It’s everyone’s dream to start a business for financial freedom and to have the free time to do what they love. But surprisingly, it often becomes a prison you unknowingly build for yourself—hustling non-stop for more than 12 hours a day. You even start questioning whether a 9–5 job is better, because at least by 5 PM, you’re done for the day. But with a business, it never ends. Even while relaxing at home, you’re still on phone calls or mentally tied to the business.
But what if you approached it strategically, so you don’t fall into the trap of self-imposed imprisonment? That’s why I’m writing this to help someone who hasn’t yet realized it, or isn’t aware of what’s happening.
In this article, I will discuss ways to unchain yourself from the trap of being captured by your business, and how to run it professionally and stress-free. Drawing from my experience of over 10 years running a small business, I will walk with you as we uncover strategies to ensure your business serves you, not the other way around.
Saving is crucial
Many people may advise you that saving is for looser but i assure you having that emergency fund or a liquid money it will help you in time of need e.g when you want to expand and also it will make you feel safe while running your business incase of an incident you can be back on your feet very fast.
In any case you may say that i prefer investing on something else that there is no need of having idle money , you are mistaken the investment may go astray and you do not have any back up, this will affect your business negatively as you will be standing at the edge by just a small push your business will fumble .
The main keypoint here is to have an emergency fund of atleast 2 times of the worth of the business that will be safe and you will not have worries ,cash is still the king on every situation .
Investing
On the first chapter i emphasize of having some saving that is liquid cash after you have set it aside now you can focus on something else that is investing your money very carefully ,do not try to be pro trader or try to read the market take advantage of index funds & goverment bonds.
Do not be like me who went on and start investing in crypto trying to gain money very fast that did not work ,it really affected me big time ,i had that narrative that having a savings is putting money idle that does not help you but i felt it moment the market went sideways my account was wiped clean i lost all my saving there and now i had to go back to my small business to see if it get me back to where i was let me tell you it is not easy .
So my advice is that be very cautious on matter of investing just save on index funds or government bonds even real estate these can bring cashflow even if it is little gain it is much better ,i have pass through that so you should not pass through it.
Expand your business
Business is like a sport the moment you are in the field you will be competing for the market share if you stay the same place you will be knockout of the business ,when i opened my business i was the only one selling the product in that area by only one year passed someone else came there and opened the same business but with additional service this affected my business since i did not think about expanding thus loosing the market share of that area.
So whatever business you have started be wary of any person will copy you and they will do the same with more improved and superior product .A good example is mobile phones apple just improved there product and beats everyone in the market and anyone thinking about buying mobile phone first choice is iphone.
Another good example blockbuster was the king in rentals movie store over 9000 stores they dominated the market till netflix came they offer better service by delivering to the doorstep and later they crushed blockbuster more by introducing streaming online in 2007 thus removing blockbuster out of the market.
If you are starting or you are running business think of ways to expand your business by making your product more superior and evolving with the market shift so that to maintain and gain the market share this applies to your small business also.
Sales ,marketing and human pschology
Something that all business owners should learn and apply effectivly is sales and marketing plus human pschology this is for more importance and crucial running your business .ignore everything else learn this first as fast as possible and apply the knowledge in your business .
learning Human psychology will help you to deal with customer effectively and know what they really want ,books that i will recommend on human pschology are WHY YOU ACT THE WAY YOU DO by TIM LAHAYE ,INFLUENCE: THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PERSUASION by ROBERT add PREDICTABLY IRRATIONAL by DAN ARIELY
While for sales and marketing, just go and read books like “Sell Like Crazy” by Sabri Suby, “The 1-Page Marketing Plan” by Allan Dib, “The Psychology of Selling” by Brian Tracy, “DotCom Secrets” by Russell Brunson, and for in-person sales especially in retail business, “SPIN Selling” by Neil Rackham and “How to Win Friends and Influence People” by Dale Carnegie. These books provide actionable strategies and proven techniques that will help you attract, engage, and convert customers effectively whether you’re selling face-to-face, building a brand, or growing your business locally.
DELEGATION IS IMPORTANT
You cannot do everything by yourself in your small business when you expand it and have a good market share go on and employ people to the business this will free your time to more important thing that is managing finances and adding other business for delegation and employing people what i have learned is that the person you employ make sure is honest and trustworthy and also is important let him operates it like there own but at end of the day you must do the accounting.
Michael E. Gerber: Be the business owner but not the business operator .
By delegating you have ability to create system that will help you run your business effectively and scale it to the maximum, this i have learn it and will help you so much don’t fear employing someone that he or she may steal from you , just employ and create a good system.
EXIT PLAN
Many people do ignore this but in my 10 years of lesson i learned is to be stuck on business that is failing. you trying to have hope that it will come back ,holding on to that business that you have try your best to make it succeed thus you become trapped and you trying to get out you already stuck since when business was failing you inject more money trying to make it work.
If i had a good exit plan i would have exit the business the moment i saw profit is declining and also i would have tried to open another business as soon as possible the exit plan is more important ask yourself incase of been evacuated or incident like fire or market share falls like rentals movies or gameboys or casette what is your exit plan ?
i will keep on updating this article and add more as we see more ways to win in small business and become the next amazon or apple ,my goal is to help small business not to remain on same position throught the years but GO BIG OR GO HOME.