The Challenges Of Entrepreneurship That No One Tells You
Being an entrepreneur certainly comes with its challenges, from managing the business finances, to finding great talent, to figuring out effective marketing strategies. Daily you are forced to wear many hats, and in the process, juggle a ton of tasks at once. We thought we’d look at a few of the more challenging components of entrepreneurship.
Managing Cash Flow
For your company to survive, by and large, you need to have positive cash flow. More money coming in than is going out. And yet so many business owners struggle every month to come up with the money for the bills. A huge part of the problem here is that invoices are late coming in. Whether you were late sending the invoice or the customer is late in remitting it, the money simply isn’t available. This ultimately puts you at a loss. How exactly are you supposed to pay vendors, overhead costs, not to mention employees, when you are waiting on those invoices. You might begin by requiring a percentage of the money down. Especially if it is a larger project, customers should have no problem doing a deposit. You could start invoicing sooner. After all you’ve done the work and/or provided the product, it’s only right that you get paid for it.
Finding the Right Employees
Do you know that a recent study found that owners dread the interviewing process more than the candidates? That’s because it is such a time consuming task, time that could be spent on running the company. You generally have to sit through numerous unqualified applicants just to arrive at that one perfect person. So how can you improve the overall hiring process? One thing you might do is to rethink your benefits package. Especially nowadays, candidates are looking beyond just salary. They want real, meaningful benefits. This is how you attract top talent. You could also work to create a more targeted hiring process, just as you would target a marketing campaign toward a specific demographic. This will help cut down on the number of “bad” interviews you have to sit through.
Managing Your Time
This can be a major issue for many entrepreneurs. Especially again if you are wearing multiple hats, trying to find enough time in the day to take care of all relevant responsibilities can seem near impossible. There are strategies you can implement to help with time management. For one, create a list of goals for the day and do your best to stick to it! If tasks clash with this list, then simply get rid of them, or better yet, learn to delegate — a difficult process for many business owners, but a necessary one.
