, organic google results etc. The business has a really good reputation and I as I'm a bit of a perfectionist, I want to keep it that way. It's also set up really well from the website to the vans and then the small things that make it stand out from the crowd. Everything is there ready to be put into full swing but I don't feel I'm the man to be in charge of having every van on the road full time with employees to manage etc.

Has anyone else been in the same situation and did you arrive at any kind of solution that allowed you to pursue other ideas while still keeping your creations, yours?

Piriz

interesting post, i fancy myself as a bit of an ideas man too....currently set to embark on my first venture and hope to find enough stores and sales of my products for it to be sustainable and give a profit...
I work part time as a healthcare professional so its not like im throwing everything i have into this but i hope i can make it work...i can still survive on my part time work if it fails to turn a profit...but i'll plug away at it for a year and hope it grows...

Sounds to me like you should employ a manager...someone with the right skills could run the business and you just oversee and advise...surely this would enable you to focus on your next best idea... ?

I think you might be reluctant to let someone else take the reigns?

it'd be great to have a partner who was well versed in business and i could just throw my ideas their way and they could do the business development.... i guess i need to do it myself...thats the best way to learn..

cormie

Thanks for the input, yeah a manager type would be good to have alright but even though I believe the potential is there for this to be a business with a few employees, as I'm the only one at the moment, the money coming in is good for me, but a full time employee and a manager especially, would be taking a good chunk, until of course it expands. Maybe a partnership would be the best route?

Piriz

i think its the best way to go...let the finances take a hit in the short term maybe...but a business development/operations manager may be able to expand the business... thus paying for himself and freeing up your time...
you havn't had a holiday in 6 years, hire a business manager and by christmas you'll have had a holiday...also your new manager can help with the development of your next idea and so on...

your business might be successful but your work life balance is not ?

imagine you got three different business up and running with employees doing the day to day stuff... thats a possibility for you if your ideas are good enough... you could be the director of all three and have more time off...

go for it!

Peterdalkey

With respect, running a business is 95% perspiration and 5% inspiration, your ambition seems to be fully occupied doing only the latter, you are dreaming I fear. Anyone who runs a business even if it is a one man band is a businessman/woman, not every businessperson however is an entrepreneur. An entrepreneur is always definedas one who takes risks to build a business that will reward his investment/hard work/risk. They are constantly driven by opportunity and growth to make their enterprise as large and successful as possible.
Reading your post over a couple of times, it would be easy to conclude that you just want a comfortable risk free lifestyle where you only do the bits that appeal to you. Nice work work if you can get it, however it could also easily be concluded that you are a bit of a dreamer and want to skip to the glory bit without doing the middle bit properly. This kind of life is reserved for the mega wealthy who have already made their money and lots of it!
If you got your arse in gear to the point where you had 2 or 3 vans on the road, you could take yourself off the van, to have chiefs, you need Indians. You have to make this happen, it won't just evolve on it's own. If you can't manage your own life to have some bit of a break every year, you are unlikely to be able to manage others. You really want to think about some way of learning how to manage, it is not rocket science just common sense in most cases.

The Dagda

Peterdalkey wrote: »

With respect, running a business is 95% perspiration and 5% inspiration, your ambition seems to be fully occupied doing only the latter, you are dreaming I fear. Anyone who runs a business even if it is a one man band is a businessman/woman, not every businessperson however is an entrepreneur. An entrepreneur is always definedas one who takes risks to build a business that will reward his investment/hard work/risk. They are constantly driven by opportunity and growth to make their enterprise as large and successful as possible.
Reading your post over a couple of times, it would be easy to conclude that you just want a comfortable risk free lifestyle where you only do the bits that appeal to you. Nice work work if you can get it, however it could also easily be concluded that you are a bit of a dreamer and want to skip to the glory bit without doing the middle bit properly. This kind of life is reserved for the mega wealthy who have already made their money and lots of it!
If you got your arse in gear to the point where you had 2 or 3 vans on the road, you could take yourself off the van, to have chiefs, you need Indians. You have to make this happen, it won't just evolve on it's own. If you can't manage your own life to have some bit of a break every year, you are unlikely to be able to manage others. You really want to think about some way of learning how to manage, it is not rocket science just common sense in most cases.

Harsh, but accurate.

The world is full of people with "ideas"!

