Are you an Owner or a Player?
Becoming an Entrepreneur and having your own business has started to become the cool thing to do. That is awesome; the USA is the best country in the world to start a business and there are endless opportunities for you to blaze your own trail. The only question you need to ask before starting your business is;
Do I want to become a business OWNER?
On the surface, this seems like a simple question with an easy answer and the majority of the time it is answered the same way I first answered it;
“I love fitness, I’m a pretty good coach, it would be really cool to OWN my own gym’.
BUT, that is the trap. The key word is OWNER and understanding what OWNING your own business really means.
If you love coaching fitness, baking cookies, serving coffee… basically delivering the service of the business and you want to continue to do that for the next 10 years, opening your own business might not be the best decision, and here is why;
Imagine for a second Arthur Blank, the owner of Atlanta United, coming downstairs from the executive suites at halt-time and putting himself into the game for one of the players.
It sounds ridiculous and it would never happen, because the owner of a business has a different set of responsibilities than the employees. Go into any small business however and you will see this exact problem; the owner wanting to be an employee.
If you want to be an employee, go and work for an owner!
Of course, delivering the service at a high level is important, but what successful business owners understand is that growing the business is more important.
Why is this self-awareness so important?
9 out of 10 small businesses fail to reach 5 years, and of the ones that reach 5 years, 9 out 10 fail to reach 10 years. This statistic is terrifying and if you are going to take the leap into the world of entrepreneurship, make sure you want to become the owner.
In the most recent book (from our OxWork Book Club) The Power Of Moments; the authors describe self-awareness as one of the most important aspects of business ownership and they call it “tripping over the sun”.
At OxWork we have programming designed to help business owners take ownership of not only their business but their lives. Come and join the team.
Email ant@oxwork.co