I think a lot of small business individuals know that they are going to be wearing several hats as there just isn’t the staff to do each job separately. The wearing of many hats can be something that you do daily, or then there are the times that you will be wearing many hats in one day. I know that there are times that as a business co-owner, the number of hats that are juggled in a day can be quite a few. Sure, it is something that you realize when you start the business and for some people, I think it is something they only realize after the business is started. I think some small business owners forget that when they first start the business that they are going to be the person doing everything, and sometimes the list of things to be done can be rather long.
For us, the habit of wearing many hats is something that we do, and I don’t think we think about it very often until someone asks who does a certain task. In our business, there are some tasks that only one of us does regularly, but in a lot of cases, the tasks could be done by the other person. Sure, we both have what we are the expert on, but if things start to get extremely busy, we can hand some of our tasks off to the other person.
There are days when you can sit and work on one job and that is all that you do, and it feels great and then there are the other days when it seems like there are so many little tasks that need to be done and of course they are all a little different in nature. As a small business co-owner, there isn’t the staff where you can delegate tasks to and know that they are going to be done by someone else. In our case, we can sometimes ask the other person to help out or do the task, but in a lot of cases, the task is just part of another hat that we wear for the business.
We often laugh when people talk about some of the joys of being a small business owner, and yes, there are a lot of jobs. One comment people make is that as a small business owner you don’t have a boss, but in reality, when you are a co-owner of a business you do have a boss, and it is the other co-owner and even yourself. See, so we do wear many hats when it comes to being a small business owner, and that is part staff and part boss, and sometimes both of those happen at the same time.
As a small business co-owner, I love wearing the many hats in our business as it means that daily there can be a lot of variety in the job. Sure, there can be a lot of fires that need to be put out all at once, but at least at the end of the day, you know that you have done a good job. Being your own boss can be a challenge sometimes because you have to figure out the priority of the various tasks, but in a lot of cases, the priority is figured out pretty quickly.
Wearing many hats in a small business is normal, and I wouldn’t change it for the world. I enjoy the job and the variety that we deal with, and at least we know that in our case there are two of us that are accountable to each other, and we love that.
