As you’re reading this blog post, the chances are that your staff are on duty, there are customers in the bar (hopefully) and more on the way. You’re hoping for a busy weekend and a Superbowl that pulls customers away from their in-home entertainment centers like never before to sample your offerings.

All going to plan, you’ll meet, serve, work with and even throw out hundreds and thousands of customers this week. Yet it’s the loneliest business in the world.

Staff will form friendships and alliances with each other, they’ll help cover each other’s back, clock in for each other and serve each other when off duty (even if they shouldn’t…); your customers will form groups and mini communities and will hang it out as long as the beer is cold and the food is hot; yet both the customer and the staff member will move on at the first sign of a new, hipper, cheaper, nearer bar and you’ll be the one left at the helm. Again. The loneliest business in the world.

It can be tough being in charge of this social empire where everyone has a good time and someone to share it with, but for you at the top, you often make your decisions alone and without advice or assistance. You’re the only one who has to worry about revenue and rent, costs and cockroaches.

Who do you turn to when the fuses blow, the snow is too deep for your staff to come to work or the bar next door is undercutting you by $1 a beer? But you push yourself and you carry on because nobody else is going to do it.

I think I’ve really brought down the mood so far, so here is a suggestion that has helped me as a business owner working for myself: Make time to hang out with other business owners in your area – they don’t have to be bar owners, just business owners who GET what you mean when you talk about the challenges you face.

I do this at least once every couple of weeks and it has given me a lot more insight and confidence to deal with the problems I would otherwise face alone.

Is it any wonder that the Nightclub & Bar Show is such a success year after year for 25 years? It’s one of the few occasions when you get to hang out with thousands of other bar owners who get what you do, who walk the same road and party just as hard!

Do yourself a favor this year. Don’t be alone in your own business. Form an informal group of business owners and meet for breakfast, a coffee or a beer. Then book your flight to Vegas to the Nightclub & Bar Show and that fuse box and snow storm won’t seem as bad…at least not for a few days anyway! I’ll see you there!