7 Reasons to Own Your Own Business
Monday, March 8, 2010 at 03:48PM Why would you become a business owner even if you could be one?
As a business broker assisting clients who are deciding whether or not to buy a business, understanding what motivates someone to become business owner is something I work with regularly.
For some people the decision to become a business owner is a predetermined decision. Their fundamental temperament makes it impossible for them to work for others. For others, this question is irrelevant because they simply have no interest whatsoever in owning a business – ever! But for those people whose personal temperament opens the door to business ownership, the question is: Should I own my own business or continue working for others?
In my experience everyone has his or her own answers to this question. When pressed to share my own they are an outgrowth years of owning my own companies and intermittently working for others, plus many in depth conversations with business owners in various stages of buying, owning, or selling a company. Perhaps hearing the most common answers to the question will provide insight into your own decision making process.
1. Financial Rewards
The most common incentive for business ownership and the one that usually comes to mind first is the potential for increased personal income. Simply stated, if everything is working according to plan, it stands to reason that the owner should get paid the most. The fact is that in real life this is not always true, but as a general trend the principle still stands, and earning a solid income should be a driving force behind owning your own company.
Beyond the incentive just to earn a good steady income from the business profits, there is the added incentive of business investment gains. Like building or refurbishing a house you own ,the company you start or buy should increase in value as you grow the business. The only way this directly benefits an employee is if they are lucky enough to somehow own a portion of the company.
If all cylinders are firing well as a business owner of a growing and successful enterprise your business will reward you financially on all three levels simultaneously: regular salary, annual profits, and long-term investment gains.
2. Creative Freedom
Owning and running a business is a highly creative endeavor. You start with something that is just the seed of everything it will become. How the business grows, what it becomes, how it operates, its image in the world, it’s culture – all these outcomes stem largely from the owner’s creative decisions. It’s heady stuff!
For better or worse most small businesses and even the largest multinationals are to some degree perfect reflections of their owners. As a business owner you will undoubtedly have a significant impact on the life and personality of the business you own. It comes with the turf.
3. A Sense of Personal Responsibility and Accountability
One of the greatest motivators for peak personal performance, even more than the incentive for financial reward, is a business owner’s sense of personal responsibility and accountability for the fate of his or her business. The outcome of all major projects and activities, and the satisfaction and well-being of all the company’s stakeholders–investors, employees, vendors, customers and community—all stem from the owner’s decisions and daily performance.
As the owner, consciously or subconsciously, this responsibility is always present in your mind. Is this responsibility daunting? You bet it is. Is it empowering, invigorating, and motivating? Absolutely! This awareness is the super-charged rocket fuel that powers your performance to ever-higher levels.
4. A Sense of Security
It’s impossible to say with any certainty these days whether owning your own business is more or less secure in terms of job security. Companies come and go, succeed and fail, are bought and sold, and whole industries wax and wane with out anyone seemingly having any real control. However, even in this chaotic economy it is undeniable that as the owner of your own enterprise, you have far more influence on your personal fate than you would have if you were merely a small cog in a big wheel, working for someone else who calls all the shots that really matter.
5. The Freedom to Shape the Field of Play
Whether business to you is a field of war or a field of play, as the owner you are the primary architect of the culture or environment you work in. You get to choose the key players, investors, management, staff, vendors, and to some degree you even select your customers. You craft the story that is told about your business. You shape the values, principles and agreements that govern how the people who work in your company behave and operate. This, as much as any other factor determines the quality of life that’s present for you and the entire team and anyone remotely connected with your enterprise. You set the tone.
6. A Chance to Change the World
If you own and work in a company you live and breathe it 24/7. It becomes your defining expression – even if only temporarily. As you pour your heart and soul into building the business it gradually becomes a reflection of your life’s passion, your deepest beliefs about what you feel is vital today about your industry, your community, the world we live in. Inevitably you begin to feel a deep sense of purpose and responsibility to use your company as your contribution to making a difference in the world. Whether your company is producing bonbons, buttons or bridges you come to believe that your product and your business and the way you operate as a company matters deeply to the world. There are few experiences in professional life that match up to this sense of value, purpose and vision.
7. An opportunity to Fashion a Legacy
What you have created in your company should have lasting value that can be passed to others -- whether to your kids, your friends and associates, your employees, or the next owner. Will the company always have your name, or produce your cherished products or serve the customers and markets you discovered. Possibly. Will it be worth a fortune to you or your heirs? Hopefully. But regardless of the financial value or nature of the legacy your company represents, passing on your enterprise is a powerful and wonderful way to encapsulate and pass on what has mattered most to you and what you wish others to always remember.
Reader Comments (1)
Perhaps hearing the most common answers to the question will provide insight into your own decision making process.