One of the easiest traps to fall into as a business owner is to assume that, because you’re the boss, the big cheese, the one at the very top, that you always know what’s best for the business.
The truth is that, no matter how much authority you might have in your business, you’re still just a person and while having pride in your work is great, you know what they say about what pride comes before, right?
If you let your pride get in the way of what’s best for your business, then that could well be a recipe for disaster. With that in mind, here are some simple ways to make sure that your pride doesn’t hurt your business.
Be willing to outsource
One of the most important parts of any business is the ability to outsource certain things to outside organisations so that you and your business aren’t frantically trying to stay on top of everything.
Whether that’s handing things like digital marketing and social media over to a dedicated marketing company, or handing your IT over to a company like CCCIT, being able to give parts of your company to those with dedicated experience and skills is incredibly important.
Just don’t allow yourself to become overly possessive over your business to the point that you’re not letting anyone take the reigns or, if they do, you’re trying to micromanage everything that they do.
Respect your employee’s perspectives
It’s all too easy to fall into the assumption that you always know more than your employees and it’s their job to exclusively follow your instructions at all times.
However, if you do that then you’re not only going to leave them feeling frustrated, but you’re going to lose out on a vital perspective.
Sure, you might have a bird’s eye view of the whole business, but your employees are down in the trenches, which gives them a fundamentally different perspective to you when it comes to the business. Use that perspective to improve things at every level.
Be ready to fail
Here’s the most important thing you can learn: you are never above failure. Failure is a natural part of running any business, and it can be a valuable one too.
You need to be ready to accept when you’ve failed or made a bad call and learn from it moving forward. The only way that failure can doom your business is if you refuse to treat it as a valuable learning experience.
Now, don’t take this to mean that you shouldn’t have any sense of pride in your business or that you shouldn’t take charge from time to time.
The reality is that sometimes a business needs a guiding, authoritative hand, and you’re going to be the one to provide that. The important thing is that you remain humble and that you remember that you didn’t build your business all by yourself.
Never forget about all of the people that you needed to be able to achieve your ambitions.
