July 2018

I was driving back home on December 9, 2015, after just signing the paperwork and writing the check to purchase Monkey Bizness.  I had quit my job in October to fully pursue closing this deal.  For more than 2 months I had sat at my home office and planned and schemed all the things I would do once I was finally in control.

The next morning, I met with Ashly Myers (our current Director of Marketing) who was informed just the previous day that she would have a new employer.  I met with Ashley at a Starbucks and we had instant chemistry.  She has been a trusted confidant since that time.

After that meeting, I met the previous owner at our Centennial location to introduce myself to the employees.  I sat and talked with each of them along with discussing some operational things with the previous owner.

It was a whirlwind of 20 hours where I went from excited, to nervous, to excited, to overwhelmed, and finally to scared.  In all the time I had over those first few months, I rarely contemplated the question of “what if this doesn’t work?”.  Being a CPA by trade, I had contemplated the question from a financial perspective, but never from an ego or sense of pride perspective.

I have been around many small business owners throughout my career.  I had actually admired the lifestyle of watching some of them being fully involved with their businesses, day, night, no matter what.  They were so committed to the success and you could see the passion they had when they discussed their business.  Many of us know people like that.  I think we all admire them to a certain degree.

What you don’t see is the pressure and concerns they deal with on a personal level.  They often keep those bottled up and discuss them only with their closest one or two confidants.  To everyone else, they give off an image of confidence and passion.  This is not fake, its’ real. However, the feelings of being overwhelmed or concerned they don’t want to project to anyone else.  But these feelings do exist.

I worked at a software development firm for 2 years prior to owning Monkey Bizness. I was the highest financial employee in the company.  The owner of the company strongly believed in what they were doing and had a great passion for it.  He had built the company over many years and was at a point where he wanted to “go for it”.  I watched him over those 2 years build a financial, sales, and marketing team.  He doubled the size of his operations/development team.  When I would talk with investors with him he would give off an image of confidence and passion.  However, when it was just me and him or his executive team, you could see the worry he had.  He fully understood the risk and while it didn’t paralyze him, it certainly weighed on him.

One couldn’t fully understand the emotions he was going through unless they were in a similar position.  Now as a business owner, I am passionate and confident in my business.  However, I still have feelings of being overwhelmed or worried if something we are trying will work.  I keep those feelings to myself mostly and discuss them with only a few individuals.

I write this to tell you that you too will have these feelings if you take on owning your own business.  Most business books don’t tell you about this and so many are surprised when they get into their venture.

Whether it is Monkey Bizness or another venture, know that you have a support system around you.  They may not understand exactly what you are going through, but know that everyone else that has walked this path has gone through the exact same.

Everyone Needs Someone to Talk With

A few weeks ago I was asked to speak to a group of business owners about my experience of owning Monkey Bizness.  The group was a leads group so it was mostly full of consulting types that were either sole proprietors or might have 1-2 employees.  I was invited to the group by a former marketing consultant that we had used.

I told my story about the journey from being a CPA to now owning Monkey Bizness.  After the story, I took several questions from the group.  One question I was asked was to describe the value that I got out of my relationship with the marketing consultant that had invited me.  I think my answer somewhat surprised the group.

At the time we had used this particular consultant, I did not have a management infrastructure built in Monkey Bizness.  This consultant, on the other hand, had been at an executive level within the marketing profession for a number of years.  While her marketing experience and ideas were great, what I valued most was having someone at the same level as me that I could discuss business ideas and strategy with.  I told the group that being an entrepreneur can be lonely.  You are responsible for making a lot of high-level decisions and early on, you don’t have a lot of people to talk about those with.

One thing I always recommend to new business owners is to find a coach or a mentor.  You might have a couple, but you need at least one.  I have 2 or 3 coaches that I talk with somewhat regularly.  Regularly with one might be weekly and with another one may be quarterly. That is OK.

