Running a business isn't just about business, it's deep. You'll find yourself questioning yourself all the time, wondering if you've made the right decision. The physical and financial stress of running your own business can't not affect your emotions. So be aware of them and read up on a few of these key concepts. Oh and we've got a list of things to read / listen / watch at the bottom.
You employ people and your behaviour actually impacts what your staff do and think about your business. Treat people with respect, give them room to grow, have fun and you'll have people work with you for a long time. Treat people like shit, and they'll leave and you'll spend your whole week constantly looking for people to work with you. Depending on the size of your business and what you're hiring for, it could cost you around £1,000 in your time and effort to hire someone.
<aside> 🔥 Invest in your staff, like you invest in equipment
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Once you can properly codify what you want people to do in your business, and give people job roles and a description of what you want them to do they'll perform so much better because they have a clear understanding of what you expect of them. Read Setting the Table.
If you don't have a partner to work with you are ultimately responsible for all the decisions that you make and it's tough. It's tough to know the right direction if you haven't run a business before and motivating yourself when things are going wrong can be a problem.
A classic business-speak thing to talk about but it is really important. Basically it's look at everything you're doing and see how you can continuously improve it. Your food isn't the best in the world, so how can you make it better. Who's doing it better? Who can inspire you? What if you changed an ingredient? What if you changed the way it's cooked? The way it's served?
You seriously need to watch out for this, this is the result of working long long hours consistently for ages and it will creep up on you and if you're the founder it'll end your business!
How to tell if you're close to burning out
We are always asking business owners how many hours in the week they are working and if it's an unsustainable amount (we're talking 60+ hours a week) and they are a few years into their business then there's a worry there.
Your job as a founder is to get your business to run without you, if you're doing everything in the business after a year or two you're not running your business properly.
Oh and if you're in the work hard / play hard mould, check out Pilot Light, it's a campaign about better awareness of mental health in the hospitality industry. There is a big correlation between stress at work, self-medicating with booze & drugs and mental health issues.