I work and meet with dozens of small businesses and to my surprise a large proportion of them suffer from the same issues. When you start a business it is important that you, as the owner, invest a lot of your energy and time into the company for future financial rewards. In other words you work ridiculously hard for not a lot of money (if any)! This state of affairs should only be a means to an end and should be temporary, however with a large proportion of the businesses that I see all of which have been trading for several years they don't seem to have moved on. I see companies whose owners work 12 hours a day for less than the minimum wage whilst other employees take home a normal wage.
I understand this problem as it happened to me. As my young business grew I simply forgot that that the primary purpose of the business was to make me profit and therefore as I generated more money I invested solely in the growth of the company ie employing new people and buying new kit. I find most business owners love their work and love their business but if you don't get paid sensibly for long enough this puts a strain on your motivation and as you are a key driving force behind your organisation this is bad for business. It took a couple of events (I can talk about them in the comments below if you wish) in my business to realise this situation was an issue and looking back, with the benefit of hindsight, changing this was a key turning point in the success of my business.
I'm not suggesting that you suddenly write yourself a cheque for a new excessive salary but if you're not paying yourself reasonably you either need to begin doing so or decide on a time and under what circumstances that will happen. If you find yourself in a situation where you're not being paid sensibly and you're waiting for an unknown time in the future for this to change then I think you are doing yourself and your business a grave disservice.
If you're able to pay yourself sensible money you will soon find your motivation for business increases, more important than this you will subconsciously start to associate profitable projects/sales/periods with money in your pocket. Although reading this you may feel it seems a little selfish to focus on your personal remuneration (most business owners care more about their business than themselves), this is natural but should be ignored. If you become more motivated by making a little more personal money then it's likely your company will be more focused on profits and therefore will be better, in other words you will have a better "profit mindset".
"So", I hear you shout, "how can I pay myself if we're not making enough money". Well obviously you can't, but I say to you that your pay should go up the priority list. Instead of buying that new equipment or taking on that new employee you need to increase your pay just slightly first. I personally found that the best thing to do was to create some simple targets. For example let's imagine that you are currently taking home £1000 per month which is the minimum you need to live on. Take a figure in your business that indicates growth or success for example take "sales". You could say that if your monthly sales increased for two consecutive months from their current value of 10K/month to 12K/month then you will increase your salary to £1500 per month. You can then set other increasing targets that will equate to additional salary increments. In my business we always agreed that the salary would drop back down should performance not be maintained.
This may seem a little strange to set targets for yourself when you own the business but I assure you if you try it you will be amazed how much more motivating it is and those small increases in your salary makes all the hard work feel valued.
Most likely you are reading this because you want to grow strong, sound business. As a business grows the owner moves away from the "tools" and becomes more of a manager, therefore somebody else needs to replace his/her job delivering the product or service. If you have failed to pay yourself sensibly then at this growth point it becomes very difficult to afford to get a new employee, and that's why I see owners working 14 hours a day doing two jobs. If you have paid yourself sensibly then you can sacrifice some of that pay for a short while thus "buffering" the effect of employing a new person and growing the business.
Some of what I've said here may seem weird, daft or just wrong to you. Please feel free to add comments or questions below and I will endeavour to answer them.
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