What do you want to look for in a good coach?  Here are my top 5 qualities I look for –

1. This person should be a good listener. It should be someone you can discuss issues you are having, big decisions you need to make, and the ideas you have to grow.  This person can help you run through different options or bring up different paths you maybe haven’t thought of.
2. This person should hold you accountable. You now have someone you will have to explain to why you didn’t get something done you previously discussed.  Having an accountability partner can be of great value to you.
3. This person should be honest. Third parties that are not financially vested in your business will often give you straight answers.  If your coach or mentor sugar coats things, then I would look for a new one.
4. To me, experience is vital when I am looking for a coach. You want someone that has walked the path you are about to walk. Anyone can give you advice.  But you want good advice.  In my experience, the best advice comes from someone who has already been down the path you have gone and can share ideas based on that experience.
5. Confidentiality is a must in a good business coach. The only way this relationship works is if you feel like you can share things with little judgment being passed and the information staying between the two of you.  You will most likely discuss sensitive issues about employees, customers, and probably even your personal life.  You must have the trust that these items will be kept confidential.

So who makes a good coach?  Where do you find this business coach?

I am lucky to have a couple good coaches.  I have a coach I talk with weekly that I used to work with.  In public accounting you rarely have a direct boss, however, this individual was the closest thing to that I had.  He knows my strengths and weaknesses.  He also has worked with business owners for 15+ years and has started his own business.  My second coach is someone I was introduced to (ironically by the marketing consultant above).  She helped build a franchise system from 1 to over 120 units.  I value her experience and candidness when we talk.  We talk much less frequent, probably quarterly, but the talks are invaluable. As my organization has grown, I now have people within that I can have a lot more of these conversations with.  However, it took me a while to get there.

My advice to you would be look at who is around you.  Do you have a neighbor that has done this same thing?  Maybe you have a former employer that you are close with?  There are professional business coaches out there that might be a good fit for you.  The key is finding a person that meets the 5 characteristics above.

It was December of 2015 and I was driving from my house to the bank to get funds to purchase Monkey Bizness Franchising and one of the stores.  The house I was leaving I had just purchased 18 months earlier.  After buying the house, 6 months later my wife and I had our 3^rd child.  My two older kids had just started at new schools in August of 2015.  And, if I am nitpicking, it was smack dab in the middle of the holiday season.

With seemingly so many life changes going on over the past 18 months, one might ask if it was really the right time to jump into owning my own business.  I hear it all the time from people we are talking with.  They are contemplating when is the right time to own their own business.  For some people, I truly believe this is a defense mechanism because deep down they don’t truly feel comfortable taking such a life change plunge.  However, for others, they really are trying to time the best time to own their own business.

I was in their shoes for many years.  While spending over 10 years in public accounting, I constantly combed the internet looking for businesses to purchase.  As I got more experienced, I would reach out to a couple a month and get the details from a business broker.  I would comb through the financials and narratives put together by the owner and broker and inevitably determine it was not the right time.  Looking back, I now understand that I was nervous about making such a life-altering decision.

Owning your own business, is just that, life-altering.  Depending on the business, the degree that it alters your life may be up for debate.  However, what is not up for debate is it will never be the right time to take a plunge into entrepreneurship.

Rather than looking for the right time, I would strongly coach people to ask themselves are they personally ready to own their own business.  This is a much different question.  Asking yourself is now the right time is to own a business, you will inevitably look at your family situation, place in your career, what is going on personally, and other questions.  Once you look at these, most likely, you will determine it is not the right time.  You will determine that starting a business will throw a wrench in all of these, and you’re right.

However, asking yourself if you are ready to own your own business is a different question.  Those questions look more like this:

1. Does owning my own business help me accomplish my long-term personal goals?
2. Have I acquired the skills necessary to be successful in owning a particular business?
3. Are the personal relationships that are important to me stable enough to withstand the stress that owning my own business will create?
4. Have I evaluated the immediate financial impact of owning a business and if my family can still keep our current living status (for the most part)?
5. Does the business and investment in the business match the level of risk I am comfortable taking?

These questions won’t help you determine if a certain business is right for your or not.

I can only give advice based on my past experiences and from observing others around me.  If you are asking yourself is now the right time in your life to start/buy a business, you will most likely answer “no”.  However, if you are asking yourself “am I ready to own my own business”, you may surprise yourself with the answer.