I need some advice on making the psychological shift from being a business employee to a business owner. I started a couple of businesses five years ago, and I’m surviving as it is, but I’m right on the lower limit. I can feel that it’s my own psychology that is holding me back. I don’t struggle with the practical running of the business, my problem is feeling like an exploitative schmuck because I’m charging people money for stuff. I can push just enough to let myself survive, but after that I freeze. It’s a big block for me, and I just can’t seem to get past it on my own.
I know there are tons of business self-help books out there, but I don’t have the time/money to sift through all of them to find the non-icky diamonds in the rough. And I figure there have to be at least a few people out there who have made this transition and faced the same problems. So:
- Have you confronted this problem for yourself? How did you approach it?
- Were there any resources you found helpful to wrap your head around the transition?
- Do you have any experience with business coaches and/or associations, and were they helpful (ie. worth the money)?
- Are there any Lemmy/Reddit/Discord/other groups you found supportive/helpful?
Thanks much in advance,
~Archie
Maybe read on anarchist principles of organisation, it seems to solve the main problem of feeling like you are exploiting your employees (or fellow comrades in this case).
Full disclosure I haven’t read the linked sources fully but they seem to be on topic:
https://www.ft.com/content/c507cc10-883d-11e9-b861-54ee436f9768 (Couldn’t find it in the web archive, but here is a gift link)
https://ephemerajournal.org/issue/management-business-anarchism
As for communities: any anarchist community here maybe able to help with guidance on anarchist principles if you decide to go with that approach.
The first one is paywalled, fyi. Interesting idea with the anarchist management, except that I’m a one-man shop selling things that I design and make myself (should have mentioned). So my businesses will always be dictatorial by definition since any employees I take on wouldn’t be creative partners.
Plus, an anarchistic perspective might be helpful for an internal structure, but it doesn’t solve the interface problem of charging money for stuff.
Well why not look at the job as teaching others how you do your design style and thing.
What exactly is the problem with interactions and charging money?
P.S.: I added a gift link, but didn’t manage to find it in the archive, so read it while it’s hot.
I used to work for other people, but now I work for myself. The issue is that being an employee is essentially passive (paid to do what you’re told), and running your own business is active (telling/getting other people to pay you). And somehow, I’ve hit a plateau in my comfort level with being an active solicitor-of-business. I can push, but only so far, and then I start avoiding, procrastinating, and prevaricating. I don’t feel like I’m exploiting employees because I don’t have any. I feel like I’m exploiting my customers by asking for money at all.
Asking for money is the necessary mechanism of stability for you. Are you comfortable that you’re providing a valuable service? Are you comfortable that you’re sufficiently upfront with your customers about pricing before services are rendered? Do your prices feel fair to you? Do you feel your customers have the freedom to choose not to utilize your services (and if not is it in a way where they’d be much worse off if you weren’t offering them)?
In owner operated businesses profits are wages and need to be tooled to account for uncertainty. If you can’t cover those wages you will eventually become unable to keep providing your services. Even nonprofit volunteer run businesses often charge clients though they’re usually able to have more aggressive sliding scales
The answer to most of your questions is yes, but
is where the exploitative feeling comes in. The gist of it is that my primary industry is mental health, which, being Canadian born and raised and accustomed to free healthcare, it feels icky to charge for in the first place. The going rate is actually completely fair, considering the toll that the work takes on you and the benefit it provides for others, but it’s still a lot, and more than a lot of people can afford. I do sliding scale work to compensate and help people who don’t have the money, but because of my limited schedule I can’t afford more than two or three low-cost spots a week.
This is actually very helpful, but it would be easier to reconcile if I was in a B2B business rather than direct, one-on-one. I have a really hard time connecting emotional/rational interactions with monetary value. The two don’t really connect for me.
If you charge more to the people who can afford it, you can open up more sliding scale slots. Everybody wins?
Ok yeah that’s brutal and unfortunately it’s a situation where you are balancing the conflicting needs of you vs others.
What you charge is the difference between you doing it (and being comfortable enough to not start to resent your clients) vs you not doing it. The unfortunate reality is that mental health professionals are sitting next to defense lawyers where the need is greatest where the money is the scarcest, but these highly skilled jobs require advanced degrees and difficult certifications and lots of emotional labor to do the best they can be done. The only good solution is for society to pick up the slack as many countries do with mental health professionals and my country is clearly supposed to with defense lawyers as per our constitution. So the most ethical solution you can find is wherever you feel can keep you consistent and in the work.
Ah interesting, well I have no clue on this part, but it would be interesting to see how you solve this issue.
Yeah, it’s a weird, twisty thing. Part of it is life-long low self-esteem, but also really identifying with the strong undercurrent of “money is evil and all people who have/like/want money are therefore evil” that is very prevalent in the left-ish side of academia I spent a lot of time in.