I’m sure you have read my “about me” section, here, already so you are wondering why I am going to blog about not spending money. Since I am already in the hole for purchasing my business with a loan, right? But I had no other choice, therefore, I couldn’t spend money at the beginning.
Because of that I learned that it’s a good idea to not spend to much on your business at the very beginning. I say that because of personal experience and also because it’s a risk that you don’t want to add too. I did get a large loan on a business with a high interest-rate. It made me make very savvy decisions when it came to spending money on my business.
Once I had the loan I was ready to rock ‘n roll. I was so super excited about the opportunity that I had in front of me, I wanted to make all these big changes. I wanted to change the business in it’s entirety, I wanted to change things, but a lot of that meant I needed to spend money. But I couldn’t, I didn’t have the means to do so. Therefore, I needed a master list of everything that I needed and wanted to do with the business. I prioritized the list. This list was like 5 to 7 pages. I knew that this list would provide me to get to the big picture of where I am today. But I couldn’t do it all at once.
I truly believe if I did it all at once it wouldn’t have been as much fun. The reason I say that is I love checking off the list of things that need to be accomplished. I learned that it was important for me to look at my bank account every day, decide how much money I was bringing in and making the decisions based on if I should make the investment or not. I had to look out for the best interest of the business at all times.
The number one thing on my list to do was a remodel for the business, but I need to be smart about how I did the remodel. Not trying to overspend. But just change things enough so that they operated differently. Some of the other things on the list were getting new furniture to go along with my design for the shop and getting new grooming tables, it wasn’t something that we needed right away, but I knew that it would make the work space more efficient. Why am I telling you all this? Because it’s important not to invest too much in a new business; there are a lot of unknowns. I love taking risks, but not when it comes to the livelihood of the business. You don’t want to get in over your head with a new business venture. You should be getting super excited about your new adventure and your new journey you’re taking with this new business. But don’t get so excited that you lose sight of the finances of the business. Only do what you can based on the profit that you’re bringing in. I think it’s so important to have building blocks in your business. Milestones, I call them. This is what is so exciting about growing a business. Because the more profit that you bring in the more things that you can do, and the more freedom that you have. Therefore only do what you need to, to get by.
Take baby steps for your business. I would encourage you to now create a list of things that you would want to update or change for your business. In an ideal business world, what do you want to see for your business. What steps are you going to need to get there? This is the fun part, you get to see and visualize what your business is going to be. There’s so much value in that. This list is going to make you so passionate about your business, and so focused and determined to make your business a success. This list is going to be the master business plan that you have for your business. Ready. Set. Go! Have fun with this exercise because I do think it is so important to do because you can really visualize what you want for your business.