The most successful people are not the ones with the best ideas, but are the ones who put their heads down, and broke their bollix building a company around one idea. Any idea.

Btw, calling yourself a "perfectionist" is just an excuse not to trust others and delegate. I've been there.

Pixie Chief

Peterdalkey wrote: »

With respect, running a business is 95% perspiration and 5% inspiration, your ambition seems to be fully occupied doing only the latter, you are dreaming I fear. Anyone who runs a business even if it is a one man band is a businessman/woman, not every businessperson however is an entrepreneur. An entrepreneur is always definedas one who takes risks to build a business that will reward his investment/hard work/risk. They are constantly driven by opportunity and growth to make their enterprise as large and successful as possible.
Reading your post over a couple of times, it would be easy to conclude that you just want a comfortable risk free lifestyle where you only do the bits that appeal to you. Nice work work if you can get it, however it could also easily be concluded that you are a bit of a dreamer and want to skip to the glory bit without doing the middle bit properly. This kind of life is reserved for the mega wealthy who have already made their money and lots of it!
If you got your arse in gear to the point where you had 2 or 3 vans on the road, you could take yourself off the van, to have chiefs, you need Indians. You have to make this happen, it won't just evolve on it's own. If you can't manage your own life to have some bit of a break every year, you are unlikely to be able to manage others. You really want to think about some way of learning how to manage, it is not rocket science just common sense in most cases.

There is a lot of sense in there and I agree with it completely. But I also agree with OP. You can have all the perspiration you like but if there is no inspiration then you've got nothing.

I'm an ideas person myself. I'm not a businessman (woman!) and I never will be. Sometimes you do come across people who manage to combine constant flood of ideas who are also incredible business people but it's rare.

One of the most amazing creative minds I have worked with is also not a business person, but running a successful business nonetheless because he played to his strengths and teamed up with a partner he trusted who is a brilliant businessman and much better at the day to day running of a business. He works and earns money but it allows hime to play with ideas and stretch himself. It works fantastically well.

From my perspective, it's not necessarily that the OP wants a comfortable, risk-free lifestyle and perhaps more that you don't understand the giddy, heady rush of an idea or how difficult it is to pick one and focus on that exclusively, ignoring all of the other great ones that you have. I also have extensive files of ideas in folders, some business or product, lots of them advertising and some of them are more artistic (lol!) or just plain mental. I want to do them all.....and all the ones that come after. Hard to create a business plan for that!

Peterdalkey

From my perspective, it's not necessarily that the OP wants a comfortable, risk-free lifestyle and perhaps more that you don't understand the giddy, heady rush of an idea or how difficult it is to pick one and focus on that exclusively, ignoring all of the other great ones that you have. I also have extensive files of ideas in folders, some business or product, lots of them advertising and some of them are more artistic (lol!) or just plain mental. I want to do them all.....and all the ones that come after. Hard to create a business plan for that![/QUOTE]

I am not trying to be argumentative here and there is much of value to consider in your post. However, time for the D word, Discipline or more importantly self-discipline is a vital learned skill needed by everyone who works for themselves. It takes discipline not to be distracted by every fleeting genius flash that passes through the creative mind, you need to maintain focus and effort on the task/plan in hand. I like your folders/files where you save them up, write it down and park it until you actually have time to do it justice. In my own case I have a digital cloud notepad called "Stuff" where I record my divine inspiration ideas. Amazing how often they fail the 4 week aging test and are deleted with a sheepish stroke!

Pixie Chief

Absolutely, Peter! Discipline is incredibly important and difficult to achieve. It took me a really long time not to just be swept away by each new idea (we call it the butterfly effect!), just record it and get back to what you were doing initially. Many of them don't survive past some down time for sure.

I am lucky enough to have carved a teeny niche for myself that allows mad ideas to be an essential part of my business because I realised that I didn't want a life where I have picked this one thing and now that's all I do - so I could sympathise with the OP. Doesn't change the fact that you are perfectly right and correct with what you said.

I will always make far less money doing what I do in the way that I do it. I'm ok with that, it's worked out pretty good for me in the sense that I get by financially and am so very happy. I would probably do a lot better financially with someone like yourself running things and to bring me back down to earth ideas wise (I rely on horrifying myself with ESB bills to achieve that at the mo!)
It is terribly unlikely that I will ever be considered to be a dramatically successful business owner but I still consider that there is merit in being an ideas person. I have benefited so much from having an odd twist on things, a unique (crazy) perspective on problems and the right attitude to overcome them. It is really what I am best at out of everything I do and so that's what makes me want to have that as a huge part of my working life. I suspect OP, much like myself wishes that there were a way to get paid for that - somebody, somewhere wants our ideas, duds and all!

