Emyth – the start-up issue

The Small Business Cycle

At each stage of business development, you’ll face unique challenges. As a start-up, you might be struggling with time management issues because, let’s face it, you’re probably still doing most of the work yourself. You might be at the stage when you realize that you need help managing all of the business you’re generating.

We can call this the Small Business Cycle similar to the stages of human development — something we all understand.

The first stage it is called infancy. This is the start-up phase of your business when you act as a TECHNICIAN doing all the work of the business yourself. In this phase, you willingly devote everything to your business regardless of the toll it takes on you personally. As your initial hard work pays off and your business begins to build some momentum, you realize that you might not be able to do it all on your own. You decide its time to get help; and that’s when you enter the next stage in the small business cycle: adolescence.

In the adolescent stage of your business, you begin to experience growth. You hire employees to take over some of the tasks that used to overwhelm you. But soon you find that things aren’t getting done the way you want them to be done. Your employees lack the motivation and drive that you put into the business. At this point, many business owners will push employees out of the way and insert themselves right back into the role of the Technician believing that no one will do the job as well as they can.

It’s standard for start-up clients to be in both the infancy and adolescence stages of development. My goal as coach is to help my clients get to the third stage of the Small Business Cycle: maturity. At this stage, the business owner has what we refer to as “the Entrepreneurial perspective”. They approach their business with a clearly defined vision, with accountability standards and direction that drives the business to success.

Written by Indy Agnihotri of IA Consulting + Finance, specialists in providing finance/accounting services that generate you more profits and cash. With a happiness and fulfillment mindset.