NIC HARALAMBOUS

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Are You a Key Man?

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Are you a key man in your business? Do you represent your business and the interests therein? Are you the face of the brilliance?If so then some might term you to be the key man in your business (you could also be the key woman, but I am a man so we'll run with that). If you are the "key man" in your business then you will understand the pressure that you are under to perform.The Key Man does not, in any way imply the best person, the performer or the smartest most successful person in your business. You are simply (in my mind) the man that the business relies on. As the term itself states, the Key Man.This concept has started to plague my mind a bit. As a young entrepreneur I am battling with the idea that I might be, and more than likely am a Key Man in my company. The issue here is simple: I am where I am because I love what I do. I run websites, I help build them, I promote them, update date them, punt them and live them. This, in theory makes me the key man. I also meet with potential investors, advertisers and marketers. This makes me an entrepreneur. Being the key man involves a lot of participation. This is where the problem comes in.If I am managing 3 websites and contributing to 3 blogs, I am spending more than half my day online involved in the sites. This leaves very little time to actually be an entrepreneur. To find clients, to keep them, to meet with potential advertisers, to develop new products to market your existing ones and to simply run a company and manage all your shareholders.This is something that is increasingly concerning me. One of the solutions is to hire people to manage and maintain certain projects. How do you get someone in to raise your own children, all day every day? I am not comfortable with that. I like my hands on approach very much. I like being under a bit of pressure to perform because that is when I perform the best. But also, I am the key man and hence I am many of the sites I run. This blog for one. Who would read nicharalambous.com if it wasn't updated by nicharalambous himself? No one. It is as simple as that.I don't have an answer to this conundrum and I am not sure that there is a specific answer to the problem. I think that this might be one of those situations where experience and time dictate the route that each entrepreneur needs to follow.