Are you tired of the words ‘bail out’ yet?  Do you find yourself watching the financial news like it’s some kind of train wreck that you can’t turn away from?  Has the media convinced you yet that the world has ended?  It can be difficult to be grateful for things in times like these.

So with all of the doom and gloom talk going on everywhere you look, I thought it might be worthwhile to revisit why business owners decided to do their own thing.  I brought this up in one of my advisory board groups last week and asked the question to the group:

“What was the driver for you to strike out on your own?” (Start your own business).

I don’t know that the answers were surprising, but looking back helps put things in perspective and can help recommit to the best gig you’ll ever have – owning your own business.  See if these resonate for you.

Freedom - escaping the cubicle!
A huge driver for heading out on your own is the opportunity to chart your own course.  No longer are you answering to a pointy haired boss that doesn’t get it.  You are the one person that determines your own success.  Even if you worked for a boss you liked, you were still likely constrained to someone else’s vision.

When you’re on your own, you get to call the shots, make the important decisions (and all of the other decisions as well).  You set the tone for your company, determine the priorities and create the culture that works for you.

The corporate world generally pushes employees into fairly rigid stereotypes.  People can relate to TV shows like ‘The Office’ or movies like Office Space because they aren’t much of an exaggeration.  If you have a streak of independence, even a little one, it can become awfully difficult to go back to your cube everyday running on your wheel that only goes in one direction.

You want to be yourself, wear what you want to wear, work with the people that you think are strong performers (and get rid of the ones that aren’t) and ultimately you’d like to do something meaningful and…maybe even have some fun.

Freedom is probably the single biggest driver for most people that I know that have gone out on their own.  Yeah a steady paycheck is nice, but the opportunity to achieve a high level of success on your own merits (based on the free market) is hard to beat.

Ownership has it’s advantages
As Robert Kiyosaki will tell you over and over again in his book Rich Dad, Poor Dad, the best way to really get ahead in the long run is to build up equity along with multiple revenue streams.  As a business owner you can build an asset that generates income and is worth something in the long run - there’s really no other model that allows that.

That asset value depends on what kind of business you build, how you set it up and run it, what your team looks like and what your exit strategy is.  Most businesses have the potential to be worth some multiplier of revenue or cash flow (cash flow defined here as the profits the business generates).  For a typical service based business, that multiplier may only be 2X revenues (for a well run business), but that’s still a great upside compared to nothing that you would get if you are just an employee at a business that’s sold out from under you.

Reaching a goal of Financial Independence  isn’t easy - but it’s a lot more likely as a business owner than as a typical employee.

Better than the alternative - for a lot of people
Not everyone is cut out to be a business owner - or wants to be a business owner.  It’s a lot of responsibility, it’s not easy and unfortunately there’s a huge learning curve that may take several years to really get over. 

However, the alternatives are inheriting a lot of money, winning the lottery or working for someone else.  Most people can’t really count on inheriting (and shouldn’t be counting on the lottery) so that really leaves working for someone else.  Unfortunately these days, that so-called ‘steady paycheck’ of working for someone else is anything but something you can count on.  Between layoffs, outsourcing, rough economic conditions there’s a good chance that most employees are way more at risk than they would like to believe.  It’s probably almost as risky as owning your own business and you have a lot less control.

Along the same lines, whether you like it or not, as you get older and demand more money, it will be harder and harder to find worthwhile jobs.  By the way, I’m defining older here as about 35…it definitely becomes a serious problem in your 40s, but anything over 35 these days starts getting serious scrutiny as compared to that relatively cheap 20 something that has tons of energy and lots of great ideas.

“Let me explain…no, there is too much, let me sum up”
Although things look grim and dark right now, it is actually a great time to own your own business - I don’t mean that it’s easy and the money is flowing freely, but your business has a lot of potential.  There’s an old saying that the time to buy is when there is blood in the streets.  The blood is clearly flowing on Wall Street (and  Main Street), but if you can hang on, stay focused and look for creative ways to get your name out there, the upside for the survivors is going to be fantastic. 

This a good time to be making things happen, but to sum up if you really want the upside of having your own business, start looking for ways to rev up what you’re doing.  Find what works and do more of it, identify what’s not working and start changing it.  Start challenging yourself and your team to take advantages of the resources that are out there.  Use the Internet and market online effectively.  Consider getting a coach or joining an Advisory Board group.  Now isn’t the time to sell or cower in the corner, it’s the time to be smart, push forward and be grateful for the opportunity that’s in front of us.