In today’s blog, I have a question about your business… Why are you here?
Why did you start a business? Or why are you thinking of starting a business?
Why do you want to grow your business? Why not just go get a job?
Remember in a previous blog I talked about building a business as a mindset and not a skill set? Maybe you don’t have the right mindset. Why are you willing to go through all the pain and the bullshit it will take to succeed in what you’re doing? Why do you want the headache when it would be so much easier to just get a job and get a check every week. With a job, you’d have a steady income, stability, and benefits. You wouldn’t have to worry about making payroll, and funding everyone else’s 401K’s. You wouldn’t have to worry about not getting a vacation. You’re not going to get sued. Customers aren’t going to call you at night. People aren’t going to post stuff about you on social media calling you all kinds of names. You’re not going to have employees asking you for pay raises and advances. The advances they’re never going to pay you back.
Wouldn’t a job be just so much easier than everything you have to go through? So why are you doing this?
I hear people say, Oh, well, I’m gonna make a lot of money. 30% of businesses fail in the first year and 80% fail in five. And by the way, only 42% of all businesses make money in any given year. So is that really why you’re doing it? Is it the freedom you think you’ll have to be your own boss? Every single customer you have is now your boss. Is it the idea that you can do it better than anyone else? You know what, even if you’re good, somebody’s better. Maybe you need to prove something to yourself. Be careful what you’re trying to prove. You might prove something that you didn’t really want to know. Is it because you have a passion? Most things you do for fun, stop being fun when you have to do them for a living. I’m a pilot. I love being a pilot. I’m a divemaster. I love being a divemaster. If I had to do that for a job, however, it probably wouldn’t be that much fun. Are you doing it because you saw your friend start a business and he made a boatload of money? Maybe he is and maybe he is not. OR…. maybe he has skill sets in business you don’t have.
There are a whole lot of reasons to go into business for yourself. I want to know, what is yours? What is going to make you do what’s necessary to stay in the fight? What’s going to drive you forward? Being a business is grueling.
Maybe you should get a job. Or maybe you should keep your job, it’d be much safer. It would be better for your family. Businesses are tough. Your chances of success are not good. It’s probably not worth the risk. You could lose your savings. You could end up divorced. You’re gonna cause stress in your family. So why in the world would you want to take all those chances? Maybe you just shouldn’t do it? Does that make sense? Or wait!!! Did everything I said just piss you off? Because that was the test? How did you do? I find that if I can talk people out of business, they never should have gotten into business in the first place.
So you need to answer that question. Why are you here? Are you willing to go through it? Did what I just say make you mad? Do you have absolute confidence in yourself? Do you have what it takes?
Are you willing to fail and learn? And are you willing to take advice from people who know more than you do about how to make your business run better?
You better really want this…. or you shouldn’t do it.