Episode Host: Henry Lopez is a serial entrepreneur, small business coach, and the host of this episode of The How of Business podcast show – dedicated to helping you start, run and grow your small business.

Resources:

Free Download: 2 Responsibilities Business Owners Must Embrace

Online Workshops:

Related Podcast Episodes:

You can find other episodes of The How of Business podcast, the best small business podcast, on our Archives page.

Transcript:

The following is a full transcript of this episode. This transcript was produced by an automated system and may contain some typos.

Henry Lopez (00:12):

Welcome to this episode of the How of Businesses is Henry Lopez. Today we’re going to focus on the topic of responsibilities, specifically what I think are the two most critical responsibilities that successful business owners must embrace, and those are making decisions and accepting personal mistakes. The list of responsibilities for a small business owner is long. It’s definitely longer than just two. As small business owners, we face and must embrace a multitude of realities every day. This requires a set of personal characteristics and skills that separate those who succeed in business from the rest, who merely talk about starting a business someday. There are countless books and seemingly endless apply of opinions on this question of what does it take to be a successful business owner? I agree with just about all of the content I have read on this topic over the years, and if I narrow my list, however, down to the most critical responsibilities that successful business owners must embrace, and I use that word purposely, embrace it.

Henry Lopez (01:12):

You take it on, you want it. It would definitely include making decisions and accepting your personal mistakes that you’re going to make along the way. In my experience, making decisions and accepting mistakes are critical to successful business ownership, and the two of them are tightly interrelated. You can’t really have one without the other. I think if you accept responsibility and accountability for decision-making and understand that a business owner has to make lots of those big decisions every day, then you must also accept that not all of your decisions will be correct. You must, however, have the desire and the courage to make those decisions to become a successful small business owner. You also must accept the responsibility of your mistakes. Try to learn from your mistakes and keep charging forward. Hopefully over time you end up making more good decisions than mistakes. So let’s talk a little bit more about what I mean by embracing decision-making.

Henry Lopez (02:09):

Ask yourself some of these questions. Do you enjoy being the one person who people come to for all of the big decisions? Do you embrace being in charge? Do you welcome having to make the hard choices? Your answers to those kinds of questions can help you determine if you’re prepared for the challenges and responsibilities of small business ownership. As the boss and owner, you will be responsible for making the ultimate decisions that determine the success of your company. In the corporate world, in my experience in particular, they’re often executives above us who have to make the really tough decision or perhaps the decisions are made as a group after gathering consensus. For example, a board of directors may be responsible for the overall decisions that guide a large company leading to success or to ruin in the world of small business ownership. Conversely, the decision must be made by the owner That’s you. Perhaps you may have partners like I have or mentors whom you rely on to help you make those tough calls, but most often it’s the lone business owner who bears this ultimate responsibility.

Henry Lopez (03:20):

This is Ri Lopez. Briefly pausing this episode to invite you to join me for one of my next live online workshops. With each of my affordable and interactive workshops, I’ll cover a specific topic to help you start and grow your small business. Just visit the how of business.com to learn more and register. If you need help getting your first business started, then my next start, your small business online workshop may be just what you needed during this 90 minute online workshop. I will provide step-by-step instructions and guidance on how to create your business plan and launch your first small business. This workshop includes the small business startup checklist, which outlines the 15 most critical steps involved with creating and opening your first small business and my business plan template, which you can use to create your own actionable business plan. Or perhaps you need help with planning for the growth or expansion of your current small business.

Henry Lopez (04:13):

If so, then I invite you to join me for my next strategic planning online workshop. This workshop is all about helping you define a clear vision for your business, including the 10 steps to create your strategic plan, which gives you a clear strategy and actionable roadmap to help you achieve continued success with your small business. Whether it’s getting started with your first business or growing your existing small business, I can help you get there with one of my workshops. To find out more and register for a live online workshop, please visit the how of business.com and then click on the resources link on the menu. Take the next step today towards finally realizing your business ownership dreams. I look forward to having you join me for one of my next workshops. To succeed as your own boss, I believe you have to want to be the person who makes the difficult decision.

