The fears of a small business owner
Hello fear!
The most common feeling in business owners. Am I right?
So here I am today putting out there the most common fears I have been experiencing as a small business owner.
Success
Its true! No I am not exaggerating. One of the biggest fears I have is what if I start getting too many jobs? Can I spread myself thin? Will I be able to find the right team who share my vision and passion for this job to take over some of the load. Will I be good at delegating? Will the quality of service I provide remain the same? How about my work to life balance?
These are all valid questions but at the end of the day there are so many people out there who share the same passion, who are up for a new challenge and who would love to be part of your team that it is a matter of time to find your dream team!
And as for the rest, lets put it bluntly; If you have the budget to support a good team who can help you with your payrolls and accounts, a great assistant to sort out the day to day tasks, bills, calls, appointments, bookings, etc as well as one or more team members who tackle actual event planning, then you can have the time and space to do what you most enjoy about your work.
Which for me, truth be told, is the design process!
Failure
The fear of failure will always plague any business owner and for me that my work ends at the end of wedding season, the fear that next year I will get zero enquiries, zero new clients and zero weddings is always at the back of my mind.
This is a valid fear and a often once to occur as a matter of fact! So to avoid getting crippled every time I thought about the possibility of not making it as a wedding planner, I decided to make a plan of what my plan would be.
I have a degree, good experience, and a CV that would help me find something new.
How about what would people think? If they loved me, they would be proud of me for trying to pursue my dream and at the same time supportive of the next steps.
You see, when I actually saw that even if I failed, I would survive, the failure didn’t seem as scary anymore.
Loss of time
This might be uncommon but it is a fear I have genuinely been experiencing in the past years. The fear is mostly present as I get older and thinking whether I am spending too much time at work.
Working for yourself and doing something that you love more often than not leads to devoting most of your time doing this, in the cost of your personal life. And as I grow older I can’t help but fear the time not spent with my family, friends and loved ones. This is a conscious fear and it requires constant checks to make sure you avoid the uneven distribution of your time to your dream career.
Not enough time
This is by far the most realistic far of every wedding related professional!
It is funny in retrospect but we all experience the crippling fear that we will not make it in time for the wedding. I beg my couples not to laugh at this time!!
Be that during the planning process when sometimes our couples travel or move, or vendors take time of work after a long season and naturally the planning process slows down. Or more prominently on the day of the wedding when we almost ALWAYS think we won’t make it on time to set up and have everything ready by the guest arrival, and stress, panic and sprint and of course then end up finishing with 2 hours to spare!
And to be totally honest I am not sure I am ready to give this fear up as it means also giving up a good lunch and a nice shower before the we get the ball rolling!
Everyday when I sit on my home office with a big mug of coffee in hand, I am given the choice: Will I let fear conquer, ignore or face it? My decision is to face it and move on.
