Being an entrepreneur is tough; there are no two ways about it. You have to acquire an impossibly wide range of skills – both mental and physical – and build your character into something far tougher and more bullish than that of an ordinary person. This is what it takes to build a business out of nothing, carve it into a successful entity, and grow it with a team in place. When there is no blueprint or person to fall back on during tough times, it can feel excruciating to keep going, ignore the inevitable naysayers, and strive for success day in, day out.
One of the most crucial skills you need to develop as a business owner is, of course, problem-solving. In fact, it could easily be argued that the ability to solve a problem quickly and decisively is the number one attribute that all successful entrepreneurs share. Without it, you will be left floundering at the first hurdle, unable to decide what your next move is. Unfortunately, there is no time for hesitation or introspection in business, so without a problem-solving streak, you will struggle to survive for long commercially.
Therefore, you need to ensure your problem-solving skills are as strong as they possibly can be. Here are three ways to solve problems more quickly as a business owner:
- Hire specialists who can solve problems for you
While it is imperative that you have the ability to solve your own problems, when your business starts to grow, sitting in a room and solving issue after issue is simply impossible without a strong team around you. In fact, if you were to sit down and try and solve every problem at once, it would cloud your mind and cause you to completely lose context for the situation after a while.
Instead, you need to outsource your problem-solving occasionally and delegate it to someone who is more experienced in solving those kinds of issues. To give an easy-to-understand example, if one of the toilets at your workplace was to start leaking, you wouldn’t try to solve the problem yourself. Instead, you would call this commercial plumber Columbus OH team to fix it for you.
- Understand the problem from different perspectives
When you are trying to tackle a problem as a business owner, it is critical that you understand the problem from a variety of perspectives. By doing this, you will start to understand different points of view and ways of solving the problem, which could give you clues toward your eventual solution.
If you have a team who you trust, allow them to play devil’s advocate and give their own opinions. Even if you go against their wishes, you will have a clear understanding of the full picture.
- Go with your gut instinct
If you remember anything from this guide, it is to always go with your gut instinct. There is something infinitely primal and wise about that animal instinct inside everyone, which has the experience of a thousand years of evolution to fall back on.
You should always pay attention to what it is trying to tell you and understand why it reacts in a certain way to the problem.
It is rare that your gut is wrong, so ignore it at your peril.
