All entrepreneurs, even wildly successful ones know that it’s not all rosy, in fact it’s often far from that.
That’s why it was so refreshing to come across a new contender in the “You’re the boss” blog family at the NY Times. It’s written by furniture company owner Paul Downs, who is recounting the small business challenges his company has faced over the past few years in his blog entitled “Staying Alive.”
Paul’s first post appeared a few weeks ago – “Introducing Staying Alive: What it’s like to struggle”, it’s described as “An entrepreneur will write about the businesses that don’t get much attention: the plodders, the survivors, the businesses like the one he runs.”
Paul sets the stage by writing: “It’s a sweltering August morning in Midtown Manhattan, and the loading dock foreman is cursing me for my terrible truck-parking skills. Yesterday I was here meeting my client, wearing a suit and tie and looking slick. Today I got up at 4 a.m. to drive the truck and deliver the job. Yesterday I went in the front door; today I take the freight elevator. Did I get demoted overnight? No, I’m the boss. I need this delivery to go smoothly, and the recession has thinned my work force, so here I am — parking the truck…”
Brings back memories of when I was a sweater designer and manufacturer and sold my first order to Saks Fifth Avenue back in the 70’s, went back home, cut the fabric, watched nervously as my seamstress completed the order, packed the boxes, wrote out the invoice and packing slip, and then delivered them myself to their warehouse in the meat packing district of Manhattan…but that’s a story for another day…
Other posts include: “How I got myself into this”, “Meet the partner” and yesterday’s “The wipe out” – “How this thing called ‘Google’ unexpectedly saved the owner’s business — and set him up for disaster.”
Paul keeps it real by providing us with the gritty details of the kind of small business challenges faced by so many SMB’s like: what happens when you don’t keep track of your business finances, understanding how to turn a profit, taking calculated risks and having them backfire on you, why you have to understand your costs and what happens when a period of rapid growth is followed by a rapid sales decline. In this real life drama, Paul keeps us on the edge of our seat, waiting to find out what happens next and anxious to see what lessons he has learned to help us understand our own. Good read!
What are your greatest small business challenges?
Susan Martin, Business Sanity
