Having a great store is NOT the same thing as having a highly profitable one, as counter-intuitive as that may seem. In fact, the two goals can be at odds.
It took me a long time to learn this, and personally, I think having a satisfying workplace is at least as important as making money.
"Wait a minute!" I hear you saying. "You have to make money to survive!"
True enough, but I'd argue that you also have to have a satisfying experience to survive as a small business.
I'll say it again -- I think as many businesses quit because of 'burnout' as quit from not making money.
Sure, there are people who open small businesses with the sole purpose of making lots of money. I think that's usually a forlorn goal -- you'll make enough to get by, probably, if you do a good job and you don't burn yourself out along the way.
But other people open small businesses, in a sense, to buy their own job. To be their own boss. To be in a congenial place selling to friendly people and enjoying what they do.
What I see around me, is that people underestimate that aspect of business. They do things they don't want to do because everyone tells them they should and because it makes them more money and then they wake up one day and it isn't fun and they ask themselves why they are doing it.
I mean, why do you own a business if isn't something you like doing? So, you know, try to avoid doing things that will make you dislike what you're doing!
Every advice column you read will advise you to overextend the effort you make. So you have to maintain an inner gauge as to how much you can handle -- that extra service you just offered that brings in a few more bucks a month, is it really worth it? Extended hours? Extended menu? Extended everything?
Measure your workload, your satisfaction, the same way you measure your money.
Time, energy, space, stress....satisfaction....ARE money.
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I'll say it again -- I think as many businesses quit because of 'burnout' as quit from not making money.
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Money is blood, when you have no blood you have no oxygen the parasite dies. Money is the blood of biz, and goverment, and ... et-al
Burnout is the result of working or I should say TOILING for no financial award, like a prostitute many a people will do that which goes against common sense for an easy buck, but if your pattern of repetition is bringing poverty and ruin and depression most know to kick out or at the very least their source of funding the money-sink is terminated.
Allow me to say in another way, the difference between rich men and poor men is that poor men are easily bored and move thing to thing like a monkey in the jungle.
A rich man is fixated on a goal, and keeps his nose to the grind-stone albeit BORED out of his fucking mind. But in the long term if he saves and is frugal and watches his money an grows his biz, he has a rats chance of owning land and hiring people to manage his biz, ... and perhaps be rich.
I have read 100's of book on 'how to be rich', and they all point out that MOST PHD's are not rich, and most of the rich did not have IQ's, what they had was a fixation of purpose, and the ability to over-ride the common mans occupation with boredom.
Measure the true goals? That would be family, and personal relationships, for most men/women money becomes boring post 45, but if you don' have any your Bend Fucked(tm).
Besides fixation of purpose the second quality is a solid education in a specific field that earns money. While IQ or PHD is not important, having specialized knowledge is extremely important otherwise your just another fly on the same turd, or just another Bender(tm) watching reality TV.
Do what you like and you will never work another day in your life. So true.
"do what you like", but you had better have a patron, ... :)
I like the chinese quote on this one
happy for a day? take a nap
happy for a week? eat your pig
happy for a year? get married
happy for life? love your work
nothing new under the sun for all cultures,
I think I have pointed out before and I think it was Thoreau who said "Most american men live lives of quiet desperation", so true over 100 years ago, so true today.
Most people who open small businesses seem to do it because they love the products they sell. Wine lovers open wine shops. Book lovers open bookstores. Car lovers open car dealerships.
"I have read 100's of book on 'how to be rich', and they all point out that MOST PHD's are not rich, and most of the rich did not have IQ's, what they had was a fixation of purpose, and the ability to over-ride the common mans occupation with boredom."
True (although I suspect rich people all have SOME discernible IQ).
It's always seemed to me that it would be pretty easy to get rich if one was reasonably intelligent, was single-mindedly dedicated to making money and was willing to do anything to make as much as possible.
Some politician (Gerald Ford?) once said that being a politician was like being a football coach: You have to be smart enough to win and dumb enough to think it's important. That's the way I feel about getting rich.
"While IQ or PHD is not important, having specialized knowledge is extremely important"
But the technology is changing so fast now that going to college to study it is almost a waste of time -- what you learn will be outdated three months after you graduate. Of course a solid grounding in basic principles is always valuable.
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