“Sure, I would like to grow my business, and maybe have an employee or two at some point. But this is a lot of work for little old me. I’m still at the starting gate.

Believe me when I say that if you plan to be a company of one, you will have a job, not a company. No one will buy or lease it for a lot of money or lease it from you later on because there is nothing to buy or lease.

One is the loneliest number … especially in business

You might be old enough to remember the hit song by the band Three Dog Night, “One is the loneliest number (that ya’ ever knew).” As single business owner you are probably doing all the marketing, selling, conducting all customer service and being sure that customers don’t leave you.

When you are not doing these things, you are creating products and designing services, dealing with suppliers, attending to operational responsibilities and doing bookkeeping.

The output of a business is in direct proportion to the number of managers available. In a company of two people, the workload is cut in half. What doesn’t go away are the eight equal and inseparable functions that are required for every company on earth:

product management, production, delivery, human resource development, marketing, sales, customer service, and customer care.

None of these functions can be ignored to avoid your business from being out of balance and crippled.

All best practices universally apply to any business size or type, whether you are a company of one, or a company of 100,000. The difference isn’t the size of the business, but the size of the owner’s desire to grow, and their willingness to make change.

A Balanced Budget does not require a business to be a certain size, nor to be in full bloom in order to realize the benefits.

The only requirement is that whoever is leading the company must have the desire to grow the business, be willing at any point to make the necessary changes and be diligent about managing money for at least two hours a week.

All that said… let’s do some math.

If you were to have $1,000,000 right now, in your savings a account right at this moment, what would you do with the money?

Invest it?  It would be extremely generous to say that you coild possibly earn as much as 5% interest a year. This would be $50,000 a year to live on. Now, deduct no less than 20% for taxes and you have $40,000 a year to live on. Now, divide $40,000 by 12 months. You will enjoy retirement at $3,300 a month, plus your social security (add another $1,400 average). This might be ok for some… until the day you are faced with assisted living of $6,500 a month.

Here’s the worst part: 

If you were to save $3,500 a month starting now, without skipping one month, it will take you 15 years to save $1,000,000. 

Ready?  Go!   

Question: If you are a company of one person, how will you make all of this happen?

#1: Choose to Choose

Make a choice to grow your company. The amount of money that you will want or need every month X 6 = the required monthly margin for your business before adding your Cost of Goods Sold (while you still own it).  You can do this. (We can help). 

#2: Emerse Yourself

Commit to knowing and living the rules. They are available in written format on this site.

 #3: Increase Your Awareness

There might be a few things that you can still learn.

#4: Add Some Tools To Your Toolbench

You will find no-cost many Kanketa tools to help, Just ask. 

#5: Stay With The Basics

They always worked. Always will. Build your company’s margin to this level before you retire (see the free Marketing Video #4 in Learning Lab). This is entirely doable within 5 years no matter what kind of business you are in (even buggy whips!).