The entrepreneur’s currency

There’s one thing entrepreneurs have, and have to manage with the utmost precision: time.

It’s all too easy to get beguiled by the promise of events, networking, pitching, business development, seminars, courses, lectures, speakers, dinners, lunches, breakfasts, workshops, clinics and one-to-ones.

But it’s also easy to end up running around from one reasonably-pointless event to another, without spending time on the important stuff, like actually running the business. It’s the classic problem, it feels like work, but it isn’t.

The important thing is to learn to say no – and initially, it’s hard to figure out which are the opportunities you should be saying no to. After all, isn’t that what entrepreneurship is all about? Seizing opportunities? Well, yes.

So how do you balance? How do you deal with the fact that even at the most useless of events, you’ll probably meet someone useful? How do you weigh the constant need for networking and creating awareness of your business with the need to code, to sell, to design?

Sadly, there isn’t a perfect answer. If there was, I’d be rich. But the easiest thing is to practice – to carry out post-mortems, figure out why event X was good and event Y disappointing, keep track of who’s going to which events, send others on your behalf, watch online, take notes, do a cost/benefit analysis (in your head!) of travelling and time out.

Recognise when things are more important than free events, no matter how much your internal voice says “free! It must be good!”.

But also recognise that if you work in a darkened room for months on end, without learning, socialising, mingling, spreading, selling, getting feedback, asking for help… you’re setting yourself up for failure before you’ve even started. There’s a balance for each of us – and each of us has to find it ourselves.

(This doesn’t just apply to events, of course. Even opportunities, odd jobs, guest-speaking, article-writing, etc, etc, can sap time and energy away from the core of business. However, it’s easier to get flattered into, or oversold on, free events that turn out to be a waste of time.)