Virtuoso Team Consulting, Inc.

While I grant this posting is later than I had wished, it is still timely and relevant. I was working on a project last week from Monday through Thursday, averaging 20-hour days. After everything had been accepted by the client, I passed out on the couch for a few hours. Upon waking I decided to unplug everything electronic for the whole weekend and spend time with my wife and friends. We traveled to Orlando (Winter Springs) for the Central Florida Scottish Highland Games.  I didn’t take phone calls, check emails or texts, and I felt great!

At first I had a great deal of trepidation, but in this 24-hour a day, always-on world it is easy to burnout. Intellectually, particularly as a business owner, I know I have to spend more time working than most in order to create a revenue stream that can operate without me in the future. This situation brought the balancing act many of us perform into stark relief, and I was forced to decide where to draw the line. Luckily, I have friends who are caring enough to remind me when to take some down time, but I also have clients who are able to work me to death, and I am grateful for both. The big surprise was that I met a vendor from Bradenton, Robin McAllister of Faire Isles Trading Company, and we hit it off while discussing the finer points of our Utilikilts. After all of the work I had done I still remained excited to talk shop on my vacation, a reminder to myself of how much I love my chosen career path.

I try to do everything in moderation, work and play, but it’s unrealistic to suggest that will happen all of the time. Sometimes the best any of us can do is to find some degree of balance. Hard work is nothing to whine about, but to balance it I followed with a tech disconnect and a couple of days out-of-town. Having been through slow times, and the current economic situation, I can honestly say I will never complain about being too busy, but I will also try harder to secure the freedom to enjoy my life, family and friends and to take the time to smell the roses and watch men and women in kilts toss the caber. : )

Do you live to work, or work to live? How do you decompress?

With a new year come new goals, new challenges, and new opportunities for success. Regrettably I have let my blog get lost in the shuffle of life and work, and that is something I resolve to fix this year. I will make a concerted effort to post, at least a small article, once per week. There are a lot of facets to business, and I should have no problem coming up with topics, but I would like to hear from others. If there is a topic you are interested in, have a question about, or even something would like to write a guest post, please email or call. It will help me collect ideas as to what to write about and also ensure everyone gets timely information about what really matters.

At a New Year’s party last weekend a number of people expressed interest in starting their own businesses this month. It seems since the economy is still in a state of flux people would rather cut their expenses and make a go of business ownership than continue worrying about losing jobs. They want to have a sense of control of their own lives, their future, and they want to do what makes them happy. While I, being in the business of helping businesses, wanted to get each and every one of these people on contracts, it occurred to me that in most cases they did not have the funds to hire my company. After a few conversations, all similar in scope if different in substance, these realities lead me to a new offering. I want to help each of these businesses get started along the right path, but do not have a great amount of time to dedicate to them. As such, I or a colleague will be meeting with the principals of each company for an hour or two this week to ensure they have a plan laid out, know where they want to go, and set them on the path to achieving their goals, and we will be doing it for FREE. They will have to do all of the heavy lifting, and will succeed or fail based on their own effort, but they will have the solid foundations many companies lack at startup.

Why are we doing this?

Quite simply, because we can! Small companies:

• Represent 99.7 percent of all employer firms.

• Employ just over half of all private sector employees.

• Pay 44 percent of total U.S. private payroll.

• Have generated 64 percent of net new jobs over the past 15 years.

• Create more than half of the nonfarm private gross domes­tic product (GDP).

• Hire 40 percent of high tech workers (such as scientists, engineers, and computer programmers).

As a sector, this is the easiest way to help create jobs, stabilize the economy, and help people do what they are passionate about.

Is there something in it for us?

Absolutely! Once these small businesses start to flourish their goals are going to change, they will outgrow their current business models. They will need to hire or retain a business consulting firm, and we will have the opportunity to solicit that business. Nothing will compel them aside from the fact that we helped when they needed it, and we did it well.

This is not necessarily going to be an ongoing offering, but if you are considering starting your own business, please contact us. We would love to help!

Thank you for taking the time to read this, and I will make every effort to have another post by next Monday.