Photo courtesy of serzhile on Flickr

National director of business and professional networking organisation BNI New Zealand Graham Southwell spoke with the New Zealand Herald recently about why people choose to start a business alone and what they can expect.

Southwell said although people go into business alone because they’re passionate about what they do, they also often mistakenly believe that they’ll have a lot more free time, which turns out to be quite contrary to the usual reality of running a business alone.

Southwell pointed to loneliness as one issue people can face when running a business by themselves and added BNI encourages people to take time out and work on their business rather than in their business, even though that can be extremely difficult when running a business solo.

“It’s so easy to get completely bogged down in doing the work that you get pulled away from the fact you need to step out of it and look at how to grow the business and confront any problems,” he said.

People can do this by setting aside times when they are unavailable to do things within the business, instead focussing on how to grow the business and make it better.

Southwell said joining networking groups, teaming up with people to work collaboratively and making sure you take time to take care of yourself are also important.

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