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How DO You Start This New Year

Posted: Jan 3rd, 2012

How DO You Start This New Year

Managing Your Business is like a Brand New Start

By Marion Freijsen

1st January 2012, a new day, a new year. A year full of opportunities, full of challenges and excitement. That blank slate that you feel you have to do something positive with, unhindered by the baggage that you have built up over the past 12 months.

So how will you tackle this new start? Many people feel daunted by the sheer responsibility although they love the feeling that this new year may be different to the last. Or, if you had a brilliant year last year, you want to repeat it and are looking to build on your successes.

The question I always ask myself is - do I really have to make changes today of all days in the year? Last year was a tough one for me - for our company. Not because we struggled, but because our growth really kicked in and that in itself brought a ton of new challenges. We suddenly had to hire more people as it became obvious that being a three-legged stool was no longer applicable to the size of company we were becoming.

Now managing is something that is different from running a business in many ways, and - between you and me - it is not very high on my list of things I enjoy. I love working as a team, I love teaching and coaching people and sharing experiences...but that alone does not classify unfortunately as managing a group of people. I wish it were that easy! Managing is about making sure you have a common vision, a simple set of rules to abide by and processes to follow. But not so many processes that nobody dares do anything anymore. Management is about inspiration, but also about discipline and responsibility - about delegating and trusting that others will find their way to do something.

In a lot of ways, managing is about letting go - letting go of your own ways to have others do it in theirs. Letting go of your own standards so that others may set their own. Letting go of control, so that things go grow beyond your own span and reach....

If you think about it, managing your business, is like a brand new start every single day of every single year. Through it, we strive and reach and achieve growth not only for our organizations but we achieve growth of ourselves in the process.

Now - that is not a bad new year's resolution to have, is it?

Marion Freijsen is the COO and co-founder of EFactor.  She also has 25 years of solid experience in building companies and teams from scratch, having "survived" 5 start-ups over that time. Her key expertise lies in Business Development, Marketing and Technology.  To follow Marion and her latest updates, visit her EFactor profile.