How do you bridge the gap between being a consumer vs. a business owner? Well ask yourself, which one are you? If you are out in public shopping for your household, technically you are a consumer, but no matter where you are, you are still a business owner as well. As a business owner, you can’t write off your household groceries to feed your family, but you do pay your salary. So how do you separate the two? Prayerfully, I can help give you an understanding what the difference looks like being and acting like a consumer and operating as a business owner.
A Consumer State of Mind
When you have a consumer state of mind, you will think like a consumer, measure facts and figures like a consumer, you will buy and purchase as a consumer. As a consumer, all these things work to your benefit, because like most families we all operate on some kind of budget. Budgeting is good, but it’s this same consumer mentality that will cripple you when you are handling your business expenses. Business Owners don’t compare fact and figures like consumers, a smart business owner will go with the service that’s going to benefit the business in the best possible way, regardless of the price. Business owners worry about the overall picture when developing a business, rather than looking at the price tag of a particular item. Now I’m not saying that business owners are so frugal, that they just throw money away. I’m saying that spending money as a business is a concentrated and calculated move, just like playing chess. When militaries go to war, they don’t go to war without counting the cost first. No military will go to war, if they think that they are going to lose. As a smart business person, you should be a smart investor, and don’t jump on every band wagon that moves, but calculate your investment, so that you can pursue increase.
The Small Business Reality
As a small business, the economy is counting on you being successful. Success comes by submitting yourself to God, and trusting that the plan that has been set before you is designed for your benefit. As a small business owner, it is beneficial for you to work with other small businesses to increase your revenue. Big business works with big business to increase their revenue to hi-jack the pockets of the consumer, but small businesses should work with other small businesses to help the consumer balance their budgets. We all are in business for a reason, and that reason is to make money. Business is business. We should be well aware of the companies we partner with, and what they stand for, and what their motives are as businesses. If you have partners that are like minded, then you will build an alliance that can’t and won’t be broken by the economy, or anything else that this world tries to throw at you. Being a small business is one of the scariest liberations that there is. Not only are you in control of what your profit is, but you also are responsible for every aspect of what the IRS considers an entity. This means that you’re business has a physical existence. So you are in charge of a mini-empire. Scary, right? Well it should be encouraging to change the way you think and feel about the way you do business.
Conclusion
The truth is that most small businesses fail in the first 5 years. That is a stereotype. Weak-minded people cannot run businesses. You have to be strong-minded, long-winded, motivated. As a business owner, you are the CEO, the accountant, the marketer, the recruiter, the receptionist, the administrator, and the janitor. One thing you are not is a consumer. You are a Small Business Owner, and you are on a track to success. I want to encourage you to separate yourself from the Consumer State of Mind, and focus on being business minded. I’ve said this before, but study other businesses, pick up on their business model. If it works for them, it can work for you. Big Business has incredible business models that Small Business Owners can adopt into our own work practices, it might just make us successful!
