A Day in the Life of an Entrepreneur: Every Day is a Crisis

According to Phil Knight, co-founder of Nike, “For an entrepreneur, every day is a crisis.”

As an entrepreneur, how do you define a crisis?

Merriam-Webster.com defines a Crisis as follows:

the turning point for better or worse in an acute disease or fever

a paroxysmal attack of pain, distress, or disordered function

an emotionally significant event or radical change of status in a person’s life

Some days are more challenging than others as an entrepreneur.

How do you handle really bad days?

You know the type. Days where you are thinking that you should have stayed in bed.

However, this too shall pass.

With entrepreneurship, highs are wonderful and the lows seem frequently available.

As an entrepreneur, every day has the potential for challenge, disruption, and conflict. At that exact moment, you might even call it a crisis.

Let’s take a look at a day in the life of an entrepreneur.

A Day in the Life of an Entrepreneur: Every Day is a Crisis

This client’s business is booming. Most of the staff is working overtime. Recently several temps were hired.

To put things in perspective, those newly hired temps mean the company workforce increased by 20%.

That’s the same as a company with 1000 employees hiring 200 workers over a few weeks.

Therefore, you are extremely busy. The whole company is feeling growing pains.

It’s Friday. You walk in at 6:00 AM as the day begins.

You’ve had a decent workweek. Ready to wind it down and enjoy the weekend ahead.

When in reality your “Hell Day” is just beginning.

6:30 AM – Temp Calls In Sick

You hired a temp to replace a key employee who is out recovering from surgery.

Production is busting at the seams. You need all hands on deck. Yet, one particular temp calls in sick.

You desperately needed that employee today.

The temp agency doesn’t open until 8:30 am. Your team starts at 7:00 am (the overtime crew started at 6:30 am).

By the time a temp replacement would arrive, it might be 10:00 am. Plus they need to be trained. You decided that is not a viable option. No temp. No production on that product today.

Well, if that’s the worst thing of the day, everything will be ok.

You are hoping your key employee is recovering well from her surgery. You send her positive thoughts and give thanks for your own good health.

While digesting that situation, a new challenge presents itself.

7:30 AM – First Crisis

A top customer needs a product shipped out the door that day. No problem.

Yet, it was manufactured incorrectly. At first, you think an employee produced it wrong.

The same one who was hired on permanently after serving as a temp for 90 days.

They were a rock star as a temp and did everything asked of them and did it exceptionally well.

You have reached a point where they are now a key member of the team. So, you hire them on full time.

All of a sudden, attendance and tardiness immediately becomes an issue. Now quality issues arise with this employee.

Time is spent trying to figure out a solution to ship the product out on time. Nothing is working correctly. There are no replacement parts in stock.

The customer counts on this item for their production. They rely on you for quality and timeliness.

What to do?

After spending an hour brainstorming with a supervisor, you finally think you have a resolution.

The customer service supervisor calls the customer to see if that solution works for them.

8:30 AM – Next Crisis

While waiting to hear back on that situation, another employee walks in to say a main piece of machinery has broken down.

It’s the third time in the past two months that the machine has stopped. Production on that line has come to a halt.

While sitting there digesting the second crisis of the day, a customer calls insisting to speak with you.

8:45 AM – Bigger Crisis

You pick up to hear a furious customer on the other end.

You produced a product for that customer. Exactly to their specifications.

Unfortunately, their engineer who engineered and ordered the item is no longer with the company.

The customer explains that their customer who they delivered this product to finds the product unworkable.

They are demanding a solution NOW. Who from your team is willing to fly across the country to fix this?

The customer’s customer is threatening them with legal action. Needless to say, they are hot. You say, “I’ll be right there”.

9:00 AM – Meeting with Angry Customer

You leave your office to go meet with the angry customer.

Upon arrival, a couple of employees greet you and guide you to a conference room.

Discussions begin immediately to explain the situation. The conversation is cool and calm to find a quick and affordable solution.

However, that is until the president of the company storms in the room. He is furious. He is standing. Pointing. Accusing.

He points out the flaws of the product.

How on earth was this produced like this?

You respond, his engineer designed the product and the product was produced exactly to those specifications. There were actually two engineers. Unfortunately, both are no longer with the company.

Fingers are being pointed again at you. Now what?

The past is the past. So, what are our options now to resolve this crisis for your customer?

You are told we are in this together, what are you willing to do to help? You have skin in this game, how are you willing to step up?

Finally, the president calms down. Cooler heads prevail.

The president explains this customer is a corporate bully.

They have pounded them repeatedly over and over on this project.

Hammering them on flaws and deficiencies that come up after products have been installed.

They repeatedly attempt to pass along additional and unnecessary charges.

Unfortunately, the drama and accusations flow down the supply chain to you.

The customer explains that they believe in reality it is their customer who is the problem.

Everyone now comes together as a team.

Positive options are discussed to work together for a viable solution. Everyone shakes hands and walks out.

You feel an ounce better compared to when you arrived 60 minutes earlier.

10:30 AM – Which Fire to Put Out Next?

You get back to the office. Which fire to put out next?

Your supervisor catches up with you to say they have a solution for the product produced incorrectly.

The employee actually produced it correctly. There was an error on the component from the original manufacturer.

They discovered a reasonably quick fix. You are less unhappy with the employee.

You just wish they would eliminate these attendance and tardiness issues.

Anyway, your customer service supervisor spoke with the customer.

They said everything sounds great and even offered thanks for your service and dedication.

Another crisis resolved.

11:00 AM – What’s Wrong with the Machine?

Next fire. Let’s tackle the piece of machinery that is down.

Two hours have slipped by since you left the office to meet your angry customer.

Everything that you had planned to work on today…well…still waits.

You and an employee shut down the machine. Make sure everything is safe. Open it up. Start diagnosing where the culprit lies.

You narrow it down to a couple of potential problem areas.

Perform a few tweaks. Nothing significant stands out though.

You were hoping for a glaring blemish that you could point to and say Aha!

Unfortunately not quite that simple here.

After a few hours, you make some progress.

Hopefully, those tweaks may have fixed the problem.

You start back up the machine not sure if you fixed it.

The machine needs to be turned on and run to see if it works.

However, that takes up to an hour to find out.

1:30 PM – No Lunch for You

Finally, you realize that you missed lunch since it’s now 1:30.

While waiting for the machine to start up, you decide you go start working on a fix for the angry customer.

You try your first idea. Nope. Not a good option.

You move on to the second option.

After a couple of hours, this seems to be a better fix.

Yet, it needs to sit over the weekend.

Then test it again on Monday.

Hopefully, this pleases your customer. Which in turn bails them out from the customer threatening legal action.

3:45 PM – Overtime: Machine Still Not Working

You go back to the broken machine. It seems to be working. Nope. Not quite right.

You go back and forth for the next few hours.

Your supervisor stays overtime to help make sure the machine is fixed properly to run first thing on Monday morning.

6:30 Fixed

FIXED! The machine is finally working correctly.

It is now just past 6:30 on Friday evening.

The entire day was lost. Nothing that you had planned originally was accomplished.

Finally, at 7:00 pm on Friday night you head home.

Oh yeah, it’s your wife’s birthday.

This is a true story from many years ago and my wonderful wife was completely understanding of me from being late on her birthday. We still had a great birthday weekend for her anyway.

So that’s a snapshot of entrepreneurship from my perspective.

However, I wouldn’t have it any other way.

How about you?