You are the grown-up voice of reason and reality. You are right in every respect. I cannot find fault with a single comment you have made - except for a tiny, teenagey piece of my soul shouting "You don't know my life!" The sad fact is that no-one is going to pay us for sitting in our swivel chair, chewing our bic biros, making paper planes and playing farmville until a crazy idea strikes, we research, scribble furiously endangering whole forests, driving our collective friends/family mental with "Wait, no, listen to this one....no, really, this one is fantastic!" and living in hope eternal that this is it, this is the big one. It is a fantasy. No one could make a business out of that - it's not how business works. It takes time, effort, focus, discipline, determination and work. You are dead on balls accurate. It's just that....I REALLY wish you weren't, and a little bit of me always will.

Peterdalkey

Pixie chief, that must be the most gracious post and such discipline in not disagreeing with me. Great control!

Peter

Pixie Chief

Peterdalkey wrote: »

Pixie chief, that must be the most gracious post and such discipline in not disagreeing with me. Great control!

Peter

Aw, shucks *blushes* thank you! Of course, the bugger of it is that I can't disagree with you. The pesky rational and logical part of my brain won't let me. I think a common feature of 'ideas' people is that we are interested in pretty much everything. We aren't satisfied just to admire the universe, we want to tinker with it as well.

Secretly, I'm pretty sure that most of us want to be a 'Greg House' of business where we roll it to work hungover from partying till dawn with these crazy chicks from Bulgaria (why not!?!) and some hardcore business types rush in, in desperate need of an original thought (and possibly some type of seperation anxiety from their calculators) and leave it to us. We hang out, play some witty and dastardly pranks, mess with a couple of rounds of solitaire and then suddenly, while being mildly insulting to a random stranger and ordering our daily half skim, half fat, double mocha caramel frappacino - the glorious idea comes. The corporate bods are summoned, informed of this fantastic and amazing idea and leave their blank cheques on the desk accompanied by tears of gratitude and joy.

In reality, of course, I can't persuade the youngest that weetabix has any advantages over cookie crisp as a breakfast cereal. But still...that's the ultimate fantasy. And why not, I say, there are worse things out there. This one time, I used google and ..........

cormie

Thanks again for the input folks.

Ok, maybe I'm not an entrepreneur so I thought the definition of one was somebody who simply started their own business, but again maybe that's just my academic ineptitude. If the end goal of an entrepreneur is to have as big and successful a company as possible, and success in business terms is generally defined as profit, then that's certainly not where my ambition lies. However I believe I have a good eye for where money can be made.

When you mention about skipping to the end bit without doing the middle bit properly, well I believe it's the beginning that really attracts me, creating something new and turning it into a successful venture. Each new thing I'd be looking to start would be a risk in itself so to say I'm not willing to take any risks I wouldn't necessarily agree with.

Another factor is my current line of work requires a lot of physical labour and I've been injured too many times I can remember over the past few years which has also affected what I can do, while at the same time giving rise of new ideas. Currently managing this is taking up most of my time, I probably work too much and sleep too little. I've managed to tone it down a little which I've needed for my own mental and physical health but it would be ideal to be able to pass on the day to day running to somebody, even if I kept a smaller % and I'd have something to fall back on if the other ideas don't work as I see them working.

My end goal would be to have a lot of different creations, so it would be like setting something up, finding a suitable person to run it who I can trust and who has the skills I don't have to take it further and manage others while keeping a small share in a few different businesses so I'd have additional income to whatever project I'd currently be working on from all the hard work I put in at the start, and I do put in hard work! The hardest thing would be finding somebody you can trust I guess? I didn't think it sounded that crazy an idea when I started the thread and still don't

Peterdalkey

Whatever floats your boat and I do not for a moment criticise your ambitions or dreams. You may be well pleased with your progress towards your objectives over the last 6 years since starting your business, I could not possibly know the detail. You do, so you can measure based on your own values. Post it here and you are open for comment of every hue!

