What do Joe jobs have to do with your business success? It’s all about willingness.
My husband and I are building a house and we’ve reached the point of priming and painting the interior – something I am very good at after many home renovations. My husband said, “You don’t need to help, it’s OK – it’s a messy, dirty job and we’ve got guys to do it. You can help if you want, but you don’t have to.”
I chose to help because, as we all know, many hands make for light work.
When I arrived on the job site a friend of ours was there with his 9-year old son. Our friend was helping us and while he did that, his 9-year old son scraped drywall mud off of the floor and swept it all into little piles. Later on, when is Dad brought a shop-vac in this boy went around the whole house and vacuumed up all of the piles of dirt he had created.
That 9-year old was willing. He was at a dirty construction site and he stepped up to do one of the dirtiest jobs that needed to be done. He got filthy, and he was smiling the entire time – not a word of complaint, he was just happy to be helping.
This situation reminded me of when I was a kid. Once a year, my Aunt would pay me $5 to take everything out of her kitchen cupboards, wipe the cupboards down, and then put everything back in a neat and tidy fashion. My Uncle would pay me $5 to shovel the driveway. I was a little girl shovelling yucky, cold, wet, snow for $5. But, I was willing. I wanted to make money. I was willing to do the job because my Mom taught me that I’m not too good for hard work. And, there is no shame in working hard.
I’m sharing these stories because I often see new business owners who want to be Mark Zuckerberg right out of the gate. They don’t want to put in the time or do the hard work – they’re not willing to do the Joe jobs necessary for business success.
Why is it that we think entrepreneurship is glamorous?
My office is a shared workspace in Annapolis Royal, NS, and I’ve got to tell you that I cleaned a lot of grime when we moved into this space and started renovating. It’s beautiful now, but I’ve also hired someone to clean this space on a weekly basis for me because I simply do not have time to do it. It’s not because the work is beneath me – I just don’t have the hours in the day.
What I see all too often is that we are not willing to show up and do the hard work it takes for business success. We are not willing to make the calls to get more sales. We are not willing to take risks and put ourselves out there because our little make us afraid that we might fail.
So, my question for you is, are you willing to do the Joe Jobs?
