Starting your own business is something that many people dream of doing, but not many people actually achieve. Starting a business takes a great deal of hard work, time, and often money, and these are the reasons that many people opt out of entrepreneurship.
Starting a business also comes with many risks, such as the risk of failing and losing all the time and money you just put into it.
If you are considering starting a business, buying an existing business, or if you already have done either one, it’s important to know what rewards come from the risks. The following are the top incentives for starting your own business, and they may just outweigh the risks.
You get to be your own boss.
One of the biggest incentives in starting a business is that you get to be your own boss. You don’t have to do your job the way someone else wants you to, and you don’t have to listen to someone who is less skilled than you are. Instead, you get to be in charge, and you get to make all the decisions, and you have nobody to answer to but yourself. You get to decide the hours you work. You get to decide what marketing collateral you use. You even get to determine the dress code for the company. For some people, not having to answer to anybody else is the biggest reward or entrepreneurship.
You get to (possibly) work from home.
As long as your business doesn’t require the need for a warehouse or manufacturing plant, you can likely do your job from home in a virtual office. You don’t have to worry about sitting through an awful commute, you don’t have to get out of your pajamas if you don’t want to (as long as you’re not seeing clients), and you don’t have to worry about paying for a storefront or utilities, which can decrease the cost of the business. As long as you have a professional workspace to do your job, and the technology solutions to help you do the job successfully, you’ll enjoy not having an office to go to every day.
You get the recognition and reward.
As a business owner, it’s a major accomplishment to take a business from scratch and turn it into something successful. Doing this can earn you respect in your industry, especially if your company becomes extremely successful and expands.
You also get to enjoy the rewards of owning a business. For example, if you’re the sole employee of the company, you get to keep the profits (aside from what you need for taxes and to put back into the business). This could be significantly more than what you’d make being someone’s employee. You also get to enjoy the rewards of expansion if it happens for your business. Who knows? In a few years, your in-home company may turn into a franchise, and you’ll certainly enjoy all those perks.
Starting a business can be a major accomplishment, so if it’s something you really want to do, weigh the risks and rewards and determine if the rewards outweigh the risks.
If you’re in charge of running a business, whether you oversee 5 employees or 5,000, chances are good that you’ve had days where you wished you could step into a cloning machine and do it all yourself. After all, you would always complete jobs in a timely and high-quality manner. It’s one of the reasons you’re in charge, but being in charge doesn’t always mean the road you walk will be smooth.
If you struggle to find and keep motivated employees, don’t spend another ounce of energy pining after a science-fiction cloning fix. Motivating underperforming employees is not only possible; it’s relatively easy. Here are seven surprising ways you can motivate your least-engaged employee.
Become a Storyteller
Employees are people, and people are emotional. While it isn’t something that needs to come into playon a daily basis, crafting, delivering and referencing a strong and engaging narrative about the work you and your employees do and why it matters will go a long way in keeping their motivational levels high. People want to believe that the work they’re doing is meaningful and telling an excellent story about your business’s efforts toward this end will work wonders in helping underperforming employees turn things around.
Inspire Them
When an employee underperforms, there can be many different reasons. Maybe their training is insufficient. Maybe they’re having trouble in their personal lives. Maybe the job doesn’t quite fit their desires. While getting to the true root of the trouble can take some time, simply working to inspire employees can lift dragging spirits. Whether you bring in one of the top motivational speakers in America, or you take an employee aside for a sincere and positive pep talk, intentionally reigniting passion can change a work environment and a worker.
Rewards!
Everybody loves rewards, and a culture that includes both big ones and small ones is less likely to have underperformers. Performance-based bonuses and profit-sharing options can work wonders, but so can gift certificates to swanky, local restaurants and spas. Offer a wide variety of performance-based rewards so that more of your employees will feel motivated to try and earn them.
Set a Great Example
Do your employees marvel at your dedication, work ethic and positive attitude? If not, what do they marvel about in relation to your managerial style? Far too often, the boss is either expecting more from the team than she does from herself, or she is working so hard that they never get to see her lead by example.
If you want to motivate your employees, then be a person whose very presence and work are motivating. From always being on time to always following through on what you say you’ll do, setting a great example for your employees can send languor packing.
Encourage Rest, Breaks and Naps
While it may seem like something straight out of daycare, encouraging employees to rest during the workday can bring greater motivation and productivity to your team. People aren’t machines, and sometimes, a small 15-minute nap or mindless break can make a lot of creative difference. Let your employees know that although hard work can sap their strength, there is room in their workday to recharge their batteries.
Communicate — More
Employees don’t like to be left in the dark regarding key business decisions and woes. By communicating more frequently with your team, they’ll be more able to recognize the importance of the role they play in the overall effectiveness of the business’s operations. Entrepreneur Mike Michalowicz recommends a daily 10-minute meeting where the previous day’s successes and challenges are rattled off, in addition to birthdays, anniversaries and the like. While it may not seem like much, it creates a powerful loop that employees will feel glad to be in the midst of.
Treat Employees Like Customers
You’d never disregard a customer’s needs, right? Of course not! You’re only in business because they buy your product or service. Well, employees share some commonalities with customers in that you need your employees to buy in, too. But rather than buy a product, you need them to buy in to your vision, orders and expectations. As customer service expert Dennis Rosen puts it, “your employees are motivated by need satisfaction and will respond to your demonstration of respect, appreciation, compliments and interest in them.”
Underperforming employees may be today’s bane of your existence, but they don’t have to be tomorrow’s. By utilizing these seven lesser-known ways to motivate them, you may find yourself soon flush with a hard-working and productive team.
