For small independent business owners the personal life and
the business life are tightly interwoven. More often than not the business is
the primary – if not the only – source of income and wealth. In many instances
the business owner has put everything on the line in order to start a business
or stay in business. In order to get and keep enough working capital he/she
often has no choice but to subordinate everything owned to the bank or
suppliers for credit.
As if the pressure of having to meet payroll every week is
not enough, the small independent business owner puts enormous pressure on
him/herself and the family by putting everything at risk: income, retirement
funding, college funds for the kids, even the roof over his/her head.
Should we be amazed then that, even when these pressures
have abated, equity has been built in the business, kids have successfully
completed their college education and meeting payroll is no longer a concern,
the interwovenness of personal and business life does not really change for
many owners? These owners remain firmly in control of their business by being
at the center of operations every waking minute. They are the Owner, Chief
Executive, check writer, first line repairman, janitor and bottle washer and
everything in between. Little, if anything, happens in their business that they
are not involved in. It is as if they still have to protect the roof over their
head.
These are the small independent business owners who,
unwittingly, become the largest impediment to the growth and full development
of the enterprise they sacrificed so much for. These are the prototypical
micro-managers who know everything and know how to do everything better than
anyone else in the business. These are the owners who are putting their dream
at risk of atrophy, because they are incapable of attracting and keeping the
talent the business needs to grow and flourish. These are the owners of
businesses that are almost completely run by family members, because they have
a hard time recruiting competent outsiders.
These are also the small independent business owners who
have the hardest time initiating a plan for how and when to exit the business
even though they may loudly complain that they can never be away from the
business or things are falling apart. When asked, they will tell you that they
would not want to die in the saddle, but they don’t take the first step to
design a transition plan that will allow them to step away from the business in
an orderly fashion and within a planned timeline.
Dave Sullivan, in his last appearance as the co-presenter of
Aileron’s (www.aileron.org) Course for
Presidents in October of 2013, addressed this reality and offered counsel for a
better way of organizing the life and business of the small business owner.
His
first advice is to never start an enterprise without, at the same time,
designing an exit strategy for the possibility that the enterprise may not pan
out or may not deliver against the Owner’s expectations. It is one thing to
risk everything for a dream of a well-designed entrepreneurial endeavor, it is
unacceptable to increase the risk of lasting damage by not having contemplated
how to extricate from a business when it fails.
Dave Sullivan’s further advice to business owners is to keep
two parallel plans: a business plan and a personal plan or rather, in order of
priority, a personal plan and a business plan. The thought here is that for the
small independent business owner the business is part but not all of his/her
life and that it is important for the person and for the business to have
sorted out how, where and for how long the two intersect.
We all have only one life to live and –as we all know and if
we play it right– there is more to life than just work. If the owner is a real
entrepreneur, chances are that he/she will want to pursue more than one idea
and start more than one business. In that case getting too deeply involved with
one endeavor represents failure. A life plan deals with what one wants to make
out of one’s presence on earth and what one wants to represent to others,
family, friends or outsiders who are people in need of something one can
deliver. Some, but never all, of that can be delivered by running a business.
And therefore it is incumbent upon business owners to decide early on, but
better late than never, where their business figures in the larger context of
their life’s plan and where it should take a backseat to other pursuits.
If I heard Dave Sullivan right, he encourages every small
business owner to have a life’s plan first and then figure out what
contributions the business should make to achieving that plan. And what
limitations should be placed upon the business owner’s interaction with the
business in order to make sure that the business does not stand in the way of
accomplishing the personal goals expressed in his/her life’s plan.
Just like a happy spouse is crucial to a good marriage, a
business owner in pursuit of happiness is good for the business; and social
research has established beyond doubt that happiness does not come from work or
wealth but from accomplishing what one has set out to make out of one’s life.
For people who think that personal life considerations
should stay out of business, I would remind them of the interwovenness of the
two they have undoubtedly experienced at one point in their career. The two
should be reconciled and that requires planning of both life and business.
Dave Sullivan would say as he dispenses this advice: It’s
nothing personal, just (good) business!
