Lost Your Motivation

Almost all entrepreneurs begin the company formation process with energy and enthusiasm for the venture they have started. However, as the demands of the recession increase and the future looks more and more unstable, many small business owners are feeling the pressure and losing their motivation. This situation is all too familiar for Adam Walker, CEO and founder of advertising agency, Walker Creative. In today’s post we look at how Walker lost his passion for the company he formed and how he rediscovered his motivation.
Walker formed Walker creative with Sarah Levy, out of a passion for advertising and design. Spotting a gap in the market for digital communication, Walker introduced integrated online campaigns to big brands. The company grew exponentially in the first two years, until as Walker says “We became our own barriers to growth.”
“Online advertising was a revelation; it completely revolutionized advertising and how brands communicated with their customers. We formed our company at the start of the dot com boom and there was a lot of business to be done and money to be made. But then the market started to turn. When we started, we were the only agency that concentrated solely on digital, but then everybody began offering it and we could no longer command the fees we once did. Business became hard, cuts had to be made and it became extremely disheartening.”
Walker took a step back from the business for a couple of weeks and began to re-connect with the passion he once had.”I realized I was concentrating too much on the daily operations of the company – book keeping, HR and endless meetings. As a result, we had failed to react to dynamic market conditions and had got left behind to an extent. Once I began thinking more strategically, I rediscovered the vision I once had for the company and all of a sudden I knew where we were going and how we were going to get there.”
In tomorrow’s post we talk to other entrepreneurs and offer some advice on how to put the passion back into your company.