Here's a link: https://medium.com/i-m-h-o/3dc264023df5. Take a few minutes today and give it a read ... it's worth it.
It immediately made me think of the below graphic, which I'm sure most business owners can relate to.
But back to the article by Ms. St Clair. The first item on her list really got me thinking. Luckily I quickly realized that in order to run a successful business, I had to devote A LOT of time to the running of the actual business. I think the ratio spending 15% of your time doing what you love and 85% of your time running the business is pretty accurate. One of my first business goals was to make enough money to be able to hire a bookkeeper, because I knew that in order to be able to successfully grow the business I needed multiple eyes on my financials. And I've recently made some changes that will allow me to spend more time than I already do to the administrative side of things.
But this got me thinking ... how many riders spend 85% of their time running their business?? If you consider the "doing what you love" portion of your job to be the actual riding and teaching, I would venture to guess that for most riders this ratio is reversed with 85% or more of their time spent riding and teaching, and 15% or less of their time spend "in the office." But I'm also pretty sure that if you told most professional riders that they needed to spend 85% of their time in an office running their business, they would run the other way.
So what's the answer?
Personally I have this theory that you need to create "life teams"to help you reach your goals. For me, I have my business team, my horse team and my life team. If you're lucky, and I consider myself to be a very lucky individual, you'll have a core group of people that are on all of your teams. And other people will only show up on one of your teams. But the point is, each team needs to be made up of people that not only understand your goals but also genuinely support you in your efforts to reach your goals. So if your business goal is to be able to spend more time riding, then you need to find someone to add to your team that can fulfill the administrative role.
I could go on and on about this theory, but I need to get back to work!
So go ahead, read the article, and let me know what your take away was!
I LOVED this article, thank you for sharing it. It was wise and hilarious at the same time, which makes for a great read. I could relate to so much of it...even though I don't own my own business, since I'm "life-partnered" with a business owner, it kind of feels like I do (the stress part, anyway.) And since I'm trying to help move the business in some new directions, it often feels like a start-up.
ReplyDeleteOne thing you both mentioned is that 85/15 "rule." That certainly is relevant to what I'm hoping to do for people with horse businesses...through our services, I'd like to give them some more of those percentage points BACK for doing what they love...hanging out with their horses. I'd like us to become part of the "team" you referred to.
Great blog post and article.