THE BEAUTY OF PLANNING-TURNING DREAMS INTO REALITY
Barbara Singal is a mentor for The Jewish Entrepreneur (TJE). She is a Business Operations Consultant and the founder of Ease the Day. Barbara’s focus is to help people accomplish their business dreams. She shares her story with us.
For many years, Barbara worked in the corporate world in various roles for various industries. She quickly found that her strength was in operations. That is the part of any company that relates to an entrepreneur’s strategic goals, as well as the day-to-day functions. Whether you are producing a product or providing a service, the operational considerations are critical to success. There are countless steps between coming up with a “Brilliant Idea” and creating a professional, productive, profitable business. This can often be the most challenging obstacle that entrepreneurs face. They are usually really good at producing their product or providing their service, but the operations side is frequently a scary unknown. Sadly, Barbara has seen too many smart, capable people lose their businesses because they didn’t take the time to plan or even know they needed to properly plan their operations. This is where Barbara can really make a difference. “My favorite part of what I do is watching frustrated entrepreneurs gain control of their business and begin to realize their dream,” Barbara notes.
She had her first paying job at 11 years old and has been working ever since. Many people in her life have enjoyed making (generally good-natured) fun of her for being so organized. But, when they needed help with a project, who did they call? Yep, Barbara. She has always liked to make order out of chaos. So, more and more people were looking to her to help with new projects, it made sense for her to leave the corporate world and go out on her own. Barbara acknowledges “I probably enjoy working with entrepreneurs so much because being one has been so fulfilling for me.”
Ease the Day typically works with companies that have between one and 50 employees. That’s one of the reasons the mentoring arrangement has worked so well. “With small companies, you can talk to the people who actually do the work. If you try something, the result is usually apparent very quickly so adjustments can be made more easily,” Barbara says. “I also have contracts with the City of Chicago that allow me to provide my services to certain business in Chicago while the City covers the fees. This is a wonderful opportunity for small businesses who need operational assistance but may not have the financial resources to acquire them.” Barbara sees that as a win-win for businesses and the communities in which they are located.
Barbara advises that “You can have the greatest product or service in the world, but if you do not have a solid operational structure you will have a limited chance of success. The analogy I use is if you built a magnificent second floor but did not build the first floor on a solid foundation, what would happen?” Before Barbara begins to work with a company, she first evaluates the potential of that person or company to achieve a level of success. Very often people want to grow their business but are unwilling to make any changes. That is not a path to success. Some people are on a reasonably good path but do not have the skill sets to properly run their business and can’t recognize its weaknesses. You will often hear Barbara say, “Your greatest strength is to recognize your weakness.” That allows someone to see what needs to be strengthened and put in place the appropriate resources to shore up the infrastructure.
It is a long way to go from having a dream to making that elusive “first million dollars”. What is the viability of the dream? Can we really make it happen? Barbara’s experience has shown that the vast majority of the time we can, but it doesn’t always look the same as what was originally envisioned. Very often the operational planning may not seem like the fun part. Barbara sees business planning to be similar to a jigsaw puzzle. There are lots of pieces that need to fit together perfectly. It can feel very overwhelming, but it is very important to understand how every part of a business works. She helps her clients put the pieces in order so they make sense. Employees also need to understand what happens in the company so that they can understand the importance each of their responsibilities plays towards the overall success. As an added benefit, office conflicts are minimized when all the staff members recognize and appreciate that they fulfill an important role in making the company function.
“I have to understand my client’s strengths and weaknesses and what is holding them back from achieving their goals. I have to figure out what each person is comfortable with and know what tools I can give them to move into areas that might be outside their comfort zone. Some people have skills and do not know they have them. Others are confident they have the skills but really do not have what they need to create a successful business”, notes Barbara. Her focus is to bridge that gap while building confidence in each business owner and setting them up for success.
Richard Messing is a mentee of Barbara’s and has a consulting business in New York:
“Barbara has been very helpful. She has a template which is helping me define and communicate concisely the unique services I offer so I can distinguish my consultancy from the competition. The template exercise forces me to write down and clarify my thoughts. We just started discussing how to network and collaborate with potential partners, which is essential for growing a consulting practice.”
Susan B has a website startup and is one of Barbara’s mentees:
“Barbara is an extremely clear thinker. She has an uncanny ability to hone in on what the real issue is that is standing in the way of progress. She is an amazing listener and has clarity about what needs to happen next, Step 1, 2, and 3. She makes it very clear so it is easy to execute. She is also very understanding of human frailties and what would be too overwhelming to take on versus what is actually doable.
She has a lot of experience and gut instincts about what is the best choices for the business. She is an operational genius in terms of workflow and analyzing the business and planning for the future. She also happens to be fun and delightful to work with. I can’t imagine what I would have done without her in my corner for the last few months as we hired new employees and trained them.
I had an employee who was not getting her job done and I kept making excuses for her. Barbara told me, I promise you, if you lead her, and hold her accountable, she will shine! Low and behold, ten things my employee was dragging her feet on were completed within a week!”
Barbara concludes:
She found out about TJE from a weekly newsletter in Chicago and thought, “OK, I am in a position to volunteer my time. I can help someone create something from nothing because I have been working for a long time and I know a lot of resources that can be helpful to a new business.” At present, she is mentoring three people.
“My increased quality of life and the sense of satisfaction I get from watching a client succeed is worth more than any high-powered job I have had. One of my clients said to me, “Barbara, when I started working with you I did not think it was going to work out. It was so irritating because it went against my natural inclinations. But, it was irritating in the way a grain of sand becomes a pearl”. What a compliment!
If you are interested in becoming a mentor for TJE contact [email protected].
If you are interested in becoming a mentee go to tjenetwork.com and fill out the mentee form. TJE does not charge for this service and all of their mentors are volunteers – just like Barbara.
