If we are being honest, sometimes running your own business can really stink. In a perfect world, things would always go right and we’d only have to focus on doing the stuff that we are passionate about. Unfortunately, that isn’t the case. If you’re an entrepreneur, you’ve likely experienced good days and bad days, just like we have. Today, we’ll get into some of the things that really stink about running your own business.
Running Your Business Can Be Really Lonely
It’s a lonely world out there for the entrepreneur. We are lucky that we work together and have each other to talk to, but if you’re running your business all by yourself, there might be days where you don’t interact with a single person. That can be depressing! We recommend scheduling some time to take breaks from your business. Go to the gym, run errands, or even just go for a walk. It’s important to get some fresh air and sunshine and interact with people every now and then.
You’re In Charge of Everything
The big difference between working a 9-5 and having a business is that you are in charge of everything. On top of the actual work that you do, you are in charge of accounting, payroll, marketing, paying vendors, etc. It’s likely that you aren’t great at all these things and probably don’t want to do them, but when you’re running your own business, you are the one responsible.
Although we are a branding and web design company, a lot of the time, we are focused on all these other things that we need to do to run our business. We get help when we can, and highly recommend that you do as well, but that doesn’t mean you’ll only be focusing on the things you are most passionate about. Running a business has a lot of moving parts.
Your Income Isn’t Always Steady
While you can expect a paycheck from your 9-5 job every 2 weeks, that isn’t always the case as an entrepreneur. Some months will be great, while other months will fall flat. Depending on the industry you are in, you will have busy times and slow times, so it’s important to prepare for those.
Now that we have been in business for a few years, we have a good idea of our slow times and can prepare for them months in advance. During those times, we focus on creating more content, doing promotions, and updating our website – things that we may have neglected a bit during our busy season. Be prepared for insane rushes as well as times where you feel like you are doing nothing.
You’ll Have to Make Sacrifices
This one can be hard to adjust to, but when you’re running your own business, you have to learn to make sacrifices. That means not always having the latest and greatest in order to invest in things you need to grow your business. We don’t have a new car or the latest tech gadgets. We live in a modest house and have downsized most of our things. We do this because we want the money that we earn to be invested back in our business. Investing in our business will help us grow. That’s not to say we never treat ourselves, but we’ve cut back a lot and changed the way we spend our money. If you’re in business, you need to learn to make some sacrifices.
Related Reading: What Went Into Leaving My 9-5
You Are Constantly Thinking About Your Business
When you run your own business, your business is always on your mind. It’s really difficult to “turn it off” at 5 pm like when you worked at a corporate job. Your business will keep you up at night. You’ll check your emails on vacation. You’ll wake up in the middle of the night to write down the idea that just popped into your head. The stress is staying up late can really stink, but it also means that you are passionate about what you’re doing. When you work a 9-5, it’s easy to clock out at 5 pm on Friday and not think about work until 9 am on Monday because nothing is on the line. You care deeply about your business and want it to succeed, so it’s only natural to think about it all of the time.
Your Relationships Will Change
Your relationships with family and friends are going to change once you start your own business. The people that are closest to you might not support you starting your own business. Your friends might get jealous. A lot of people might not understand why you would leave a “secure” job to try and do your own thing. Losing people that you were once close to can be the hardest part of being an entrepreneur, but know that it happens to everyone.
You’ll also run into people that don’t understand why you can’t “just take off work” for the day. Early in our business, this would happen a lot. We’d get a call on a Wednesday morning asking if we wanted to head to the beach for the day. When we politely declined because we had to work, we would get the “I thought you quit your 9-5!” response. Or a family member would call in the middle of the week and get aggravated because you didn’t answer. We had to explain to people that it just because we didn’t have a regular job anymore, it didn’t mean that we didn’t have work to do.
The good thing about your relationships changing is that you will start to befriend more like-minded people that can help you grow your business. You’ll start hanging out with fellow small business owners that know and understand the struggles you are going through. Together, you’ll be able to work to grow your businesses.
The Good Outweighs the Bad
Although there are a few things that definitely stink about running your own business, we don’t regret it one bit! While there have been bad days, there are so many more positive aspects to being an entrepreneur and we are happy that we took the chance. If you are an entrepreneur yourself, you’ve surely experienced some of the things we’ve talked about today. If you’re about to make the leap, know that running your own business won’t always be easy, but it’s worth it!
