Could You Be Your Own Boss?

Sadly, there is no fail-safe method of becoming a successful entrepreneur. Research shows that successful entrepreneurs have:

• Strong needs for control and independence
• Drive and energy
• Self-confidence
• A point of view of money as a measure of performance
• A tolerance of ambiguity and uncertainty
• A sense of social responsibility

and that they are good at:

• Problem-solving
• Setting (and achieving) goals and targets
• Calculated risk-taking
• Committing themselves for the long term
• Dealing with failure
• Using feedback
• Taking the initiative
• Seeking personal responsibility
• Tapping and using resources
• Competing against self-imposed standards.

How do you measure on these criteria? Be honest with yourself.

Very few entrepreneurs can lay claim to all of these characteristics. Making the most of your best characteristics and using ingenuity (including the skills of others) to bridge the gaps is perhaps the most frequently encountered entrepreneurial characteristic of all!

However, despite the great variety of people who end up as business-owners, probably the most important personal characteristic for an entrepreneur is determination.

It’s easy to start a business; it’s more difficult to keep it going. When you are faced with long hours, with working through nights and weekends, with extended periods away from your family, and with seemingly-permanent  financial worries, the thought of a secure permanent pensionable job is tempting. Determination is what will see you through these lows until you break through to success!

Most people, because they are unfamiliar with the process of starting a business, need help in doing so. Thus, it’s no surprise that one of the questions I hear most frequently from people who are considering going out on their own is “Where can I get assistance?”. Some are even more direct, replacing the word “assistance” with “grants”!

The first port-of-call for anyone thinking of starting a business should be their local County or City Enterprise Boards. There are 35 CEBS across the country – at least one in every county, with four in each of Dublin and Cork – you’ll find a complete list and more information at www.enterpriseboards.ie. Yes, they do provide grants – for capital equipment, employment, feasiboility studies and web development, among others – but they also provide a valuable range of other supports, including subsidised training, mentoring and business advice. And these supports are usually available, even if your business / business idea does not qualify for grant aid (like all enterprise support in Irreland, the CEBs are primarily focused on manufacturing and internationally-traded services – local services are not usually supported).

The CEBS are targeted at businesses with less than 10 employees – above that, Enterprise Ireland (or Shannon Development or Udaras na Gaeltachta, depending on where you live) take over. EI provides a wide range of supports and has deeper pockets than the CEBs. However, EI is looking for a speical kind of business: what it describes as a “high potential start-up” (HPSU), which will achieve sales of €1m+, 75% export and 10+staff within 3 years. While it’s easy to write a business plan that shows all of the above, it’s more difficult to convince EI’s experienced development advisers that you can deliver on it – that’s where the challenge lies!

And there are many more organisations that can help a start-up – see the Resources page for a selection.

Your view of starting a business may be coloured by whether you see an opportunity – or whether you feel that your present situation (actual or imminent redundancy) leaves you no choice except self-employment.

If you are excited about an opportunity that you have spotted, it’s hard to be objective and to listen to well-meaning advice that urges you to be cautious – but, it’s more sensible to tread carefully on a new path, even it chafes a little.

On the other hand, if you feel you’re being pushed into self-employment and are not comfortable with it, then it’s unsurprising that you see negatives all around.

In both cases, you need to identify and isolate your own feelings, so that you can consider self-employment without bias – not easy, but important to try to do. Talking out your idea for self-employment with someone who can offer you constructive criticism can help you to look at it more objectively and is always a useful exercise. A colleague, friend or family member may be able to help, as may a Business Adviser from your local County & City Enterprise Board (see www.enterpriseboards.ie).

Whatever your circumstances, be objective. Look at the minuses as well as the pluses, think about the downside – but don’t let it get you down! And then, when you have made up your mind, give it your all!

The only businesses that will survive – let alone prosper – in the next few years will be those that truly deliver value to their customers. Let’s run that sentence again: The only businesses that will survive – let alone prosper – in the next few years will be those that truly deliver value to their customers. That means you MUST plan your start-up: planning is no longer a nice-to-have, it’s an absolute necessity. Otherwise, you increase your risk of failure – unnecessarily.

A critical step in preparing for self-employment is to get a clear understanding of how much you actually need – as opposed to would like – to live on. And, until your business is able to pay you this amount regularly every month, this is the amount that you will have to take from your savings each month in order to live.

Another useful calculation is “cash burn” – calculate how many months’ spending your financing represents. In other words, if you got no further investment and made no sales, how many months could you keep the business open? Clearly, the higher the figure, the better your margin of security.

It’s early January 2009; the newspapers, radio, tv and internet are overflowing with bad news stories; and thousands of people are recently – and, in many cases, suddenly – out of work. Prompted by a client, I recently developed a short book aimed at people who have just been – or expecting to be – made redundant and who are thinking about self-emloyment as an option. The material is drawn in large part from a workshop that I ran in early 2009, four times, for a multinational that was shedding staff and whose outplacement service was offering encouragemnt for the self-employment option.

Having worked with start-ups, written for them, taught them and advised for over 15 years now, I thought it might be worthwhile to put some of this material in a book, where it would be accessible to people. And, then based on the fun I had in writing a blog on my 2008 Route 66 roadtrip, I thought that a blog / website might open it up to a wider audience.

So, whoever you are, however you found yourself here, welcome! I hope you find something of interest and use to you. Please feel free to comment and add suggestions.

Best wishes, Brian O’Kane