How to make the change from employee to business owner.

A business owner looks at things differently than an employee.

I received this letter from Kim this week.
I read your article on Am. Small Biz and I am getting up the courage to leave my job. It is hard when you make the top of your salary range. How do people walk away?

I have been wanting to start my own business for about 11 years.

I am touched by your story and believe one can be successful if they truly do what they love.

Kim

Yes, love what you do! But also consider this:

The person that decides to start and run their own business has a different way of looking at things than the person who decides to be an employee. There is nothing wrong with being a man or a woman. Each one is OK to be. There is however, no reason either, to stay one, if you really want to be the other.
I was flipping through channels tying to find something interesting to watch when I came upon this show about the “thinking and reasoning” of people who received a sex change operation. I wondered why on earth would some one want to do that. I watched.

I observed and discovered from that program that night that people have sex change operations because:

1. They believe strongly that is what they really should do.

2. They’d have it no other way.

3. They pay a lot of money for it.

4. They ignore people who say they shouldn’t do it.

5. They are proud of it after they do it!

6. They “love” their new look.

7. They’ve made a huge commitment to it.

8. There’s no turning back or changing their mind.

A bizarre example for sure, but that is very much the way it ought to be when starting up your own business.

Business Owners:
1. Believe really strongly that they are doing what they really should do. Believing in your product, service or idea is one of the main keys for success.
2. They would have it no other way. They really like being “the boss”.
3. They pay a lot of money for getting their business going. According to www.franchise.com the average fast food franchise in the USA costs $270,000. A Health/Fitness/Beauty place will average $ 91,240. A music theatre in Branson: about 25 million. In 1990 I started a little shopper paper with $400 cash and sold it 5 years later for $150,000.
4. They ignore people who say they shouldn’t do it. There are always people who’ll tell you something won’t work, or your making a big mistake. Half of the population in the USA, at the time, thought Lincoln was a madman for signing the emancipation proclamation to free the slaves.
5. They are proud of it after they do it! Business owners will often be as passionate about their new business as politicians trying to get you to vote for them!
6. They “love” their new look. Business owners build websites to show it off, put it on TV, in the papers and on Billboards. Also when the business owner builds new building they “love their new look” and want to show it off.
7. They’ve made a huge commitment to it. Many times people quit a 40-hour a week job and start a business and work 65-75 hours a week.
8. There’s no turning back or changing their mind. Once you have signed a huge loan at the bank there’s no turning back. You must make it work.

Remember.
· When called on to choose between opportunity and security, the vast majority won’t leave their comfort zone. They’ll choose security.

Wizard of Ads Partner Steve Clark emailed me about that post and said:

Most people work at jobs they don't like, to earn money to buy things they
don't need, to impress people they don't like.

Kind of crazy don't you think?

Thoreau said it best "most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to
their graves with their song still in them".

What a shame.

Steve Clark

The radical thinking that would make you an extremely successful business owner will get you in a lot of trouble as an employee. ( I know from painful experience) And the “play it safe” thinking, of a security driven employee, does not work well when your trying to decide to whether borrow $1,500,000 to build on additional space to your building.

And finally the “dictatorial” style of a business owner does NOT work very good at home where the family needs unconditional love …and the caring and unconditional love a home needs does not work well at the business. Sometimes you have to say, “your fired.”

Kim, my answer is this: if a person wanted own their own business as much as those people on TV wanted a sex change I am sure their business would do well and prosper and be amazingly successful.
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