As an entrepreneur, we all suffer from this one fact that we think we can do everything ourselves. The trouble is, we can’t and we are not superhuman (although many of us would like to imagine so), and it takes a lot of guts just to do something as simple as admit we are weak in many skills.
I do this all the time!
I’m absolutely terrible at certain things such as managing people, direct sales, closing deals, public relations etc, but I often find myself doing these jobs because of course as a start-up or when you’re on a new project, you want to limit the amount of money you spend, so you make the decision to do it all yourself.
I’ve learnt the hard way that this way, although it can sometimes work out, is most certainly not the most efficient way of proceeding.
If you take a look at the photo of the man climbing a steep cliff face. His core expertise is in climbing. He has to know all the nuances of how rock faces work, where to put his feet and what constitutes a strong hold position. Do you think he also made his climbing gear, forged the steel in his buckles or moulded the hard plastic in his shoes?
Of course not, in a way, he outsourced that. All he needed to know was what constituted a good pair of climbing shoes, and he could pick the right ones to buy.
In the same way, many of the tasks we do as entrepreneurs can easily be outsourced, but again another mindset that comes into play is that we become very previous about our business at the start. “It’s my baby” as I’ve heard a lot, a term that doesn’t inspire because in a way it is totally debilitating and can often be the downfall of a decent business idea.
Get over it.
The best of the best, build a team. Richard Branson is a classic example of someone who gets this idea. Right from his early days running Student Magazine, he did what he was best at, and got a whole bunch of other people “bought into” his idea.
Communications is also not one of my strong points, but because I know how important this key skill is, I trained hard to improve my communication skills and to generally understand communication at every level. Hence doing all the NLP trainings.
Sometimes you just have to learn more, but importantly here, communication is key. If you can’t communication your idea, your point of view, your vision, your perspective on your own venture, how on earth do you think other people would buy it?