We all sacrifice to reach our desired level(s) of success— things like high school diplomas, potential relationships, and 401(k) are among the many offerings folks have relinquished to achieve their dreams. Perhaps these investments paid off significantly, launching you into the stratosphere.
But for the small businesses who’ve yet to take flight (or reach high altitude), several intangible sacrifices have been made to pursue success—time, trust, service, skill, and peace.
Time
Ever heard this saying? There are two things God isn’t making more of: land and time. Many small business owners often sacrifice time:
- With family and friends
- Missed homework time, school plays, birthdays, dinners, or other special occasions.
- For their hobbies and passions
- They have little to no time to enjoy their hobbies. All their waking hours are focused on the business.
- For personal and professional development
- Many feel there’s no time to pursue personal or professional growth (through training, continuing education, or internships), believing it would take too much time away from the business.
- For networking
- To seek potential partnerships, collaborators, donors, or sponsors.
- For themselves
- To vacation, staycation, or simply do nothing.
Trust
You know the challenge of rebuilding trust if you’ve ever been burned in a relationship. Many small business owners bear scars from working with unscrupulous freelancers and solopreneurs.
In addition, employee conflicts and personal relationship history are also common factors contributing to diminished trust in others, causing an inability to “let things go” and a fear of delegation.
Service
Quality service is frequently sacrificed when businesses become overwhelmed trying to stay afloat. They stop paying attention to the cracks to focus on the hole.
Fast and cheap are the easy go-tos when time and money are on the line, but they usually don’t include quality care.
Skill
Small business owners who value cheap over competence sacrifice the necessary skills to advance their business.
Startups are commonly characterized by having to bootstrap their work and resources, forcing many to skip intricate tasks such as documenting procedures or creating an optimized website.
Freelance marketplace workers have their place and are certainly needed. Still, they are not always the best option for crucial workloads.
Peace
Running a business is stressful. It’s common for small businesses, high performers, and solopreneurs to have compounded stress levels due to the bootstrap mentality of building and maintaining their companies.
Bootstrapping is not peaceful. It’s hasty, grab your shoes and guzzle coffee behavior. There’s no time to be serene when everything is due and you’re the only one available to do it.
Too many small business owners exchange their peace in the name of “getting things done,” which only heightens pre-existing anxiety.
The intangible sacrifices of small businesses in pursuit of success are varied.
Still, all industries and every society have lost something that needs to be found again.
Can you name these for your area of expertise?
As for support professionals, we’re committed to re-establishing time, trust, service, skill, and peace for small business community members.
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-SHS