Growing a Business is Easier than Growing a Garden

I’ll let you in on personal flaw of mine: I suck at gardening.

That’s right, I have no measurable talent when it comes to keeping plants alive, even something as simple as grass. And while I’ve spent a lot of money on plants and sod and flowers and fill dirt over the past three years, I still have pretty lackluster landscaping.

The more I observe my horticultural failures, the more I understand how my business, your business, is just like my garden.

Both need structure, planning and focus. They can grow into something beautiful or wither on the vine. It’s easy to get distracted by the fun things that don’t add long term value.

If you neglect the essentials it’s an uphill battle for healthy growth. And if you’re growing to build a big one you’ll need support to tend to all the tasks to keep it working beautifully.

I’m not great at gardening. I oscillate between too much attention and love and letting plants and trees die a long, thirsty death.

Which is why gardening is a great hobby – I can attend to it without too much pressure and invest small amounts of time and money to get big returns. Plus it’s really hard to kill roses.

So while I am not the gal to talk to when you’ve got bugs swarming or dried out ferns, I love tending to your business.

Are you giving your business the resources it needs to grow?

Are you trying to do everything yourself and getting ‘caught in the weeds’ instead of seeing your vision come to life?

There’s a better way and a different approach that just might save your sanity as you nurture your business to something that blooms year round without running you ragged.

The Michael Gerber Way

Before working with a new client I like to have a discussion about Gerber’s book The E-Myth. If you’re unfamiliar with the book it’s all about the Entrepreneur Myth – in short, how a business owner who is technically capable of completing business tasks must step up and be responsible for the management and vision of the company, not just the to dos that pop up. It’s incredibly hard to do and will often feel like you’re being pulled in too many directions at once.

There’s the entrepreneur who enjoys and excels at the tasks of doing business: interacting with customers, designing sales pages that convert, setting up membership sites and sending emails. Gerber knows and explains in the E-Myth that this entrepreneur will either stay small (doing everything his or herself) or breakdown (trying to grow while doing it all).

No entrepreneur can do it all, all the time, without support. It’s not feasible and creates unnecessary stress.

Then there’s the entrepreneur who willingly hands off that which they no longer want to do and abdicates all responsibility. Sure this relieves stress and becomes a temporary peace because you’re no longer working all alone. But again, it’s not a solution and can often lead to more conflict when things haven’t been done your way and need to be fixed.

There is a middle ground – a way to hand over the execution of tasks and management of your business to someone else, with structures in place to make sure that trusted employee doesn’t ruin your business while your focus is elsewhere.

This is where I come in.

More on that tomorrow.