Small businesses thrive off of business friendships. Chances are it was your friends who you first talked to when you were starting to think of starting your own company. They’re the people who will stick by you through thick and thin, right? Maybe – but maybe not.
As much as you think they should understand your new work status, chances are many of your relatives, friends, and neighbors will never really get it. Because you’re at home all day — and how can you be at work if you’re at home? They may decide you’re able to talk on the phone for hours on end, run errands, pick up their kids at school, or even babysit.
Not only that, but they may start bugging you about getting a “real” job — meaning one in a real office building with a receptionist.
You can head off a lot of these misconceptions and problems by taking the following steps – and the sooner, the better to start managing your business friendships:
- Send out an announcement.
Create a postcard or e-mail message announcing your new business, and send it out to all your relatives, friends, neighbors, and business contacts.
Include your business address, phone and fax numbers, Web site URL, and email address. This will go a long way in making your business seem more real — both for you and for your business friendships.
- Establish regular hours of business.
By establishing regular hours of business, you draw a line that tells others when you’re available for socializing and when you aren’t — just as the line is automatically drawn for those who work a regular job in a regular office.
Not only does this help reinforce your own self-discipline, but it also sends a clear message spelling out exactly when you are available and when you’re not. This will further help in managing your business friendships.
- Be firm, but polite.
Sure, your relatives, friends, and neighbors may want to pop in any time they like or to ask you to do favors while they are at work.
Tell them firmly, but politely, that you won’t be available while you’re at work; you have to take care of your customers and clients first.
- Hire them! What’s the old saying?
If you can’t beat them, join them! In this case, however, they can join you.
You may find that hiring relatives, friends, and neighbors to help you in your business is a good way to make the time you spend with them more productive while enabling your business to grow and building stronger and deeper business friendships — all at the same time.
Just as it will take some time for you to transition into the new culture and work habits that go along with owning a small business, it will also take time for your relatives, friends, and neighbors to adjust to the change.
In fact, it may take them longer than it takes you. Throughout this transition, be firm, but be considerate of their feelings. Give them time; they’ll come around.
