As home business entrepreneurs, it’s a question we always ask ourselves: How will I know when my business is really a success?
How do you know you’re through the Dip, as Seth Godin calls it?
I’ll tell you how: When your spouse, family, and friends begin to refer to your business in the collective, “We,” then you have a successful business on your hands.
This usually occurs when the first smudge of black ink shows up on the once deep red balance sheet. Suddenly, when you have a little extra cash after you covered all your costs, your husband or wife starts referring to your business as our business. Decisions on expanding your business become communal, too. “Where can WE get more business” they’ll ask.
Another sign: your family becomes Marxists. All money is known in the collective as our money.
Unfortunately, this collective approach to your growing business rarely extends to the actual work that needs to be accomplished.
The duties that make your business successful are still pretty much yours.
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Startup Stella contributes to this blog from her two-dimensional world, which you can learn more about by visiting this cartoon strip StartupNation created to share Stella’s quirky but classic entrepreneurial epiphanies with you.