Cheers

Peter

cormie

I'm hoping it's at least a possibility anyway, I definitely respect and appreciate your input, we spoke before over this forum when I posted above having an invention actually and you were very helpful. I haven't had time to pursue it yet for the reasons above. I just wish I had a clearer idea of what direction to go in and how I could go about at least having time to try these other ideas while not neglecting the quality of my current business and while giving enough to the new ideas while still having enough time in life to enjoy other, non business things. How do you find that balance when there's only one of you.

It was mentioned above by The Dagda about being a perfectionist and not trusting other people. It's a pain and I'd like to get away from that. Maybe I just need to find the right person?

Nappy

Hi OP,

I read a great book on holidays this summer. Its called "The 4 hour workweek" written by tim ferriss. It's written for people in your situation, teaches ways to delegate effectively and have people do all the work for you while you concentrate on other things. I'm only a student at the moment but hopefully some day I'll be able to apply some of the principles in the book at some stage in life. Definitely worth the read, its also a really easy read so dont be put off by the book. I'd be surprised if it didnt help you in some way. Best of luck with business!

cormie

cormie wrote: »

I'm hoping it's at least a possibility anyway, I definitely respect and appreciate your input, we spoke before over this forum when I posted above having an invention actually and you were very helpful. I haven't had time to pursue it yet for the reasons above. I just wish I had a clearer idea of what direction to go in and how I could go about at least having time to try these other ideas while not neglecting the quality of my current business and while giving enough to the new ideas while still having enough time in life to enjoy other, non business things. How do you find that balance when there's only one of you.

It was mentioned above by The Dagda about being a perfectionist and not trusting other people. It's a pain and I'd like to get away from that. Maybe I just need to find the right person?

The exciting part of business is the ideas, the inspiration, the brainstorming. The hard part is the grind of making it happen and taking various punches along the way. For me after reading the posts, you like the easy part but don't want the hard part. Subconsciously perhaps its that way because you have already done it with your current business and know how difficult it is, or just simply don't like the idea of taking on another major responsibility. In a perfect world the easy part would be all we would have to do in business.

Also, when it comes to trusting people to do stuff for you, I think its easy to find people to do jobs that don't involve entrepreneurial thinking on how to solve problems. Its just when your trying to find people who can be leaders, out of the box thinkers or your trying to replicate yourself somehow, its never going to happen as those people are starting their own thing, or will eventually! Thats my experience of trying to find the wonder employee

DubTony

I had a conversation with a psychologist a few weeks ago (don't read too much into that statement ). He maintains that we're driven by our values. They can be good and bad values and it seems most of us are inclined to lean toward the bad (negative) ones. So most of the time in our business lives we operate from a foundation of fear, worry, desperation and other things that we wouldn't necessarily see as factors that push us or our business forward.

Many people who are the main driver of the business and have a vested interest (usually financial), usually have a concern that if everything goes wrong, they're on the hook. So the business is run from a fear of loss. The not so obvious thing is that this isn't usually apparent to the individual. While everything may be going just fine, when everything's on the line, as it always is with sole traders and small business people, the fear of everything going pear-shaped is naturally at the back of everybody's mind (usually sub-conciously). It seems it's this factor that holds us into similar patterns and "drives" us to play it safe.

Generally what we don't do is operate toward our good values. One of those values may be a desire to set things up and move on. It's not unusual. Serial entrepreneurs are generally driven by something that causes this. They may not have recognised it, but there's something inside that pushes them to keep starting up new businesses. Start it, develop it a bit, and then move on to the next thing. (It could be considered that the "controlling" value here may be a negative one - boredom).

I think cormie has conflicting values battling against each other. He's generally content to run his business as it is without risking, or bothering with, expansion (playing safe), yet deep down there's another value screaming to get out. This might be a deep desire to be a gazillionaire.

It's quite complicated, but when broken down and recognised, the concept can be a real eye opener and can help people determine what really matters to them and so live their lives accordingly.

The conversation was , for me, a real eye opener. I've stayed in the same business for ever. What I never recognised was that I'm typically at my most productive (and happiest) when I start a new project and get it to the point where somebody else can take it over. Unfortunately I never even considered that I may be better off (mentally and financially) if I'd started new businesses, and then left them in capable hands, while moving on to something else.

Just an opinion from a fella who heard something once. But there might be something in it.

