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DON'T LET YOUR BUSINESS OWN YOU

It's ironic that in order to get what you really want from owning your own company -- wealth, security, freedom, for example -- You must do the most unnatural, difficult thing for an entrepreneur; you must systematically reduce the dependency of the business on you. Don't overlook this. This is the secret to becoming financially independent through entrepreneurship.

Most entrepreneurs have no understanding of this and give it very little thought until it's too late. They wind up being owned by their businesses. To their surprise, they find that they've traded one old boss for a plethora of new ones: stockholders, investors and lenders, employees and associates, customers and clients, vendors and government agencies. Their ideas of independence dissolve against these forces.

There's an old joke about the government bureaucrat descending on the small-business owner. He says: "We've received a report that you have some poor fellow working here 18 hours a day, 7 days a week, for nothing but room, board, meals, all the tobacco he can smoke and all the liquor he can drink. Is that true?" "Yes, I'm afraid it is," admits the owner. "And I'm sad to say, you're looking at him."

You're probably wondering about the security of your business. If the typical entrepreneur leaves the business alone for a week, it does a Jekyll-and-Hyde transformation. You have got to be there! I know many business owners who go years without a vacation. And, those who do go on vacation don't enjoy. One half hopes everything's okay back at the ranch, which he or she checks every few hours by phone, and the other half is disappointed if it is okay; after all, how could it be without his or her indispensable presence?

Too many people get into business only to discover they've acquired a new, tougher, more demanding, more stressful job, and they cannot see any way to change it.

The trick is to let the business mature - and the faster, the better. An immature business is entrepreneur driven. In its early days, that's okay and usually necessary. You are the business. From day one, though, if your business is to provide security, freedom, and wealth, you should be working at weaning the business from dependence on you and creating dependence on systems.

© Dan Kennedy 2005. All Rights Reserved.