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Daily LaunchTip September 18, 2008
From Nada N. Jones, Co-author, 16 Weeks to Your Dream Business: A Weekly Planner for Entrepreneurial Women:
"Nothing is better than seeing the excitement in someone’s eyes as they talk about their dream business. They are enthusiastic and can hardly contain themselves as they rattle off their big ideas and hopes of success. So why is everything so different only months later? I believe it’s because people don’t take the time to consider what the day-to-day may look like. Just because you want to be a fashion designer doesn’t mean you will spend your days surrounded by beautiful fabrics, designing to your heart’s content and seeing your masterpieces head down the runway. If fact, this is a very small part of your life as a successful designer, at least when starting up. In our book, 16 Weeks to Your Dream Business, we’ve created an exercise entitled "Your Ideal Workday." In this exercise, we ask women to consider everything from their physical environment to who they want to work with and how much money they want to make. Once people have a clear understanding of what the daily tasks of owning a successful business are, they are able to make an informed decision about moving forward. The same aspiring designer may complete the Ideal Workday exercise and find out that becoming a freelance stylist is more suitable given their daily dreams."
Ladies Who Launch is asking you … what do you think of Nada’s tip? Let everyone know in the Comments section below!
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This is such an important thing to do before taking the plunge. It’s so easy to gloss over the tougher, less glamorous parts of a new endeavor simply because we’re so eager to dive in. Doing research and taking a very close look at what’s truly involved on a day-to-day basis now will save you potential disappointment later.
This is such a great tip. I think we all tend to glamorize certain industries or “jobs” because the grass always seems greener. Whether you want to work in fashion (which behind the scenes is decidedly unglam) or other business that have a certain perception but different reality, I think Nada is right to look a little deeper…see if you can spend a week, month, year apprenticing with someone who does what you do. Often the struggles are invisible to outsiders–but once inside, you can truly decide if the fit is right for you–and if the sacrifice it takes is what you’re game to do.
This is a fantastic tip! I am a BIG PICTURE person and so I find it soooo easy to gloss over the minute details of the day-to-day. It is so important to know what you’ll be up against. This doesn’t mean that you can’t necessarily run a particular business if you don’t care for the day-to-day, but it does force you to think about HOW you want to run your business. Can you delegate tasks that you may not love? Do you need to give yourself a time limit and a plan in terms of how long you might be involved in the day-to-day. Having worked in retail for several years and after having managed hundreds of people, I recognize the value in rolling up your sleeves and getting to know the day to day intimately. Once you’ve done so, you can train others, transition yourself out, and get back to managing the business!
I agree. Many people don’t think about being the one stuck in the back kitchen running the dishwasher because he didn’t show up that day. How are you going to run a resturaunt from there?
