For those unfamiliar with this expression, it’s a metaphor depicting the multiple roles a small business owner must fill. When you decided to go out on your own, you made a choice. Your fledgling cleaning company was your “ticket to freedom”. You wanted no boss to answer to and no threat of being let go for no reason. You may even have thought about having the ability to grow as you see fit. Those goals and hopes are true. But only when grasped in context with the demands of operating a business in a free market.

Wearing All the Hats & Bootstrapping

When your business is young, you expect to have many responsibilities. You started a commercial cleaning business. You might not have studied bookkeeping or finance management. But in the beginning, billing, banking and collections will be among all the hats you wear.

Wearing All the Hats & Growing

There comes a time when you CAN’T keep up as a 1-or-2-person business. To meet the requests of your customers, you’ll have to make a choice: Decline the work or hire and train more front-line cleaners. These ARE still your choices. Keep in mind that declining the additional work offered by your current customers runs the risk of losing the current work. Wearing all the hats will include business planning and strategy.

If you CHOOSE to grow, hiring and managing staff brings a whole new challenge. You can’t expect of them what you expect of yourself. If you’re not familiar with those pitfalls, you’ll want someone in Human Resources and Business Development experience. You’re going to need a coach.

Wearing All the Hats & Avoiding Burnout

During my 40+ years in commercial cleaning there are times I’ve nearly burnt out. The commercial cleaning industry is demanding both physically, mentally and personally. I’ve counseled with and for my clients about methods to avoid self-destructive choices. I’ll tell you that the only way advanced growth for you and your business works. You need to be surrounded by others who are good and doing what you need. You need a financial manager, bookkeeper, insurance pro, marketer, and cleaning business coach. If you don’t know those people, I’d suggest contacting me to become part of our community.

 

This Week’s Podcast transcript can be found below.

 

Ray

Joel, we’re both business owners.

 

Joel

We are.

 

Ray

I chuckle when I hear, “How many hats do you wear?”

 

Joel

Well, there’s the fire hat.

 

Ray

All of them. We wear all of them.

 

Joel

Yeah, that one was the fire hat. We just had another problem.

 

Ray

When you hear that, and once again, we’re talking to your customers. The cleaning company owner. Sometimes the team managers in a larger facility. Gosh, what advice do you have, man? It’s just… there are days.

 

Joel

There are days. They feel like years. And then there’s months. They feel like centuries. But no, seriously, as a business owner, particularly of a small to even mid-size firm, you end up wearing so many hats. Because you’re not completely working on your business. You’re working in your business. When you’re first starting out, you are probably the cleaner, the custodian. You’re the sales rep. You’re the marketing rep. If you’ve hired people, you’re also having to deal with HR issues. You’re AP and AR. So, I love when he’s going, “Oh, can we talk to a representative in your AR (accounts receivable) department or your AP (accounts payable) department?” Well, yeah, you’re speaking to them. You’re legal. And when you can’t do it anymore, you have to talk to an attorney for that extra advice and experience in that realm. You’re also dealing with the insurance. And you’re doing audits, and And more and more insurance companies are requiring companies to do self-audits. So you’re not just trying to do the everyday stuff that comes up, but you’re also having to do the audits for your worker’s comp, your liability, your umbrella. And it takes up-time until you can start growing your company and have segmented individuals to do it.

 

Joel

But while you’re in the beginning, you’re wearing hundreds of hats. You’re going to be ordering the supplies. You’re going to be taking the inventory. You’re going to be doing the quality control checks. (All true.) You have to do the discipline You have to post the job. You have to write the quote. There’s just so many things out there. Oh, and make the bank deposits and make sure that the money gets moved over because people got to get paid. And even then, that’s even if you’ve got a payroll service, you still have a lot of payroll stuff you have to do to get it ready so that the money can be moved. But, boy, you better make sure those deposits are there because when you go to move that money in, if there isn’t any or you forgot to do it, you’re going to be bouncing your accounts.

 

Ray

Payroll services and state income offices have no sense of humor.

 

Joel

No, they don’t. Not at all. But there are just so many different hats that we wear. One way that has made it easier for me to understand some of the different hats that I have to wear, ‘til I can hire somebody And the way for those positions is I joined a networking group where it is limited to one person per category. And I get to listen to the insurance company owner and I understand what it is I should be asking, the types of questions I should be asking. What are the limits that I have to do? What does a hard market mean? I can talk to the financial person about the 401(k)s that we have. I can talk to the payroll, and they’re going to keep me up to date on a lot of the rules. An HR company that’s also keeping you up to date on all the rules. So even though you wear a lot of hats, having people around you to educate you to increase your knowledge is key.

 

Ray

It can be daunting, Joel.

 

Joel

That’s why I have my website designer and friend Ray taking care of a lot of my marketing stuff for me at this time.

 

Ray

Part of having that relationship in a networking group, but I realized we’re really talking about the hats.

 

Joel

But those are the hats. Those are. You got to educate yourself so that you can do them.

 

Ray

Bootstrapping yourself when you’re just starting or you’ve got your first employee, there’s so much for that owner to do. I do believe it’s really important to have that network around you so that you can get good personal professional advice on when it’s time to hand something off. I don’t know if business owners will ever be done wearing more than one hat.

 

Joel

I hope not. (It does keep the day interesting.) It does keep the day interesting. But to do some things a little less. That’s where I want to either hire somebody in-house or hire a service to do it. But you still need to know the right questions to be asking and have enough awareness so that you know when it’s not being done right, then it doesn’t get out of control. (Yeah.)

 

Ray

As we round this one out, the things that occur to me, because you and I have been comparing notes on business ownership for a minute (Let’s leave it there.) Some of the things I’d throw out and ask you to maybe comment on. Understand you’re probably going to have to spend a lot of time working on your business and in your business. Cut yourself some slack when you get tired. If it’s taking you two days to do something that should take two hours, get help…

 

Joel

or rest, because sometimes it’s because you’re burning the candle at both ends.

 

Ray

What would you add out of that?

 

Joel

Have a good sounding board and really try to find some time to make for yourself. Because you do need some downtime because of all hats that you wear. There’s days I get 300 emails and 100 phone calls in one day. In one eight-hour period of time. It is so important to make sure that you spend some good quality time keeping your mental health and your physical health. Because you’re not going to be any good to your customer or your staff if you’re under the weather.

 

Ray

It’s hard to run a business when you’re dead.

 

Joel

Very true.

 

Ray

Folks, if you’re listening to this and you’ve ever thought, “I don’t know how I’m going to get this done”, I would encourage you, reach out, contact Joel. He has been there. Some days it feels like he still is. And he can help.

 

Joel

Absolutely.

 

Ray

Thanks, Joel.

 

Joel

You’re welcome.