Cash is King

If you are old enough you remember the song “For the love of Money” by The O'Jays .

Bottom lines are:

• If no one is following you, you are not a leader  
  
• If you are not making money you are not in business
  
• If you do not have clients willing to pay you are not in business 
  

The purpose of business is to make money and a business is literally nothing more from a legal standpoint than a virtual person. So I guess you could argue that a business owner has a split personality and it is even a socially acceptable one not needing medication (smile!) I am sorry just needed to inject some humor – I know sort of dry but back to topic – the person of business if the make money – that is non negotiable and is a fact. 

• What is up for discussion is how you make money? 
  

Lets focus on how you make money – regardless of the type of business you are in (goods or services) you can either make money one of two ways – earn it or steal I, worded less offensively – you can either provide a benefit for someone so that they are willing to compensate you in an equitable fashion for that solution or you can seek ways to take advantage of people and prey on their weaknesses exploiting them to only your own benefit. Here is the caught – the first is sustainable the latter is not and yet many choose strangely enough the latter and are shocked when their efforts implode. 

There is an old saying “people do not care how much you know until they know how much you care” – so as a business owner you should seek to make sure you are putting the needs of your client first – by taking car of them you have the opportunity to create a positive cash flow and generate good will which in turn leads to more business. If you at some point want to grow your business you have to expand it by growing past the point of trading time for money. So long as you are in the day to day operation of your business you are your business and you are not really a business owners. Because we by nature like to keep our hands in everything this is the hardest thing for a business owner to learn – to let go and trust because lets face it many of us started our businesses to regain a sense of control or because we do not trust other people to have our best interest at heart. Often we started off as corporate employees with ambitions to climb the ladder and then we found out the price and in some cases it involved violating out ethics or selling our soul – not something we were willing to do. Something to be careful of and a group I am not really going to address are those that consistently self sabotage – not much I can say about them or to them except get professionally help. 

As a business owner to make money providing solutions there are many things you must learn, the least of which is who you are. Your nature as a person already gives you a disposition regarding the type of business owner you will be – exploitive selfish people tend to run those sort of ventures, but as giving people tend to run service and solution oriented ventures. The key here is knowing yourself and then making a decision as to who you are and what type of business owner you are or want to be and whether you want a sustainable business. 

So, the questions are:

• Do you have a sustainable model?
  
• How much good will do you as a business owner engender?
  
• Are you the type of business someone would be willing to take a risk hiring due to your character?
  

All of these factors need to be taken into account in what you do and how you do it. 

• So tell me what kind of business owner are you
  
• Does your business have substance or are you selling an illusion?
  
• How do you plan going about making money – earning or stealing it?