If you had told me a year ago that I’d be enrolled in a small business class to learn how to be a successful entrepreneur, I’d have said you were delirious.
Even though I write for a business publication, most people who know me would say that I’m about the farthest thing possible from a typical "business head."
I hate numbers, loathe paperwork, and am not sure that I even like money, even though I understand it’s necessary to survive in our culture.
But like many people, I have always had this "dream" of working for myself. You know the one - the carefree vision of sleeping late, working in your jammies, and then romping through verdant pastures tossing daisies to and fro, reveling in the freedom of being self- employed.
Right.
However, in the three years that I’ve been writing for the Coast River Business Journal, I’ve interviewed plenty of small business owners who are living their own version of that dream.
Many have traded life as an employee for what might seem like business startup slavery: long hours, uneven pay and no for-sure certainty that things will improve.
But many of the people I have talked with seem exhilarated and even delighted with the fact that they have their own businesses. So there’s something going on there.
I’m a writer, I like to say, and as such I’ve never wanted to bother with the messy details of business reality. I’m right-brained I protest, better suited to lofty thoughts than mundane details. So why did I enroll in Clatsop Community College’s Small Business Management Class with instructor Jim Entler?
Well, when another right-brained artist friend of mine, who is also a student in Jim’s program, proclaimed to me that the class had transformed her small business from a marginal to a money-making enterprise, my ears perked up.
This was a kindred spirit, another soul who would rather stick a fork in her eye than work on a spreadsheet. If she thought it was so great, maybe there was something in it for me.
Visions of daisies dancing in my head, I enrolled in the class, even though there was a little voice in there saying, "What the ---- are you doing? You could be home actually getting enough sleep!"
When CRBJ publisher Susan Trabucco heard me talking about how I was enjoying the class, she got the idea that maybe I could write about it, and offer hope to others like myself who might be out there struggling with "small business approach-avoidance syndrome."
So I thought I’d start writing a little each month about what we do in class, why it’s interesting, and why it is changing my attitude about entrepreneurship.
One of the first things Jim told us right off the bat is that there’s no "right" kind of person to be an entrepreneur. Meaning, among other concepts, you don’t have to be born with a pencil in your mouth to understand basic bookkeeping.
Anyone with an interest, no matter how right- or left-brained, can be successful in business, if they’re willing to look honestly at themselves and learn enough to become proficient in areas where they need help. Most of the concepts he teaches us are common sense, and not scary at all. Well, mostly.
I’ve been in Jim’s class now since last September, and as much as I was expecting to be bored out of my mind for a good cause, I have to say honestly that each class has been more interesting than the last, and every month (we meet monthly in Seaside) I learn something new that I can actually use.
I’m beginning to feel like I could actually do this business thing, and if not outright enjoy every minute, understand it and learn to make my way in the world under my own entrepreneurial steam, doing what I love.
That’s pretty empowering.
So, I’ll see you later.
It’s time for me to go pick some daisies. And - I never thought I’d ever hear myself say this - I might even sit down later and figure out a cash budget.