Entrepreneurs hear it all the time. We’ve been guilty of saying it.

You have to grow your business to be a BIGG success. You have to scale.

No you don’t.

You don’t have to build something large.

You don’t have to hire employees.

You don’t have to go public.

Listen to this post. Click a player to hear George & Mary-Lynn on The BIGG Success Show Podcast.


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Before we get into them, we should note that we’re really focusing on the financial side of your business in this discussion. So you won’t hear warm and fuzzy terms. Just the basics.

And we should emphasize another point:

Your business won’t just give these things to you.

You’ll have to work hard to get them.

With all that in mind, here are the three things your business must give you:

Enough money today

This is the obvious one. Assuming it’s a full-time endeavor, your business has to provide you with enough money to sustain your standard of living.

But what’s not so obvious, perhaps, is that you need to be able to sustain your standard of living in the future too. Your costs will increase. Your business must give you enough money to meet these future costs.

If you don’t want to work more, you must have the ability to charge your customers more in the future when your costs increase. Otherwise, you’ll have a lower standard of living in the future.

Replacement customers

No matter how well you serve your customers, you are likely to lose one from time to time.

Hopefully, your churn rate is really low but almost every business experiences some customer turnover. You’ll need to find new customers to replace old customers who do less business with you or no business at all.

Otherwise, you won’t have enough money today. Your income will fall. So it’s important to continue marketing your business, to continue networking, no matter how busy you are right now.

Enough money tomorrow

Even if you are a solopreneur, you need an exit plan.

You may reach a point where you don’t want to work. You may reach a point where you can’t work.

Your business must give you enough money so you can set aside something for tomorrow.

The three “do somethings”

At a minimum, your business must give you the lifestyle you want for now and the future. If it doesn’t, you have three choices.

We’ll call them “do somethings”.

• Do something more
  

  Grow your business by doing more for your existing customers or getting more customers.
  

• Do something additional
  

  Is there another business, perhaps related, that would give the extra something you need. Or could you get a part-time job to fill the gap between what you need and what you’re taking in now.
  

• Do something else
  

  Sometimes you just have to accept that it’s not going to work. Be realistic. But be careful that you don’t give up too early. BIGG success usually comes with a price. You will be required to push yourself beyond what you thought were your limits if you want to reach it.
  

  But you’ll grow so much personally and professionally in the process. And that’s what will lead you to BIGG success!
  

What do you want your business to give you?

Direct link to The Bigg Success Show audio file | podcast:
http://traffic.libsyn.com/biggsuccess/00740_092911.mp3

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We hear it all the time. Follow your passion.

Of course, before you can follow it, you have to find your passion.

Michael Martine (a.k.a. Remarkablogger) published a great guest post by Liz McGowen a while back.

She says you’ll be miserable if you follow your passion. If you turn your hobby into a business or even a career, you’ll come to hate all of them. You can’t combine work and play.

Liz also says you shouldn’t marry your best friend. Now we can debate the wisdom of following your passion, but we fiercely object to this nonsense about not marrying your best friend! It’s worked out very well for us.

Listen to this post! Click a player to hear George & Mary-Lynn on The BIGG Success Show Podcast.


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So should you do what you love?

An unequivocal yes.

BIGG success is life on your own terms. Pursuing your passion is an essential part of BIGG success.

But that’s not really the question. The question really is:

Should your passion be your career or business?

The answer is one of the best answers anyone can ever give:

It depends.

It depends on what type of person you are.

Full Tilt People

Full Tilt People have a passion that borders on obsession. A magnificent obsession.

And it’s not a bad thing. In fact, quite the opposite. It’s a BIGG plus.

Full Tilt People love what they do so much that it consumes them. They live, breathe, eat, and sleep it.

If you’re a Full Tilt Person, you should try to build a career or business around your passion.

Of course, there has to be a market for it. At an absolute minimum, you have to make a good living at it today while setting aside money for your future.

