This is the first blog post of our new website and is taken directly from my book “In Business With Yourself” where I discuss the importance of understanding small business leadership and how doing so makes for successful business growth and successful business mentoring.
Remember – Every Business Starts with One Person.
Over the years I have heard some wonderful renditions of how entrepreneurs have ended up in business. One of my most memorable was a woman I met some years ago who left a CEO position in a large charity to set up her own counselling service. She conveyed the story of when she first went into business, moving from having a team of staff with several specialities and able to lift a phone to get IT support, HR advice or a lunchtime sandwich if someone was going to the local shop.
She left her job on the Friday and started in her wonderful new business on the Monday. This consisted of a desk, a chair, a telephone and a computer in a very dark unit in her local enterprise centre. Sadly, the computer was new, and she had no idea how to get it up and running, so she went to lift the phone to call IT and realised that wasn’t an option.
My client goes on to explain how she sat there for a while and stared at the computer screen, with tears in her eyes and really wondering what she had done. After a couple of hours had passed, she made her way round to the reception of the enterprise centre and very quickly had contact details for at least three computer experts who could help her out. With that she realised she wasn’t just on her own and that by reaching out she could survive.
