I have a B2B services business with two partners and we've been in running since 2010. It took a couple of years, but we managed to grow the business to almost $3.5M in revenue in both 2017 and 2018. We've been incredibly fortunate. I'm the CEO and my other partners also actively participate in the business.
Our business started almost by accident. There was no grand plan. We tried lots of things, found what worked, and we keep doing it. The issue is that we need to keep cycling our customer base in order to stay afloat. Eventually, customers start hitting a wall with results (which everyone knows and it's just the nature of what we do, which I don't want to disclose). We've done poorly in continuous outreach and we've tended to go back to the well. That said, we did hire our first sales guy this year and he's been killing it and we're in the process of developing a far more robust funnel for our B2B business.
But, before I started this, I, like so many others, worked in a different industry. I love that industry and I recently got an opportunity to go back to it as a part of larger firm which would afford me a much broader view of it in an interesting way. That industry is something of a passion of mine. The downsides -- less money (but still good money), more travel, much less freedom.
I'm trying to decide what makes me want out of my business or if I even really want to exit. I don't know if I've just hit a wall due to burn out (which, yes, I am... and I'm going to address it) or if I've just lost interest in our market. I don't do nearly as much keeping up with what our customers are doing as I used to since my team handles almost all of the deliverables now. I do a whole lot with sales and I'm damn good at it, and that's what's driven a lot of revenue, but, at this point, for our big clients, I could turn them over to another member of my team since a lot of their requests are pretty transactional.
My concerns around staying revolve around both not being sure if I care what our customers do anymore and a seeming general slowdown in services bookings for 2019. It feels like things are slowing down. Even in the best of times, I lay awake worried about the financials, so when things start to slow down, it kills me. It's impacting my health and my mental state.
But, I love freedom, although maybe I don't really have that. I love the 'building the business' part of what we're doing, but the specific deliverables don't interest me all that much beyond being involved in the initial planning process where we brainstorm the services package. I fear that I'm becoming unemployable as my former skill set continues to atrophy. Or, is my skill set simply evolving to be one that is more business-centric?
If I exit, I will absolutely work overtime to smoothly transition my team. I'm terrified that I'll exit and in a quarter, will realize that I really just needed a sabbatical to fix my outlook. The problem: If I decline the new offer, I can't change my mind and another one like it is highly unlikely.
I'm not looking for specific business advice here, but would love to hear from people that have been in similar circumstances to understand what situation you were facing, the decision you made, and whether or not you regretted it.
I'm sorry for the wall of text.
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