Is it time to “feel the fear” and quit my job to launch my business?

Hi Aunty B

I was watching a repeat of Friends the other night – the one where Rachel (Jennifer Aniston) quits her job as a waitress because she thinks that if she ‘feels the fear’ it will help her decide what she wants to do with her life and career. Sure enough, that’s what happens. Then the next night I was watching Dragon’s Den and one of the dragons told one of the prospective entrepreneurs that if he really believed in his product and was serious about it he should quit his safe job and focus instead on developing his passion.

Then, just last week I was reading Seth Godin’s latest book Linchpin, where he says the problem with having a Plan B is that it becomes Plan A and you never get around to doing your original Plan A. So my question is this: I have a safe and secure (and boring) job that pays pretty well. On the other hand, I have this business idea that I am passionate and obsessed about (up to 2am working on it at least four nights a week) and it’s now starting to generate some revenue. I have a clear road map and can see potential for this business to match my existing salary, but perhaps not for another 12-18 months. I am thinking I would love to concentrate on my business full-time, but am not quite sure I can manage financially in the short term… should I get rid of my Plan B so I can ‘feel the fear’?

Regards

No guts, no glory

PS I am a big fan of your blog – it’s ace!

Dear No guts, no glory,

Pause for a second. Can you hear that? No? Listen really hard. Ahhh. There it is: the sound of thousands of entrepreneurs yelling: “Are you nuts? Go for it!!” Oh. And that growling in the background is your accountant. But what the hell – don’t listen to her.

Now look. It is always hard making the leap. And it is a leap into the unknown. But do you know what? When I look back I have one fear: what if I hadn’t taken the leap? What if I had stayed in my safe and boring job and never shut my eyes and resigned and leapt into the unknown? What if I hadn’t started my own business! That is too awful to contemplate! Because I came close at times to talking myself out of it!

So forget fear. Besides, when you run your own business you get a lot better at handling fear, because the whole thing is so scary you end up as strong as a Mallee bull. My standard responses to scary situations are “too bad”, “what the hell”, “what do I have to lose” and “I am doing it anyway”.

So you are going to leap. But before you do, you are going to focus on taking some of the risk away. You already have some revenue. Now you are going to make a plan to double your revenue. Get aggressive. What are you going to do? How are you going to do it? Go and ask advice. Should you hire a salesperson? Charge more? (Start-up entrepreneurs traditionally charge too little because they are scared, insecure and stupid!) How can you turn clients into loyal partners who sign up for a year and take away your risk? (You had better come to our Sales Accelerator event on 11 November in Melbourne.)

Lastly, I am sorry my friend, but no more Friends. What a crappy show! In fact, no more free-to-air telly – unless I am on it, of course.

You need to study business. That means reading stuff: Startup Smart in the morning, SmartCompany at lunchtime, case studies on what has worked, what has gone wrong for other entrepreneurs, more Seth, more Tom McKaskill, more Harvard Business Review. That’s how you get smart. It also means meeting people. Your task this week is to meet three people in your industry who can give you advice on how to sell. And see you in a few weeks at the sales seminar!

Good luck!

Your Aunty B

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