The 6 Biggest Time Sucks for Entrepreneurs-And How to Avoid Them

Remember, time is money.



Benjamin Franklin said that, and he was really on to something. Actually, I might even disagree with him, because in my eyes, time is more important than money. If you make a bad investment, there will be another opportunity to recoup your losses. On the other hand, if you waste your time, the clock keeps ticking with utter disregard to your loss.

As a serial entrepreneur, I have grown to be very sensitive to time wasters. Whether you're a seasoned business leader, or a fresh-faced entrepreneur, you'll want to avoid these six time wasters:

1. Salespeople

You know who receives a lot of sales calls during their day? Small business owners, that's who.

It's part of the American dream to start and run a small business. Millions of brave entrepreneurs try their hand at being their own boss every year, doing every job and offering every service imaginable. Some of those startups are bound to provide goods and services to other startups. That means your business can expect to get buckets of emails, letters, phone calls, and good old-fashioned, door-knocking solicitors.

Even now, after 30 years of entrepreneurial success, I still get my fair share of solicitation from people seeking to sell me something. When I started out, I used to respond to their requests with a gentle, “No, thank you.” I thought it was the polite thing to do. After all, I was working the phones, too. But that was a long time ago. Now I've stopped sending gentle rejections because I receive calls from too many of these time wasters-so many that I no longer reply at all!

That may seem rude, but I didn't ask them to solicit me in the first place, and I have coworkers depending on me to lead and support our operation.

2. Banks

Banks are the best when you're making frequent deposits. However, If you're asking a bank for money, you'd better have a lot of time on your hands.

A sound business plan and a good handle on financial knowledge can help you circumvent a lot of bank-based time wasters. But, if you intend to secure small business capital through a bank loan, a bank will want to know everything about you, see all your financials, read your small business plan, and be walked through all your projections.



Banks can be intimidating, but for many entrepreneurs, they're a necessary evil early on. You'll waste less time if you prepare to meet them on their terms.

3. Consultants

Many businesses will hire a consultant to serve as a subject matter expert or advisor in an area where the business owner is not well versed. For most small business owners, their first consultant will be an accountant or a lawyer. These advisors are invaluable to the startup process since, after all, a financial or legal misstep can break your business.

As your business grows, the diversity of consultants will grow as well. If you're using a consultant, you're essentially buying their time in order to save your own. After all, no business owner can be an expert in everything. Beware, however, as your lack of expertise in an area may cause you to pay more for outside expertise, or use it longer, than is necessary.

Accountants, insurance agents, and attorneys all know the value of their time, and they will bill you accordingly. Therefore, you need to make sure you get the most out of the expert's time and use consultants only when you know investing your own time into a project is more costly than hiring new employees. Plan what you need from your business consultants and make sure you get the most information for the smallest investment of time (and money).

4. Employees

I have an open door policy for all my coworkers, and I will spend as much time with them as they need, for any reason at all. No questions asked. Every business needs its employees, and I need mine. After all, I can't run my business without them! However, the more time I spend with a coworker, the less time I'm an actual worker.

Good employees are worth their weight in gold, but the gold refining process can be time-intensive. Recruiting, hiring, training, and managing employees can really eat up the hours-hours that you're paying for! Then, take a moment to think about the number of conversations you'll have with an employee in a day. Think of all the emails you have to exchange, meetings you need to hold, and the time it takes to create training documents, do testing and measuring, and conduct performance reviews.

You can't rush the hiring process. After all, hiring the wrong employee can be one of the most damaging things you can do your business, so you want to take as much time as necessary to make sure you do it right. And, many rookie business owners fail to understand just how much time goes into onboarding new employees. Even new hires with years of experience in a similar industry need time to learn how your business does things.

5. Family

Pardon me if this time waster sounds severe, but it's true. Running a small business and being your own boss can make separating work life from family life difficult. Sometimes new small business owners have to train themselves to leave personal things in the personal realm; other times they must train family to keep their distance so to avoid wasting time and focus during working hours.

If you think drawing boundaries is easy, let me remind you that many entrepreneurial ventures start from home. In fact, some business are started expressly because of the benefits of flexible work schedules.

There will be times when family life and work life collide. In fact, it's really unavoidable. Kids get sick. Spouses have urgent questions. Pets get loose. Life happens. There will be times you welcome family in to celebrate birthdays and anniversaries, hold private events, or just because you can-it's your business after all!

Because entrepreneurial work is so closely tied to your personal and family life, you need to balance the needs of both. You need your family to support your business if it's going to have any chance of success, but you must balance that quest for success with the needs of your family.

6. Administration

Taxes, payroll, recruiting, HR services, emailing, communications, bill paying, bean counting . . . these are by far the biggest time wasters you'll face. Not just while you're starting your business, but throughout the life of it.



Administrative duties are the sludge of the business world; they slow everything down. Ever question why there is such a demand for administrative automation tools, like SAP or online payroll software? These services are the sludge remover that allow you to take back more of your time.

Entrepreneurs should strive to make their business operations as hassle-free from the start in order to give themselves the best chance of success. Why? Because misery loves company. Bad administrative practices can compound and domino onto everything else. They can send you running to expensive consultants, cause you to lose hard-earned customers, take your away from your family, and get you in bad favor with the banks.

A happy business is an agile business that operates its administrative tasks in a streamlined fashion.

Armed With the Knowledge to Avoid Time Wasters

Some of my views might sound a little harsh, but my experience has taught me that if I don't protect my time, it will steadily slip from my grasp. I've had to make some difficult choices, and I'm not advising that you mimic everything I've done. But, if you take nothing else from this article, at least walk away with the understanding that you should be spending your time as though you are spending your money.

Time is a precious currency-invest it wisely.

The post The 6 Biggest Time Sucks for Entrepreneurs-And How to Avoid Them appeared first on AllBusiness.com

The post The 6 Biggest Time Sucks for Entrepreneurs-And How to Avoid Them appeared first on AllBusiness.com.