When you want it done right, don't get someone else to do it.

Recently I experienced what some would call incompetence. When you don't see a bill from a supplier, however much you try and contact them via phone, mobile, sms, email, twitter, myfacebooktubes and you still can't contact them after three months, you start to worry. Then, because you haven't paid your bill. Your service gets cut off.

Eventually I got a hold of the person I'm referring to. However, even that wasn't easy because communication was done Chinese Whispers style, through a friend, through a friend (yep, two of them).

While the problems have been sorted out, my lesson learnt is if you want something done correctly, you still have to do it yourself. The hardest thing I've ever had to do in business is make sure the people I pay to do stuff for me are doing it right. I don't know about you, but I'd rather the stress of taking the workload myself than the possibility of someone else screwing it up in vein of my having somewhat of a more casual time running my business.

So. That problem is fixed.... and now I'm pulling my services off to do it all myself. However, over the last 6 months Ive started to grow tired of not what I do, but what I've been dealing with. And I've started to look around for other opportunities. Opportunities for business in a different field.

Some friends have noted that while it may look like I'm trying to run away from my problems, I am in fact running away from these types of problems and running towards problems that I know I can handle better.

IT business is harsh at the best of times. My biggest issue besides people who say they can do something, but can't is customers who don't pay, likely because they don't value good IT support. I spend more time training people of the importance of computers and if you rely on them, the outlay of a new one is a negligible compared to a task that may take 15 minutes only taking 15 seconds. This is just one issue that's getting old.

But as if to sound as though I'm giving up. I am hardly ready to throw in the towel. Another reason for my being fed up with IT is that while it was a great hobby for me, it was never suppose to be a career. IT became a career due to a life changing experience more suitably told over a pint of amber ale.

Now I'm at that stage in my life where I'm looking and wondering what the hell I'm doing wasting my time? I should be doing something more akin to my skills and working to my strengths.

Over the last 12 months, my musical side has really picked up and I've become very active in that area again. So much so that I enquirer about a purchase of a music shop. Sadly this was both out of my price range and perhaps not the area I was looking for.

One of the places I rehearse my music with one of the bands I play in has a guy who runs the studio. He's got his hands full with a million projects running all at the same time. I spoke to him about the music shop idea and he ever looked into a bit for me. At the same time, I have another mate who runs his own music shop who said "Mate, any idiot... even me can run one. If you want to do it, do it yourself." He speaks the truth. But in the end it isn't what I was looking for.

So yesterday I'm back at the rehearsal studio talking to my mate when we started to bounce some ideas around. Some of the things he said got me thinking and some of the things I suggested were really cool ideas he said he would love to see happen.

However, one of the things he said was about expanding what he has in the studio into something much much bigger. So I asked, "Do you need help with it?"

It turns out he does. And he's possibly looking for a partner to join forces with. Here's where I just wasn't sure.... I've seen many partnerships. They've all failed. Perhaps this one will to, and sadly, with those failed ones, the relationship goes out the door with it. However, maybe because we both know this, we can try our best to put in every preventive method to avoid the ackwardness in the end, if there is an end.

Now I'm at a point where I don't know what to do, and I'm not even sure what I can bring to the table with this guy. He's a great person, and I don't want to ruin our friendship or waste his time.

So, while I was leaving, I brought up another business idea I had involving motorcycles. Something I think I want to get back into, despite it being something I had interest in from a former life. I spoke to him about the idea and he thought it was brilliant. So far others I've spoken to about it think it's brilliant.

However, I'm not sure how to go about it, how to acquire the money to start it up, how to set up everything it needs, and the staff it will need to operate the idea. I think it's time I started to look a some form of business education or at least speak to someone who's do it all before. I have one person in mind......

Watch this space