*edit

It seems that this has something that has something to do with NLP (neuro linguistic programming) of which I know nothing. But it seems that recognising our values and working toward them can give clarity.

http://www.nlp-now.co.uk/nlp_and_values1.htm

*edit 2

Yeah, some of "my wisdom" was already stated in earlier posts. Maybe I should read the the whole thread before commenting ... ah well.

Fear is definitely the factor! Successful entrepreneurs I think somewhat conquer this fear. Not being afraid to fail, not caring what other people think, not being afraid of the hard graft, the lack of social life and various things.

Family, mortgage, status all increase this fear as you get older, hence its good to take any chances while the 'fear' is still manageable!

Peterdalkey

Nice to have a thread dealing with the mental and motivational side of business with many considered, thoughtful and thought provoking posts.

cormie

Some more great posts and mostly all of it definitely familiar with me. Of course I'm sure we'd all like things a bit easier and I'd definitely like to have more me time that's not all caught up in thinking about consequences on the business of doing this or that, but that's not a bad thing to want.

Is there anyone here who actually believes it may be possible to achieve, without becoming a millionaire and not having to worry about money again? It's kind of a challenge in itself too I guess.

I'm lucky enough not to have any financial responsibilities such as a mortgage or a family I need to support, I've thankfully paid off all my loans and everything too so all I'm paying now is rent and the day to day running costs of the business and life in general. I am in a position to try some new things out but I just don't want to jeopardise the great reputation I've built for my current business. It's also a bit more restrictive in my business as there's absolutely no "working hours" so I can't exactly switch off come 17:30, I could have jobs at 2am collecting bands from gigs, jobs abroad, on Sundays, late in the evenings, early mornings so I can't really get into a routine which has a bad effect on other things too such as sleeping pattern etc.

I don't consider myself a van driver either as that's only a small % of the actual "work" I do but with the other ideas I have, they are a little closer to what I'm into, although doing work in the van is for me pretty enjoyable too as I've always got music on and enjoy the physical aspect of running up and down stairs sweating like crazy and get a good kick out of that. Just the injuries have set me back somewhat and then the working hours interfere with pretty much everything.

Trojan

Having met you, Cormie, I certainly don't think you lack motivation, intelligence, or that you have any fear of doing hard work.

I do think there are many, many different types of business person, and what works for some people doesn't work for others. There are business people who like the running of a business, the ticking over and tweaking of a running system. Some want staff, because they want to create jobs, others for the power. Others don't want the responsibility or the hassle. There are people who boot-strap their business and don't want external financing because they will lose control. There are those who specialise solely in starting businesses that require external funding. Some come up with a great idea, start a successful business and then want to get out immediately (the many tech startups that have been acquired) and some will refuse buyouts (e.g. Dropbox), wanting to build a huge business.

Motivational factors are hugely important. There's many ways to classify these factors, one way is the 6 F's: Fame, Fortune, Family, Fun, Freedom, and Force (power). In this classification most people find that they can strongly identify with 1-3 of these as their primary motivators.

I know that personally I'm highly motivated by freedom and that influences the business strategy and decisions I take, e.g. to be a solo consultant rather than starting a web agency with multiple staff, and even which jobs I take on a day to day basis. Your choice in the same circumstances might be completely different if your motivators are different.

I agree with the recommendation of The Four Hour Work Week (although everyone, the author included, knows the title is a misnomer). I'd also highly recommend The Entrepreneurial Myth (aka The E-Myth, aka The E-Myth Revisited) by Gerber. I hate the way it's written, but it's very useful to read and I think it could be helpful to you specifically here, Cormie.

bon ami

Many business people outsource some of their non core activities in order to give them time to focus on their business and personal life. Outsource your telephone answering , order processing, bookkeeping, IT etc things that take your focus away from selling and doing business

smash

The Dagda wrote: »

The most successful people are not the ones with the best ideas, but are the ones who put their heads down, and broke their bollix building a company around one idea. Any idea.

Maybe in the past, not not so much any more. Especially if it's a web business.

daigo75

Nappy wrote: »

I read a great book on holidays this summer. Its called "The 4 hour workweek" written by tim ferriss. It's written for people in your situation, teaches ways to delegate effectively and have people do all the work for you while you concentrate on other things.

