Corporate Vs Small Business Stability

I saw it before I left the corporate world and continue to see the trend even now. Corporations have historically spent an average of 30-40% of their workforce budget just on benefits making employee related expenditure the highest in the budget. Everything from salaries to healthcare to vacation pay employees thus become a liability in tough economic times. That is why laying off the workforce is such a savings. Remember corporations have share holders to answer to. As much as we want to think of our companies as families or a home away from home, when push comes to shove they are not. They look at the bottom line and sacrificing a percentage of the employees for the sake of the rest and the viability of the company.
Turn to the world of small business. Forbes predicts there will be 10 million new millionaires by the year 2016. These millionaires are not going to come from the rank and file. They will come from small business owners, solo-preneurs to new corporations. Historically, we can see that out of every down turn opportunities arise for those who are primed and ready. More millionaires were created during the depression and the likes of Genentech, Apple and Microsoft came out of the downturn in the 70’s with companies like Adobe, Sun and E*Trade from the 80’s downturn.
And I’m going to let you in on a little secret… you don’t need to win the lottery to live the lifestyle you truly desire nor do you have to create a corporation and hope that it goes public. You don’t have to be innovative or creative. All you need is to get real about what’s truly important to you and create a plan that works by modeling others. In the advent of the information age there are more opportunities for multiple streams of income on the internet than there ever has been in the past. With very little investment you can build up a six to seven figure income solely via online business. There is of course more to it than putting up a website to sell your product/service or becoming an affiliate partner. However once you understand how to analyze the market and use a few simple strategies, you will be on your way.
But before you even start thinking about what you can do to earn money on the internet or via other medium, you need to stop and look at your current financial situation. Most clients I work with haven’t even spent a minute analyzing their finances. I’m not going to say it was my favorite thing to do. In fact I was dumb enough to make the leap without figuring out if I had enough money to make it happen! Luckily I came across some mentors early on that kept harping on this topic and I buckled and did the thing I loathed, looked at my finances. What I discovered was that 1) it isn’t as bad as you think to look at your personal finances 2) my monthly income needs were much lower than I thought, especially as I accounted for no longer driving 40 miles a day to work, lunch at a restaurant every day, Starbucks runs in the morning, etc.
Once I realized what I needed to make in my business to sustain my basic needs it was easier to start building a plan of action. It also gave me a little more breathing room to fantasize about the life I truly wanted to live. By determining how I wanted to be spending my time, I could ensure that I didn’t fall into the small business burnout trap. Where new entrepreneurs think they need to work 60 hours a week to get their business off the ground. I wanted to make sure I was working smart not hard, outsourcing as much as I could because time was the most sacred thing to me and the biggest reason I left the corporate world.
I challenge you to look at your finances and determine what you really need to survive and then spend a little time fantasizing what you would do if you had all the time in the world. What would your life be like? Based on these two components what can you begin doing to get you closer to the life you want?