When I was a boy, my father gave me a gift – a figurine of a miner pushing a cart of gold up a track.
Even back then, I understood the symbolism: Success in life is about working hard. Eventually you can get where you want to go; however, if you are considering being an entrepreneur or if you are in your early years as a business owner, don’t kid yourself. Success requires working both smart and hard, often for a sustained period of time.
It’s quite simply a grind. And you just keep going.
In the beginning stages of starting a business, you do whatever it takes to keep the business afloat. That certainly means working long hours and wearing multiple hats. Often, it also means taking on opportunities or customers that fall far outside your core focus or target market. You may find yourself guilty of chasing revenue or sales.
As the business grows, you can and should evolve. Eventually, you can do more of what you want to do in the business, but until you begin to scale, you need to do a lot of work across many areas of your business. You will have time to get more strategic and spend your time on the areas you most enjoy. But the secret is, you can’t have one without the other. You need a vision. If you grind in place forever, your business will never scale up. But you can’t get to the strategic, thoughtful work without the grind.
I experienced this firsthand when I launched a home healthcare business with two partners nearly 30 years ago. Here’s how it happened.
Some people become entrepreneurs because they just want to be their own boss – more of a lifestyle choice than a vision for growth. However, that is where the real opportunity of entrepreneurship lies. Growth and building value over time are rewarding and provide more freedom long-term.
In the beginning of my journey, my partners had expectations of growth and income. At the age of 26, I was looking for an opportunity to have the flexibility and autonomy that can come with being an entrepreneur – not building a business with value that could be monetized.
Back then, the reality of covering our fixed overhead was enough pressure to make me hustle. The sheer number of sales and customers it would take to reach break-even brought a sense of urgency every day. I was willing to do whatever needed to be done. The business needed long hours. I was eager to put them in.
Businesses have three core areas: sales and marketing, customer service and operations, and administration/finance. In the early years, I had my hands in all three. With the pressing need to generate revenue, I made roughly 40 sales calls a week. On top of that, I managed customer service, payroll and billing, IT, HR, and the hiring of care providers to serve our growing list of clients.
It’s important to note that it was never my goal to have my hands stretched across all departments of the business. The work was brutally time-consuming, and I often longed for the kind of life my friends were living, working fewer hours and making more money. At the same time, I understood that I was pushing the gold up the hill. It wouldn’t last forever, and the benefits on the other side would be worth the work.
And it was: After five years in business, we hit $3 million a year in revenue.
Around this time, I began assessing my strengths and delegating processes and business functions to individuals who excelled in those areas.
First, I removed myself from operations. That was easy, as I was fortunate to hire great people who were more talented than me. I held on to finance and admin because I had been advised to keep our numbers close to my vest, given that we were a privately held company. I hired a few people to help with payroll, billing, and payables, but I took on the responsibilities of a controller and a CFO. I also held on to business development to keep revenue coming in the door.
But, as our business continued to grow, I realized that, while I could perform well in both these areas, they were not areas of strength or passion.
I’m a big fan of behavioral tests – StrengthsFinder, for instance, or Working Genius. They foster self-awareness and highlight the areas in which you have skills, knowledge, and talent. The trick is to find a way to have all three. Here’s an example: Knowledge is knowing how to balance your checkbook. Skills are the ability to do it accurately and efficiently. Talent means you enjoy it.
As the business grew from $3 million to $10 million, I knew I had the knowledge and skills to do a great deal in our business. But the talent piece was missing. I was doing work I was good at, but it wasn’t work that brought me joy.
Eventually, I found people with the knowledge, skills, and talent to take over the finance and admin functions of our business. I found others to help with business development. Not so suddenly, I was free to focus on what I did best for the business: lead.
The difference was palpable. In my late 20s, I would come home after making eight sales calls a day, and I would be exhausted. Fast forward 10 years, and I worked 12 hours a day and didn’t think twice about it. I had more energy. I was leaning into my natural strength, and it was equal parts liberating and exhilarating. I now had time to take family vacations and attend industry conferences that helped push our business forward. I started reading business books and implemented a business book club among our leadership team. One of my team members gave me a compliment that I won’t forget. She compared me to Wayne Gretsky, who never went where the puck was but rather where the puck was going. I was taking our business where the industry was going. She may not have been right, but the compliment reassured me that I was building a vision and culture that were special.
It took us 10 years to go from startup to $10 million in revenue. Once I was in my lane, working “on” the business, building a great team and culture, we went from $10 million to nearly $50 million over the next 9 years.
People like to say that the key to success is working smart, not hard. I disagree. I think the key is working smart and working hard. In the beginning of my entrepreneurial journey, I hustled. I did whatever the business needed to be done. Eventually, though, the business evolved. I had to get out of the way and let the experts run the various legs of our business. I needed to step into the work I did best.
For all my fellow entrepreneurs and leaders, ask yourself: What does your business need from you? Are you still wearing multiple hats? Are you stuck in the grind? Are you building a team? Don’t fool yourself into believing that you can sit back and work smart when the business is still relatively small. Entrepreneurship is not for the faint of heart. It can be incredibly rewarding, but you must pay the price to reap the rewards.
David Tramontana is the president/integrator with FocusCFO and an Area President serving the Cincinnati metropolitan area.