Sloan Creative

Sometimes a decision is we don’t often think about are the ones that affect our lives the most.

Many years ago, a friend of mine asked me, “How can you go to Europe from month every year?”

He’d begun to notice my pattern of quietly leaving for Europe in the first days of February for the past several years. He was successful, a young attorney, with a nice house in a cool neighborhood near the beach and a hip car. I had a business, a house, and her car too, but…

The difference was, that I had realized several years earlier that if I could keep my ego out of two decisions I could maintain a fair amount of freedom in my life. The key decisions were:

House and car

If I could keep my ego out of those decisions and do only what was practical, I would have the financial freedom to do many other things. So, rather than live in Laguna Beach like most of my friends, I lived in a tiny, bland house in a less expensive area about a 20 minute ride in my used, generic car.

So, as a small business owner what are your key decisions?

Of course, the house and the car still matter. But what small business related decisions affect your experience of freedom? So many times I’ve noticed small business people who experience, behind the pride of business ownership, the horror of feeling owned by their business. Their business sets their schedule, or controls where they live, and interrupts their peaceful enjoyment of life both day and night.

The key decisions for most small businesses seem to be:

Wages paid to staff

• Well-managed staff can free owners from most time and space constraining business demands.
• Poorly-managed staff can be the heaviest anchor an owner experiences. Sometimes the best management means letting them seek employment elsewhere.

Growth curve

• Growth requires investment in product development, sales, marketing, improve operational systems, additional staff, and receivables financing.
• Our current business culture glorifies growth as our popular culture glorifies painfully thin youth
• The right size and growth rate for your business depends upon many factors. Ignoring or sublimating any can lead to uncomfortable or even disastrous results.

Have you been is conscious of the decisions that you’ve made in these areas as you would like to be? Have your prior decisions lead you to some place uncomfortable or even potentially disastrous?

If this resonates with you or someone you know please let me know. I’d be happy to chat.

Stephen Sloan offers small business consulting from Bainbridge Island, Washington, 98110 (near Seattle, on the Kitsap Peninsula) to small business owners all over the world.