Have you ever thought about being an entrepreneur and starting your own business?  I know before I finally made the decision to start my own business it was a thought I would have from time to time, but for one reason or another I would always find reasons why I could not.  I am sure if we all got together we could come up with a list of 100 reasons why you should not become an entrepreneur.  I am sure each reason would have some validity to it.  What I would like to do is offer five reasons WHY you should consider starting your own business.

#1 – Time Freedom

I realize that most people are going to put up the objection, “I don’t have enough time” as the reason why they can’t start a business.  I can fully appreciate that and I felt the same way for a long time too.  What I have found through experience is

It is true that it will require more time the first few years when starting your business.  Finding additional time is not easy, but I know that we all find time for the things we value.  I live in the Southeast where SEC football is king.  I love football as much as the next guy, but I cannot even count the number of guys I know who complain about how “busy” they are all the time, but they never miss a single Auburn or Georgia game.  We all have 24 hours in a day just like every other successful person throughout history.

The way we gain time freedom by building a business is by shifting our perspective.  When we are employees, regardless of any profession we are in, we trade hours for dollars.  We sell our time.  When we make the transition to building a business, if we build it wisely, we begin the process of investing our time.  I spent the first 18 months of my business investing an additional 10 hours per week on top of my 70 hour work week as a teacher and coach.  That was not easy, but it was worth it.  By that 18^th month I had replaced my full time income and was able to buy back my time.  As our business has grown to become more and more successful I have invested some more time (now 25 hours/week from home), but that is still a considerable exchange of time I have gained back.  I was able to buy back my time because for 18 months I decided to do hard, uncomfortable things when my friends were more focused on diversion.

#2 – Financial Freedom

When I was an employee I was broke.  I was not just broke, I was beyond broke.  I spent more than I earned every month.  My debt payments had gotten so high that even with cutting back all my spending I could I still continued to fall further and further behind every month.  We all need to be responsible with our money, but I realized I could only cut my expenses back so far.  A mentor of mine shared a thought shifting perspective with me that really caused me to pursue my business with incredible focus and enthusiasm.

Building a business allowed me to build a system that leveraged my time and efforts.  I realize that everyone will have varying experiences, but seven years later Beth and I have increased our monthly in 15 times what I used to earn as a full time teacher and coach.  The reality is we now spend more than we used to and enjoy a much higher quality of life.  We are able to give more to our church and other charities than I used to earn in a year as an employee.  We do not have stress over finances any more.  Like I said everyone will have different experiences based upon what type of business you may start and how much effort you put into it, but the reality is our current lifestyle was IMPOSSIBLE as a teacher and a coach.  Building a business has created financial freedom for our family.  As I write this just yesterday some of our friends, DJ & Marissa, just notified me they have added an additional $20,000 of net income into their household their first 10 months as new business owners.  Think about that.  How drastically could things change for your family if you added just an extra $2,000/month into you household budget?

#3 – Tax Advantages

I am not a tax professional and I am not offering tax advice.  I am simply sharing an observation I have learned during the past seven years.  There are many tax advantages of owning a business.  Employees can only get paid earned income.  As an employee you get taxed first and then spend the rest.  As a business owner there are ways to spend profits before paying taxes.  I will not say any more on this topic other than Robert Kiyosaki wrote one of the most important financial books of all time called, Rich Dad Poor Dad.  In his book Kiyosaki encourages us to all invest in our financial education.  This has been a challenging growth area for me.  There were so many things I did not know about money.  If you are interested in learning from professionals about the tax advantages of business owners I would like to recommend two books, Tax-Free Wealth and Start Your Own Corporation

#4 – Be Your Own Boss

This is one of the great freedoms being an entrepreneur provides while at the same time it is the biggest challenge.  If your experience has been anything like mine you have probably worked for a few or more bosses who were less than pleasant to work for.  Have you ever thought, “If I was the boss I wouldn’t do that” or “I would love to work for myself”?  Here is the great news.  You can work for yourself.  It truly is an awesome experience and I would not have it any other way.  However, there is a challenge to not having a boss.  Most of us have been conditioned as employees to have someone always telling us what to do and how to do our job.  When you own your own business you can’t get fired and no one will force you to do anything.  If you truly want the freedom of being your own boss just be sure you can discipline yourself to take care of your responsibilities.

This is also extremely important because as an employee we are ALWAYS at the mercy of our employer to provide income for our families.  We may not always make the wise decision in every instance, but one thing is for sure, we will not fire ourselves.  Job security is a myth.  I am not encouraging you to run out and quit your job today, but I do encourage you to STRONGLY CONSIDER the value of a Plan B income opportunity.

#5 Create Value

I have previously blogged about asking, “How can I create more value?”  That is a powerful question for us to ask ourselves.  One very important way to create value in the lives of others is to start a business.  Any legitimate business needs to solve a problem.  Whether you are selling a product or offering a service you must solve a problem in order to build a sustainable business.  It is just as noble to clean septic tanks as it is to be a personal trainer as it is to sell cars.  All of those are services or products people need and someone has to provide them.  Therein lays the opportunity.  If you build your business successfully you will also add value in another way by creating jobs.  Small businesses are the backbone of the American economy.

Those are just five reasons WHY you should consider starting your own business.  I will offer thoughts on how to start a business in future posts.  I do not know which reason speaks to you the most, but I encourage you to figure out your WHY for starting a business and focus on that.  Once you have figured that out take action.  It is so easy to over analyze a million different scenarios.  We need to seek wisdom, but we also need to be people of action.

Question: What is the number one reason you either started a business or want to start a business.  Comment below