Seesaw People

Most people still relish some balance between their personal and professional lives. At any point in time, one side may be up while the other is down. But on average, they are pretty balanced.

If you’re a Seesaw Person, you shouldn’t mix career and hobby.

You can and should love what you do. But you should choose a career that gives you time to do what you love in your spare time.

We’re definitely full tilt people. It doesn’t mean we don’t play. It means we love our work so much that we’re almost always on.

BIGG success is life on your own terms. It’s about discovering yourself so you can design and build a life that fits you perfectly. If it works for you, it works. And it leads to BIGG success.

Are you a Full Tilt Person or a Seesaw Person?

Direct link to The Bigg Success Show audio file | podcast:
http://traffic.libsyn.com/biggsuccess/00730-082511.mp3

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Are you unhappy with your job?

Do you dream of starting your own business?

Wouldn’t it be nice?

Being your own boss.

Setting your own schedule.

Getting paid what you’re worth.

We tend to romanticize what we don’t have. Looking in from the outside, all we see is the glamour.

Let’s talk about the brutal truth of these three commonly held beliefs about starting a business.

Hear George & Mary-Lynn talk about the 3 brutal truths on The BIGG Success Show! Click a player to listen.


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Be your own boss

No more working for “the man.” No longer having to put up with the bull. Not answering to anybody.

The fact is you will answer to more people than ever:

• Customers
  

To start, every single one of your customers is your boss.

Sure, it’s different. Sure, if you have enough customers, you can afford to fire one now and then.

But if you want to be a BIGG success in your small business, you better get really good at serving your customers.

• Financiers
  

  Your financiers are your boss. It’s the golden rule: He or she who has the gold makes the rules! They will likely set parameters within which you must operate.
  

Of course, if you don’t need outside funding, you won’t have to worry about these bosses.

• Government
  

  As a small business owner, you will answer to governmental entities at the local, state and federal levels. Once you hire your first employee, the requirements will escalate. Certain businesses are more regulated than others but every small business deals with government.
  

• Employees
  

  Employees as your boss? Are we nuts? Stick with us for just a minute.
  

  If you believe in servant leadership, you may think of your employees as your boss even though it obviously isn’t the case.
  

  We believe that it’s the leader’s job to make it as easy as practically and financially possible for each and every employee to do his or her job.
  

Set your own schedule

Can you picture it? Rolling into work late. Taking a long lunch. Leaving the office early. Afternoons on the golf course. Long vacations. What a life!

What a lie!

The reality is that, when you first start your business, you will probably work more than you ever have in your life.

You’ll have to, unless you have a lot of money to pay for help. But then, you’ll be flowing red and you’ll feel even more stress to reach break-even.

Of course, once your business is a BIGG success, you may be able to back down on the time you spend on it. But that will take years, if not decades.

Get paid what you’re worth

Finally, you will be compensated for your effort. Your true value will be valued. You can set your own pay.

The truth is not quite so pretty. You may not be able to afford to pay yourself as much as you make now.

Of course, in time, you better make more money. But you have to plant in order to harvest.

You will invest both time and money. You deserve to be compensated fairly for both.

But it won’t likely happen right away. Chances are, you will subsidize your business for a period of time. (Unless, of course, you raise more money. In that case, see the discussion above about financiers and the golden rule.)

If you no longer want to be an entrepreneur, great! We’ve accomplished something here today. You’ll be spared the financial and emotional costs of starting your own business.

If after reading all this, you still have that feeling in your gut – you just have to do it; you cannot accept not trying; you have to start your own business.

Great! We’ve accomplished something here today. You’re ready to start your own business with your eyes wide open. It leads to BIGG success!

If you aren’t sure how to get started, shoot us an e-mail at bigginfo@biggsuccess.com or leave a voice message at 888.455.BIGG (2444). Tell us what you’re thinking about. Maybe we can help.

