Finding startup money is essential if you are to move forward with a new business. However, you might not need as much as you think.
On The BIGG Success Show, we were joined by Maria Aspan, Editor-at-Large of Inc. Magazine. We talked about her wonderful new book, Startup Money Made Easy*. Maria combines her award-winning journalism skills with lessons gleaned from successful celebrity entrepreneurs like Mark Cuban, Bobbi Brown, Jack Ma, and Daymond John. Here’s a summary of our discussion…
We caught an interesting piece on CBS Sunday Morning a few weeks ago. Not surprisingly, a lot of yacht owners have given up the boat as a result of the Great Recession.
A boat repo man said most of the yachts he recovers are from people “who weren’t as rich as they thought.”
BIGG success is life on your own terms. If material possessions are part of your definition, more power to you. However, a lot of people end up much poorer trying to feel richer than they are.
As an entrepreneur, your standard of living can also impact your business. You won’t have as much flexibility if you put an undue burden on your business finances by buying toys you don’t need.
You may miss out on opportunities. It may create unneeded stress. It can even lead to bankruptcy.
There’s nothing inherently wrong with enjoying the “good life.” You should enjoy the “fruits of your labor.”
You choose a career. You get a job. It pays the bills. Life is good. You live happily ever after. If you’re lucky. Because …
If you’re lucky, you love your job. If you’re lucky, your work is stimulating. If you’re lucky, there is room for growth in your chosen career. If you’re lucky, you earn enough from your job to support your desired lifestyle. If you’re lucky, your job also affords you time to enjoy the fruits of your labor. If you’re lucky, you realize that luck is only a small part of all of these things.
As the old saying goes, “It’s better to be lucky than smart.”
Lifestyle costs affect career decisions However, smart decisions often increase your chances of getting lucky. And who doesn’t like to get lucky?
You get a job to support your lifestyle. But how does your lifestyle affect your career?
If the costs of your lifestyle put too much of a demand on how much you have to make, you may have to take a job that you don’t love just to pay for your lifestyle.
If your lifestyle consumes every penny you make, you may have to jump at the first offer that comes along instead of being able to select the job that fits you best.
You may have to take a job that takes up all of your time. You have no time to do anything else including things you love to do or spending time with people you love.
Find harmony between the two The two are completely interdependent. Your career choices affect your lifestyle. That’s certainly true. But the piece that’s missing is that your lifestyle also affects your career decisions.
In other words, how you spend your money may determine how you earn money.
Bigg success is life on your own terms. The five elements of bigg success are money, time, growth, work and play. The bigg idea behind bigg success is that there is synergy between these five elements.
You are the entrepreneur of your life. It’s implicit in our definition of bigg success. You and you alone are in charge. Successful entrepreneurs understand that their business finances and their personal finances are linked.
Their business has to make enough money support them. But that’s only half the story. They also have to be careful that they don’t put too much of a burden on the business with their personal financial decisions.
Even if you aren’t an entrepreneur in the traditional sense, it’s helpful if you see yourself in business for yourself. You may have just one customer – your employer. Your lifestyle affects your career and your career affects your lifestyle. Find the harmony between them and you’ll find bigg success!
Thanks for reading our post today. Please join us next time when we discuss the one thing you need to face challenges with confidence. Until then, here’s to your bigg success!
https://biggsuccess.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/bigg-success_stacked-1080.png10801080George Krueger & Mary-Lynn Fosterhttps://biggsuccess.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/BIGG-Success-Nurturing-Your-Inner-Entreprener.jpgGeorge Krueger & Mary-Lynn Foster2009-11-02 11:23:392009-11-02 11:23:39Does Your Career Affect Your Lifestyle or Vice Versa?
When we spend money on advertising or office supplies, it shows up on our Income Statement rather than our Balance Sheet.
But we’re still spending money. It’s an investment for the purpose of increasing our sales.
The financial statement on which it shows up on is based on accounting rules. We have to understand that we are spending the money with the purpose of increasing sales.
Interdependence of business and personal finances
While we say business owners, this concept applies to our personal finances as well.
As a business owner, particularly a business owner who owns 100% of your firm, your business finances and personal finances are completely linked.
Not in a legal sense – you’ll want to talk with your attorney to select the right entity for your company – but in a philosophical sense.
Your business has to do well or it will affect your personal finances. We all get that.
What a lot of people forget is that their standard of living may affect their business. If you spend too much personally, you put more of a burden on your business to produce more income for you to take out of the business. It can really add to the pressure, particularly for a start-up business.
In our personal lives, every penny we spend should add to our happiness. If it doesn’t, it’s not a worthwhile expenditure.
Start from scratch
There’s a technique that helps you decide if the returns you’re getting are sufficient. It’s called zero-based budgeting.
For every line item on your Income Statement, you assume you don’t need to spend any money. Then you add to it for the outlays you determine will give you the return you desire.
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I do this in my businesses every three years. Costs can creep in. You commit to this service or that program. It all adds up. Instead of doing it all every three years, you may pick a few line items every year for review. Just make sure you cycle through all of them every few years or so.
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Let’s take an example that applies to our businesses and our personal lives – our cell phone. I might ask myself: Do I need the package I currently have or could I cut back? Do I need unlimited texting?
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You’ll also consider alternatives. If you weren’t spending this amount of money on your cell phone, what might you spend it on? You might find you could increase sales faster or be a lot happier if you spent this money on another thing.
You might decide to increase your long-term happiness and invest this newfound money. That may make you happier now and then.
By justifying the expense all over again, away from the emotional point of purchase, you’ll spend your money on what you really want. You’ll get the returns you seek. That’s bigg success.
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The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
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Statistics
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Here’s a story we’ve been told our whole life: 
Here’s a concept that business owners often struggle to really understand: Every penny you spend is an investment. 
I do this in my businesses every three years. Costs can creep in. You commit to this service or that program. It all adds up. Instead of doing it all every three years, you may pick a few line items every year for review. Just make sure you cycle through all of them every few years or so. 
Let’s take an example that applies to our businesses and our personal lives – our cell phone. I might ask myself: Do I need the package I currently have or could I cut back? Do I need unlimited texting?