For What It's Worth

I remember one time debating whether I should continue a job I had or pursue one of my self employment ventures. I was talking to a prominent business owner in Ketchikan, Alaska one day while mulling over my options.

He looked at me and said, "I've found that the only person who will pay me what I'm worth is myself." I took that as a battle cry to pursue my self employment venture. And while that business was eventually profitable, the reality was that the dollars per hour weren't adding up to what I was making at my previous position.

One of the things I like to remind my clients is to take stock of your earnings. Is your business giving you what your worth?

This is not a strict dollar and cents analysis. Sometimes intangibles come into play in this decision making process. When analyzing what you are receiving from your business, think about:

* Flexibility - do you dictate your schedule or does your business dictate your schedule
* Stress - can you manage the responsibility of managing your business or does it create a level of stress that consumes you.
* Creativity - can you bring your ideas from concept to reality. Sometimes self employment enables this. Yet on the other hand, sometimes the lack of resources of having your own small business pales to the resources you may have had access to at another company.
* Team building - this is not a "cumbaya" moment here. For many small business owners, it is very empowering to be able to build your own team to meet the needs of your organization. When you work for someone else, having the level of success that can be borne from a synergistic relationship is often hampered by the fact that you usually don't have control over the choice of all of your team members. On the other hand, the resource issue comes into play here, as well. You may have better access to quality team members with a large organization that has already attracted some of the best and the brightest, while you may not have the resources to recruit those people with your own small business.

There is no way around it, determining value is a very subjective process. As you take stock of your what it's worth to own your own business, think of the intangibles. No matter what you assessment is today, remember you have the power to make tomorrow change for the better.