President's Message - May 2019

Marc Anthony said “If you do what you love, you’ll never work a day in your life.” Never have truer words been spoken.

The downside to this type of idealism is that it also gives you a false sense of reality when it comes to the amount of hard work actually involved in running a company.  This is especially relevant for small businesses that do not have the resources to allow for larger budgets and the trial-and-error approach that many larger companies have.  We learn how to manage lean operations to survive the early days and, if we want to stay in business, we quickly adapt a fiscally conservative business model. We sock away our profits for those rainy days that inevitably come during the down cycles in our industries.

 But we learn quickly. We learn to adapt and remain responsive to our clients, to burn the midnight hours meeting deadlines, how to establish and enforce budgets, how to read financial statements, to multitask effectively without diminishing the quality of our services – all while trying to develop and train employees, develop and maintain relationships with new and existing clients, and, remain healthy and well balanced. 

 Every small business owner I know, and I know a lot of them, has spent many sleepless nights worrying about making payroll, paying bills and keeping the lights on.  We joke that we could start a 3 am therapy group to talk through our anxieties about our management styles and business decisions we make.

 There is nothing like being a member of this inspiring community of people.  We are driven, we are hungry and we will take whatever advice you have to give about managing a successful company.

 Would I walk away from this for a stable corporate job making more money and sleeping through the night?

 Never in a million years.