Being an entrepreneur certainly means wearing different hats. It could be the financial hat, marketing hat, operation hat or the sales hat. Unlike working on a job, wearing a few hats at the same time is commonplace.
Wearing the accountant hat, I worked out the account for the company so far over a few nights. Previously we did not keep good account (I can hear accountants scream). We did keep record but it as not in the proper Balance Sheet, Profit & Loss kind of way. How many entrepreneur know all these anyway. There are still figures to fill up, so this hat will stay on for a while.
With the HR hat on I started thinking about how we could recruit more people - more sales, more developers, more designers. How to attract, motivate, retain. We got our recruitment drive underway - word of mouth, internet ads. Should see some result in the next few weeks.
With the operation/technical hat on I led a training session this afternoon to brush up the knowledge of the technical people. Plan project schedule, check quality of work, fulfill orders, strategize development direction, innovate products. All in a day’s work.
With the sales hat on we discussed about how to target and go after customers. How to best maximise our effort and put deploy sales guy (yes guy, not guys). So far results had been encouraging. We are following on several leads since the sales guy joined this month.
Not to mention there is also the cleaner hat. We spent the last weekend cleaning up the new office. Arranging the furnitures, carrying stuffs from home to office, office to home, old office to new office. It is not done yet. This weekend we are rearranging the layout of the old office where the production and development team will be.
You think that is tough? Wearing one hat at a time is nothing. It is static. Transiting from one hat to another is the key. It is dynamic.
I like the technical hat alot but I shouldn’t wear it all the time. I need to take it off, sometimes when I least wanted to. The HR hat is the toughest to wear right so I had to spend more time.
Isn’t it excting when the sales hat is doing great? But better switch swiftly to the HR hat so that there are enough people to work on orders. More people means more mouth to feed. Better put back the sales hat least everyone starves. In between, alternate often with the operation hat to ensure production are running seamlessly.
The art, as you see, is not just waering hats but in wearing the right hat at the right time while not mess up the hair.
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