In today’s digitally minded world, there has never been a bigger entrepreneurial push. Access to more resources combined with less resistance to start your own business and the rise of remote work, has cultivated a robust startup culture where companies are born every day. Case in point: today there are 582 million entrepreneurs around the world. The allure of becoming your own boss is clear; making your own hours, pursuing your passions and building something from the ground up.
Yet, few people uncover what happens next after the dive into being your own boss. Entrepreneurship can be a taxing endeavor. The benefits are clear, but at what cost? 22.5% of small business fail within the first year. Many new leaders struggle with maintaining a personal life when they start a business. All operations become the priority, while any work/life balance is thrown out the window. However, this doesn’t have to be the case. With solutions such as live call answering, entrepreneurs don't have to be bounded to every call and inquiry. Instead, they can learn to grow their business while working a normal business schedule takes priority. Let’s see how.
Your Biggest Resource is Time
The main hurdle for entrepreneurs to achieve a work/life balance is lack of time. There are only so many hours in the day and being the face of a company means there’s always something new on your plate. You can’t be in every meeting and take each call, otherwise, you will spread yourself too thin and risk becoming burned out. We preach essentialism as a core principle at VoiceNation to ensure maximum results with the best use of our time. As an entrepreneur, you need to focus on what you do best and partner with an expert for other aspects of your business. If you are answering every call day and night, you’ll likely miss opportunities to look at the bigger picture.
Learn to Let Go
Learning to free yourself of what keeps you in the weeds of your business is one of the most (of many) important lessons for any entrepreneur. If you fail to delegate, you risk becoming the bottleneck in your organization. Realize what your goals are and what you do best, then seek to outsource for the other components of your business. Surround yourself with experts in topics you may not know much about. The most valuable resource is time, so by reallocating aspects of your business you will be able to scale without constantly being bogged down by numerous tasks.
This also means, trusting your partners for different services. Most small businesses don’t have the resources to train, onboard and hire employees to answer the phones at high rates. If your company is growing, chances are your phone may be ringing 50+ times a day. Your team may not have the bandwidth to handle this, but a live answering provider can.
Lead Qualification is Critical to Growth
Scaling your business means growing in order of magnitude. Be very intentional in how you spend your time. With the rise of robocalls and bots, you may be stuck answering an influx of calls that aren’t going to propel your business. This is a waste of time for anyone on your team. A virtual receptionist can act as a lead qualification tool to help filter out unimportant calls from the vital leads you are counting on. Focus on the great opportunities out there and be proactive about the time you spend with the limited resources you have. This is the difference between strategically scaling your business and just rolling with the punches.
Early Bird Gets the Worm
While you can’t be everywhere at once, you must give off the appearance that your company will be, even if it’s just a one-man shop. In today’s 24/7, on-demand culture, there is no time like present. 20 years ago, a consumer wouldn't dare call after 5 or 6 pm. Now, you have to be prepared to handle calls at all hours of the day and night. Commerce is globalizing as well, so you do not want to miss out on potential leads from other time zones. If you aren’t able to pick up the phone, your competitors likely will. One encounter is enough to make an impact on a consumer, so make it a good one with a 24/7 live answering service.
Spark Your Innovation
The more free time you have as an entrepreneur will only benefit your decision making. This allows you to think through how to make your company perform better and disrupt an industry, versus being tied down to answering calls and vetting leads. If your company hits a big swing, you need to have a partner able to scale alongside you.
With a previous company, we hit a great run of business leading to our phones ringing off the hook. At the end of the day our mailbox would fill up and we would have to dump out many messages because our team wasn’t equipped to handle the influx of calls. If anyone can relate to a small business trying to scale, it is me as I was once in their exact shoes. Our team was too small, and we missed a lot of potential sales. Some that could have fundamentally changed the arc of our company and helped us scale much faster. We had no time to innovate, think or spend much time outside of work. Our team was focused on the phones all day which is why I saw a need for a live answering service.
Entrepreneurs need a solution that helps give them freedom while growing their dream. Don’t wait to kickstart your growth, as the golden ticket could be calling as you read this. However, are you able to answer the call?
Author bio
Jay Reeder, CEO and Founder of VoiceNation. With over 28 years in telecommunications, Jay Reeder built his career by creating innovative solutions to real-world challenges. He began crafting voicemail systems in high school, which led to his first “real” summer job at a telecommunications company called SDI. In 2002 he founded revolutionary live answering call center VoiceNation. Jay is innovative, forward-thinking and a leader who inspires, encourages and offers opportunities to make the world a better place.