Henry Lopez (05:01):

It’s not that you won’t feel pressure and stress related to decision-making, but instead it’s more about your confidence and your ability to do so. Furthermore, it’s probably one of the things you wanted, which drove you to become your own boss in the first place. That freedom to choose your own path to run your company the way you see fit, to be the one that makes those hard decisions. That’s probably what drove you to become or is driving you currently to want to become your own boss. There will certainly be times when you tire of being the one who makes the difficult decisions, and sometimes you will avoid having to do so, like having to fire someone on your team who you have grown to like as a person, but is simply not a fit for your business, or determining where to spend and where to cut back as you navigate the growth of your business.

Henry Lopez (05:51):

The fear of making mistakes and failing is often what makes us apprehensive about becoming the ultimate decision maker, which is what it takes to be your own boss. All successful entrepreneurs will tell you that making mistakes and learning from them is an essential part of the process. As Henry Ford explained in a quote that I like of his quote, one who fears failure limits his activities, failure is only the opportunity to intelligently begin. Again. I believe you have to plan to succeed, but be prepared to fail. That may sound somewhat self-defeating, but I accept that as a reality of being an entrepreneur. I can live with the probability that some of my ideas and decisions will be wrong, but I am confident that my experience and knowledge will lead me to more good ones than bad. Most days. I have confidence in my decision-making abilities, and I trust that my instincts will guide me in the right direction on the bad days, the days when I fail miserably, I try to learn from my mistakes and look forward to the next day when I can start again.

Henry Lopez (06:53):

Small business owners must accept that mistakes are part of the process. If you’re making enough decisions, then odds are some of them will be blunders. Hopefully no one or single one of those blunders is so monumental that it kills your business. Nobody is capable of avoiding mistakes if they are truly taking risks and pushing beyond the status quo. If you try hard to avoid mistakes, then you will likely overanalyze every move and become paralyzed either in the decision to start your first business or in where to take your business and where to spend and not spend, and what decision to make next. You can’t be afraid of making mistakes. You must accept this and find the courage and develop the confidence over time that most of your decisions will be right. Others will probably be quick to point out when you do stumble. I suspect those people are probably not small business owners themselves, are they?

Henry Lopez (07:46):

It’s certainly much easier to make no decision and remain on the sidelines all the while critiquing those who do make decisions. Of course, it’s much harder and courageous to apply your intellect experiences, your skills to make bold decisions, which in part is what business requires from us. This absolutely does not mean that as business owners, we enjoy failure. I hate to fail, but when I do, I try to get past the grieving and self-pity phases as fast as possible and try to learn from it. I understand that I am not perfect, even though I may want to try to be. I don’t own a crystal ball that works consistently, and I have learned that with making lots of important decisions will come some poor results. That’s just part of it. The famous football coach, Vince Lombardi summed it up nicely when he said, if you’re not making mistakes, you’re not trying hard enough, and when we do inevitably make a mistake, it’s critical that we accept responsibility for it.

Henry Lopez (08:42):

Don’t blame others for the circumstances of your situation. Accept a failure, learn from it. Make any necessary changes to avoid repeating that same mistake and then move on to the next decision, the future of your business or the future of actually starting your first business. It depends on it. Embracing and enjoying decision making, yes, enjoying it and accepting the mistakes that are going to come as a result of it are essential to starting and building a profitable small business. When you make decisions, particularly the hard ones that help determine the future of your life and your business, you’re going to make some bad ones along the way. Sometimes you make a lot of bad ones in a row. The successful entrepreneur, the successful small business owner understands that this is part of the process and keeps moving forward. You must develop confidence in yourself and believe that you are capable of overcoming mistakes and making choices that keep you on the path to your success.

Henry Lopez (09:39):

So what’s one thing I would like you to take away from this episode, and that’s that to be a successful small business owner, you have to be ready, willing, and able to take on the significant responsibilities that come with that. You have to be ready to embrace those, and in particular, I think you have to embrace making decisions, being the person who makes the decisions. Again, perhaps you might have a partner, so you and that person might be the ones that have to make those big hard decisions and accepting that you’re going to make mistakes along the way and that that’s okay. You’ll learn from that and keep moving forward. I would like to help you with making that transition into business ownership, or if you need help getting your current small business organized so that you can enjoy your life and realize your goals and your dreams. So I invite you to schedule a free business coaching consultation with me during the call. What we’ll do is we’ll discuss your most pressing issues and questions and then begin to define a clear path to your success. This is Henry Lopez, and thanks for listening to this episode of The How of Business. We release new episodes every Monday morning, and you can also always listen to us at our website, the how of business.com.