Plan for the long-term.

If there is one thing I consistently notice among people who join my team, it’s their higher focus on short-term tasks than on long-term investments. In fact, I see this quite a bit among freelancers as well. In getting shit done every single day, we tend to forget to gradually prepare ourselves for the future.

For instance, two of my team members declined my invitation to take up a digital marketing course. In their view, which I empathise with, it was neither urgent nor important. Similarly, we have multiple books, podcasts and online courses that we haven’t read/listened to because they weren’t urgent. There are also multiple unfinished rainy day tasks because something else came up. This, especially if you’re a freelancer, is a terrible mistake. Because it will keep you jailed in the rut.

To be a successful business owner, you need to strike the balance between immediate delivery and institution-building. For that, long-term investments are critical. This could be any kind of investment. Such as:

• A leadership coach to iron out your own management skills.

• A group coaching program to understand yourself better.

• An online course to brush up on some basics.

• Hiring and training people to enable scale.

• Buying tools or software to automate parts of your business.

Not all of this will produce immediate results, some might not produce any result at all. And that’s fine. That’s the most important part of being a business owner — taking risks with time and money. Because sometimes the pay-offs can be pure magic.