How Not to Hate Your Business in a Year

Also known as, make it scalable and saleable from the start, even if you don’t plan to scale or sale.

Also ALSO known as, what I didn’t do the first time I built a business that I did the second time.

Ensure that the business has a brand that doesn’t rely on you. Even if you use your name to advertise at first, make sure that your offerings eventually become what your business is known for. Once your signature offerings emerge, quickly begin to shift your marketing to revolve around those products. Center your marketing around that product, rather than you personally, even if you are still doing all the delivering.

Hire out as much as you can, before you feel ready. Even if you are still the main deliverable in your business, there are so many other parts to operations that don’t have to be you. This ensures that systems are built that someone else can run, and will force things not to live just inside your mind and memory (which, is really hard to sell). Bonus, with all your focus on what you truly are best at in your business, your quality will improve, which benefits you even if you never sell, and you won’t hate your life.

On that note, use the If I Get Eaten By Sharks method (I made that up) and make sure your systems are solid. If you were eaten by sharks, could someone else show up and figure out what was going on? They should be able to understand everything from what you were delivering to how you billed to what your marketing plan was. That means you could teach it to someone else or sell the infrastructure if you want to, and even just *knowing* that is peace of mind.

Make sure your finances are separate from the business. If someone looked at your business’ books to determine if they should buy it, would it look like a mix of your personal and professional life? If your business struggles one month, do you struggle that month? The answer to both questions should be no.

Establish your business as an entity with its own values, goals and purpose. If you overly identify with the business you will take everything personally and not make the best business decisions. I know you love your business, but it isn’t YOU. If it doesn’t serve you, change it, sell it, light it on fire. YOU are still you.