Be careful about that. I know that book well, and it contains tons of hype. It doesn't technically lie, but it's also not telling the whole truth. I would not be very confident that a company where the owner, as the author writes, "puts himself out of the equation" (i.e. doesn't work for his own company) will go very far. The whole idea of "passive income", as he presents it, is mostly a lure. Also, keep in mind that many of the strategies and tricks found in the book may work in the US, not so much in other Countries.

My opinion is that one should learn to delegate, but never outsource his core competencies. If you don't work in your business, then it's not your business.

cormie

Hi again folks, thanks again for all the comments. Have taken them all in. I acquired the E-Myth, thanks for the suggestion Trojan, another friend recommended it and gave me a lend of it, still have to start it though :P

Have been very busy the past week and am thinking strongly about getting someone else in. My friend also suggested to start with an employee and see how they perform and if they can take on more and more responsibilities with a view to getting a % rather than just a wage which sounded like a good plan.

I'm a bit apprehensive about the whole employee thing, mainly because the uncertainty of the working week. Jobs can be at any times, one day I might just have a 1 hour job, another day it could be 12 hours work. If I'm going to be paying someone a fixed wage it might even put more pressure on me on weeks if there's not enough coming in. Maybe I should start a new thread for advice on all that though

So ideally I'd be able to find someone trustworthy where I can build the relationship to a stage where I'm happy to let them take on a lot of responsibility to give me time to focus on maybe even taking a holiday and then looking into other ideas I'd be interested in pursuing.

herthabsc

I completely understand you Cormie. I feel exactly the same. I am a ideas man, just launched my new business and now feel lost. I need somebody to come in and help me run the business because I ain't a business man either. I just wish that I could find that help:(

Gloomtastic!

herthabsc wrote: »

I completely understand you Cormie. I feel exactly the same. I am a ideas man, just launched my new business and now feel lost. I need somebody to come in and help me run the business because I ain't a business man either. I just wish that I could find that help:(

Why not look for a mentor? http://www.mentors.ie/

herthabsc

Thanks Gloomtastic. Appreciate this. I have spoken to them and will send a email now.

floydowen

Mentor idea is very good. You should look into your local enterprise board as well. They offer a mentoring service as far I know. Might be cheaper also. And as far as employing an operations manager; FAS run intern schemes for qualified people to take up these positions to help businesses. All the employer has to pay is 50 euro a week to the intern, as they are allowed to stay on social welfare while taking up the position.

herthabsc

It is funny that you mention this. I had a mentor with Fingal CEB before I set up my launch and he got back to myself yesterday evening asking if I needed further help. He also copied in the main contact person in the CEB to see what the possibilites of extra help are.

I have placed a ad in Jobbridge for something else but it is a good idea to place something for a operations manager in there as well. Why not. Thanks.

JD Dublin

Trojan wrote: »

Having met you, Cormie, I certainly don't think you lack motivation, intelligence, or that you have any fear of doing hard work.

I do think there are many, many different types of business person, and what works for some people doesn't work for others. There are business people who like the running of a business, the ticking over and tweaking of a running system. Some want staff, because they want to create jobs, others for the power. Others don't want the responsibility or the hassle. There are people who boot-strap their business and don't want external financing because they will lose control. There are those who specialise solely in starting businesses that require external funding. Some come up with a great idea, start a successful business and then want to get out immediately (the many tech startups that have been acquired) and some will refuse buyouts (e.g. Dropbox), wanting to build a huge business.

Motivational factors are hugely important. There's many ways to classify these factors, one way is the 6 F's: Fame, Fortune, Family, Fun, Freedom, and Force (power). In this classification most people find that they can strongly identify with 1-3 of these as their primary motivators.

I know that personally I'm highly motivated by freedom and that influences the business strategy and decisions I take, e.g. to be a solo consultant rather than starting a web agency with multiple staff, and even which jobs I take on a day to day basis. Your choice in the same circumstances might be completely different if your motivators are different.

I agree with the recommendation of The Four Hour Work Week (although everyone, the author included, knows the title is a misnomer). I'd also highly recommend The Entrepreneurial Myth (aka The E-Myth, aka The E-Myth Revisited) by Gerber. I hate the way it's written, but it's very useful to read and I think it could be helpful to you specifically here, Cormie.

Just think - Timothy Ferriss who wrote ''The 4 hour workweek'' tested hundreds of book titles using google Ads and got the most popular one. THEN he wrote the book. Ingenious eh?

So that's market research, with a sharp focus on giving people what they want, as voted by them...