There is a better way of building your business than taking on a senior employee. Unfortunately, this better way is risky and certainly is not possible for all types of micro-business. My preferred options/alternatives to taking on a senior employee are:
Option 1. using independent contractors/freelancers/other micro-businesses
Option 2. taking on partners or if you’re a limited company or social enterprise, other directors.
OK so I know that my two preferred options fly in the face of government advice, guru advice and business school advice which urges you to grow your business by taking on employees, particularly qualified business managers and leaders, but to me it is all a question of risk. My two options are risky but I believe, if negotiated and managed carefully, are not as risky as taking on a senior employee.
As my businesses have always been B2B service businesses my main worry and focus has always been winning and keeping customers. In over 26 years of starting and running my own businesses I’ve got a better track record of winning and keeping customers using my two alternative options than I have with employees, as executives and managers, however well trained. Most are fine but it’s the ones that are not fine that have proved deadly to our customers, our income, our profitability and most of all our own morale.
The main advantage of option 1 – independent contractors is that you retain total control of your business, it is flexible, it is a service agreement which is easier to manage in time and money than an employment contract with the associated regulations and it is a tap of skilled resource that you can turn on and off dependant on your workload and you don’t have all the associated on costs of employees including purchasing equipment.
Because most contractors/micro businesses want to continue being contracted in the future I find they become like partners of our business and we grow our businesses together. For example I have worked with the same contract trainers and the same designers and developers of learning media for over 20 years. We all pay each other on time too – as soon as we possibly can.
The main disadvantage of this option is that it can play havoc with your margin. However if you go for a very high quality and unique service you may be able to ensure the price you charge covers using contractors and remains competitive.
The main advantage of option 2 – taking on partners/directors – is that it is bootstrapping par excellence. Let me explain; I recently entered a business ‘to what do you owe the secret of your success?’ competition. My answer was ‘my business partner of 26 years, Clare Francis’.
We both invested time and money in our business, we’ll work whatever hours, whenever, in order to succeed. When times were hard we didn’t take money out of the business. We never needed status perks like employees ask for.
We are equally passionate about our customers and our offer to these customers, so much so than many are now friends too. We have complementary but different skills and most of all we trust each other – so implicitly that we don’t have to waste time overseeing each other.
I just love successful business partnerships and believe they are responsible for more successful start ups growing into substantial micro businesses than any other single factor.
My business partner Clare and her husband, Charles, also managed a very successful family business. Indeed, many of my successful micro business owner friends, who say they are going it alone aren’t really. They often, have a spouse or partner, beavering away in the background supporting the business and often holding down a job in the early stages of the start up in order to bring in family income.
Partnerships are my preferred option but it is as tough and careful a decision as deciding to live with someone.
Trust and passion is everything, in my opinion, to success in your own enterprise. This total trust and passion is there with my co-founder of the Enterprise Rockers, Tina Boden, and all the wonderful band leaders of our movement.
We trust each other so much and share the same passion that we’re all putting our own biz money and time, for no return yet, into making it all work.
So, before you do as the gurus recommend and take on a senior employee, do consider whether you’d be better using independent contractors or taking on a partner.
Social Impact of Working From Home
A few days ago I was once again reminded by Joshua Levy and his piece “One Blogger Asks: Is the Grass Really Greener on the Web Worker’s Lawn?” on his blog Web Worker Daily that I wanted to write a piece about what I believe to be the social impact of home working.
Joshua is asking some interesting questions about working from home:
If I ask myself these and other questions I’m invariably drawn to find answers in my personal work life and how it has changed in the last decade.
In 1999 I was still office based, traveled from one of our offices around the world to the next and was rarely home. In fact most of the time those years I came home Friday very late or Saturday and then often left Sunday night again. So I saw little of my family and especially my son who is now grown-up and ready to go to university.
Then in 1999 I sold my ISP-business and went back to run WinWeb. This time around I worked from home, right from the start I did not want to be in an office and lead the same life as before. So for the past eight years I have been there when my son came home from school, I even picked him up often enough. I was here when he came home with the latest music CD, I had to listen to – not always easy, I admit – or the latest sport-shoes form addidas had finally arrived at the shops.
Similarly I spend much more time with my wife, going for lunch, doing some “essential” gardening – I hated gardening, but love it now. I could give you many more examples, but you get the picture.
While there are many challenges for home workers, I believe we are seeing the beginning of an “reversal” trend. I would like to list here some challenges I believe our society is facing currently:
There are many more examples. This whole process began with the “Industrial Revolution” some 150 years ago. Some of us may even remember a time when three or even four generations of a family lived in one house. People worked in their villages, child-care or care for family “just” happened – was that a bad or good thing? Looking at single parent families and the impact on our children, I would argue it was a good thing, and so would the many parents working from home exactly for that reason – to provide a healthy family environment for their loved ones.
I believe that the whole trend of home working may in the future allow us to have a much more natural work/life balance and will reverse some of the damaging effects of the post industrial revolution changes in our society. People will live closer to family, local communities will be revived – I believe that is happening as we speak, and our children will benefit from “more family”, and all this will have a profound impact on all our lives and the environment.
I would encourage Joshua and everyone else working from home to relearn the social skills of building local friendships, or live near family and give you the social life you need.
After all, this technology we at WinWeb and others supply makes it possible to work from anywhere, gives you a tremendous amount of freedom to live the life you want, where you want.
Let’s hope in hundred years from now people will see this era not only as the “Information Age”, but also the age when we learned to live a better work/life balance, in tune with our emotional and social needs as individuals, families and society as a whole. What do you think?
Have a great weekend with your family and friends.
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