Direct link to The Bigg Success Show audio file | podcast:
http://traffic.libsyn.com/biggsuccess/00717-071211.mp3

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It’s a story about Newton, Iowa which, like many communities in the Midwest, is still struggling in spite of the pronouncement that the recession has ended.

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We’re in the Midwest so we know the feeling. Many small business owners are still hurting. Steve Pelley, the host of the segment, interviewed several small business owners from the Newton area.

And that’s what really struck us. It wasn’t the anger as the title of the piece indicated. It was two different emotions.

Grief

Dave McNeer is the owner of Maxim Advertising, an advertising specialties manufacturer. His company had grown every year for 22 years. Then it ran head on into the Great Recession.

He had to lay off twelve of his 22 employees. He said that, before letting the first one go, he and his wife were all night. They talked. And prayed. He added that it was one of the hardest days of his life.

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My students are often surprised at how much the entrepreneurs we bring in as guest speakers talk about their employees.

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Many small business owners see their employees as part of their family. They don’t just work with them. They genuinely care about them.

That’s yet another reason why we need elected officials who do more than just talk about getting the small business engine revved up again. We need them to first, understand the small business owners’ mindset. Then they can create the environment necessary for small businesses to thrive.

Gratitude

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The small business owner who really got to me was Scott Creech, the owner of the Domino’s Pizza franchise in Newton for the last 21 years.

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Due to sales declines, he’s had to cut his staff from 22 people down to 7. So he’s doing what entrepreneurs always do – rolling up his sleeves to get the job done.

Unfortunately, that means he’s working overtime – he had worked 82 hours the week before the interview. His wife worries about his health. He comes home before his 10-year old son goes to bed before going back to work to finish up. When asked what the stress is like, he answered: “I’ve been blessed.”

Public servants

Yes, there is anger in the land. We need politicians who step up to the role of public servants again, who roll up their sleeves and work overtime to come up with some real solutions.

In the meantime, we’ll keep plugging away. We’ll grieve. We’ll be grateful. But we will find a way, with or without their help, to reach BIGG success!

Direct link to The Bigg Success Show audio file | podcast:
http://traffic.libsyn.com/biggsuccess/00643-110210.mp3

Yes, a lot of people dream of owning their own business. So we found a recent survey about small business owners and retirement interesting. The survey was conducted by Gallup and funded by Wells Fargo.

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The BIGG Success Show Podcast Summary

If money were no object
We found what appears to be a contradiction the most interesting part. Small business owners were asked what they would do today if money were no object.

51% said they would keep working in the business own now, at least part-time. Another 18% said they would start another business. So 69% of the small business owners surveyed would keep entrepreneuring!

How do you define retirement?
So that sounds great, but here’s the contradiction: “Nearly two-thirds of small business owners define retirement as a time when they can work at something they enjoy and do so on their own terms.”

Especially right now, there’s an unusual amount of stress piled on top of the unusual amount of stress that many entrepreneurs often feel, especially in the early phases of their business.

You have to be careful not to romanticize owning a business. It’s fun to get a business started. However, that’s as far as a lot of people think – picking a name, designing a logo and those sorts of things are a very small part of the whole process.

It’s hard work to start a business, doing as much as possible with as few resources as possible. It can really wear on you after awhile.

Closely related, once you start, the demands of the job means you may have to do things you never imagined. If you start a restaurant, you have to be prepared to be the chief cook and bottle washer. If you’re not, you won’t make it.

Entrepreneurs do what needs to be done. That’s one of the differences in mentality between an entrepreneurial manager and a corporate manager.

And you may not really enjoy some of the things you have to do. That’s why it’s so important to be passionate about the business you select without romanticizing the actual work that goes into it.

Because the romance novel can quickly turn into a horror flick! 

Direct link to The Bigg Success Show audio file | podcast:
http://traffic.libsyn.com/biggsuccess/00639-101910.mp3

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