by Monique Hodgkinson

Reprinted with permission from the Stable Solutions Chronicles of Dec. 23, 2008.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the roadblocks that we all put in our own way. My biggest roadblock is thinking that I can manage the entire workload of a small startup business on my own.

I have always been a person who is interested in just about everything and always curious about how things work. When someone has a problem to solve, I’m right there. I can’t wait to help come up with a solution, even if I am already buried in work up to my eyeballs. I spent most of my corporate life delivering technical support and managing customer service operations. In essence, I am a “firefighter.” Things worked out OK in the corporate world, because I always had a team behind me, a team to delegate to.

As a small business owner, I am wearing many hats. This year my sales have more than doubled from last year’s figures. Over two tons of soap later and thousands of bars shipped, I now realize that I can’t sustain the growth on my own. Since last August, I have been up at 6:00 in the morning, unmolding soaps as the morning coffee brews. I’ve been up packaging soap until all hours of the night. Not to mention the marketing, order fulfillment, and custom projects. I now see clearly that working nonstop does not necessarily mean working efficiently. As the business grows, you need to become more systematic, more efficient. Firefighting mode is not conducive to this.

Now that the holiday rush is over, I have a better idea how to structure my order fulfillment processes. What worked last year was not the most effective for this year because of the increase in orders. For the last three months, I’ve had part-time helpers who have been so very helpful in getting orders out and taking on whatever needs to be done. But what I’m reflecting on is that almost every day, my helpers had a different job. While some of the tasks repeated, the lack of scalable systems definitely slowed us down. Sure, things happen in any size business that need to be addressed with extreme urgency, but I believe the right systems can make operations run more smoothly without making everyone crazy.

My conclusion: Now it is time to organize. Time to finish documenting the tasks that make the business run. Time for planning, before the new year begins. Time to implement scalable business processes.

Other small business owners that I know have their own roadblocks that they put up — tricks they play on themselves to keep from moving forward. What are yours? And how will you move past them?

Monique Hodgkinson started Stable Solutions, a family-run business in Pescadero in 2006. Her mission is to create high quality, handcrafted products for horse lovers of all ages. Check out her blog at www.astablesolution.com/smallBizBlog/.