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Many entrepreneurs, whether at the start of their journey or a few years in, can make the mistake of thinking that it’s best to go in alone. It’s easy to see why this can be the case. Many people believe they’re able to keep a hold of their business vision far more effectively, and this means achieving the goals they set out for them. Or is this actually the case? Lots of people prefer to go it alone, not necessarily for business reasons but for personal ones. Going it alone can be detrimental for businesses for a number of reasons:
Limited Resources and Capabilities
If you attempt to keep everything in-house, you may find that your resources, skills, and team become inherently limited. Trying to handle every aspect of the business alone or by having a core team in-house can quickly become overwhelming, resulting in burnout, mistakes, and missed opportunities.
This is why, in the realm of online businesses like e-commerce, working with resources such as a Shopify Plus agency or marketing companies can give you far greater resources than you are capable of. Budget often appears to be a problem for people who operate by themselves and worry that they’re not able to gain access to a wider talent pool. This is why if you start to look at what your business needs and then recognize that, in fact, the support of a company can give you a far better understanding of your operations, you will stand to benefit.
Lack of Diverse Perspectives
If you operate by yourself or with the core team that you have known for years, you only have access to your own knowledge, experiences, and thought processes, which results in blind spots, biases, and a lack of fresh perspective.
Business should be predicated on innovation, problem-solving, and staying competitive, which is why bringing fresh meat in can be an excellent way to give your business a shot in the arm. Collaboration has long been referred to as the key to innovation, and when you start to hire new employees who bring diverse perspectives, ideas, and even challenge your thought processes, you will be able to see the light.
Difficulty Scaling and Growing
To grow a business sustainably, we need to bring in additional talent and resources as the business expands. This could mean having a managed IT company help with the technical side of things or outsourcing to get different talent. When we go it alone or with a very skeleton staff, it makes it challenging to scale operations or take on larger projects, meaning we’re not able to enter new markets effectively.
Increased Risk and Vulnerability
Running a business by yourself means that with no backup or people to share responsibilities, the burden is all on your shoulders. This sense of vulnerability can be catastrophic if you end up on the receiving end of unforeseen circumstances, whether it’s economic downturns, accidents, or illnesses.
There should always be a plan B in place in the form of support. It could be business insurance if you are working directly by yourself or if you have a small team, learning to delegate more. When we start to delegate work to others, we’re showing employees that we trust them, and this is very important and is something we all need to go through when we’re in charge of businesses because while we’ve built this company from the ground up and it’s our baby, we end up feeling so protective of our assets that we don’t give anybody under our roof a fair crack of the whip. This means that you’re letting them down, but you’re also letting yourself down.
Lack of Accountability and Feedback
If you have no one to answer to or receive constructive feedback from, this can feed poor decision-making. We can develop bad habits that will hinder our success over time. While solopreneurs can definitely benefit from a mentor in this context, if you are running a company where it is just yourself and there’s no one to answer to and over time you’ve built up from a side hustle all the way through to your business, as satisfying as this can be, you’ve never had to answer to anyone apart from customers or clients.
While there are certainly a number of housekeeping rules, we can learn to ensure that we are giving our business all the dedication it deserves, the fact is that when you are used to doing things in a certain way, you can easily not pivot when there are problems or you can ignore them. These blind spots are hugely detrimental to businesses because we end up feeling that it’s easier to ignore them, rather than face our problems head-on. So what is the solution? We bring other people on board that can hold us accountable.
Ultimately, it’s our responsibility at the end of the day, and when we bring people on board, it’s vital to remember that the buck always stops with us, not them. We can’t blame employees for our failings, and learning accountability and the importance of getting appropriate feedback from the right people means that we can boost employee morale and improve the business in the process.
Isolation
Entrepreneurship can be an incredibly lonely and stressful journey if you do it by yourself. Going it alone completely deprives you of the things that sustain your passion and perseverance through difficult times like moral support, motivation, and shared experiences. Rather than staying in our lane, we need to understand the value of strategic partnerships, investing in talent, and building strong teams.
Yes, self-reliance and independence are admirable traits but only for so long. Trying to do everything by yourself is often unsustainable and highly risky in today’s competitive business landscape. Learning to open yourself up means that you can gain the benefits from collaboration, trust, support, and everything else that doesn’t just improve your business but can work wonders on your professional well-being as well.
Rather than staying in your lane, think about what it actually takes to reach out and ask for help. This is an incredibly empowering thing, so rather than going it alone, take that first step into a bigger world.
