Business Owners are Gladiators

Many of your friends may have this misconception that being in business is easy because:

• You don’t have a boss 
• You get to wake up whenever you feel like it 
• You get to do whatever you want 
• You only work four hours a week 

While being a business owner is pretty awesome in the sense that:

• Some get a bit of flexibility in terms of when and where they work
• You get some pretty cool tax concessions 
• The harder [smarter] you work, the more you earn 

That being said, most of our clients will attest to: being in business is still really, really, really hard work. I heard a good analogy last week, that said, "Business owners are gladiators." Too right they are, this vocation is not for the feint hearted and here’s some myths that I’d like to bust:

• Most business owners I know work at least 50 hours a week and often more 
• When you’re not actually working, you’re thinking about the business 
• While you may not have a boss, your customer is the boss which means you have lots of people to keep happy 
• Most business owners I know particularly in the first five years are earning somewhere between $1 to $20 per hour after wages, overheads and taxes
• Business owners seldom take sick days (unless it's really serious), most don’t take holidays 

Just some food for thought if you’re ever thinking about quitting your day job. It's not all sunshine and daisies; it's really, really hard work. Make sure you know what kind of commitment you’re going to make. This is Sparta!