Three Secrets to Being A Successful Entrepreneur

If you are thinking of leaving your corporate job to start a business, nothing is more important than having Reserves. I am talking about a great big virtual warehouse filled with tangible and intangible items. If you don’t have them when you start your business, your engine will soon fail.

If you run out along the way, you’ll be stalled on the side of the road in the blazing hot west Texas desert sun with no water, like that guy in No Country for Old Men. “Agua, agua!” And you know what happened to him. So here’s a list of what you’ll need to pack for your journey.

(Note to readers: I am addressing Baby Boomers – by and large, people with families, mortgages, and age. If you’re 25, some of this may be interesting but you are young and invincible so you can ignore my warnings.)

1. Plenty of cash. (Not that cash did Josh Brolin much good in No Country for Old Men, which I can’t stop thinking about.) So many businesses have failed because they run out of cash. It’s heartbreaking to see. Within my own franchise, and all other franchises, many people leave the business not because they didn’t believe it would be a winner eventually, but they could not afford to get to Eventually.

How can you avoid running out of cash? The best way is not to start the business. And that’s a better outcome than starting it, spending all you have, and risking being left with nothing. If you are not absolutely positive you have, or can easily lay your hands on, enough dough to get through not one year, but several (I’d say five) under adverse conditions, please, please, please keep your job or find one you like better, but don’t start a business.

Don’t break your family’s hearts by taking a chance on losing your house and your retirement. Speaking of retirement, I am vehemently against people tapping into their IRAs and 401(k)s for money to start businesses. That is retirement money! I don’t give a #(%(@ about the Dennis Hopper commercial.

2. Plenty of family support. At your Reserves Central virtual warehouse, you will want to have an entire section with at least 100 tractor-trailer bays to load in all the family support you will need to be an entrepreneur. I have seen marriages break up because both spouses weren’t firmly behind the idea of starting a business. One spouse indulges the other because it’s easier at the time than saying, “No freakin‘ way are you spending our money to open a healing-crystals store!”

Your significant other has to be in for the whole ride. That means if he has to get up at 3AM to make the donuts on a snowy February morning because you’re sick, he’s okay with that.

3. A team and network you trust. Finding a great CPA isn’t something you do after you start the business. (Hint: the guy who does your taxes today probably isn’t the guy you need.) You find the CPA six months before you start the business. Same thing goes for attorney, business coach, virtual assistant, and any other critical members of your startup team. You reach out into the local business community through the chamber of commerce, Kiwanis, and other groups before you start the business, not after. You join BNI before, not after.

This is a case of “do what I say”, not “do what I did.” I didn’t do any of those things before starting my business just hurled myself into the flames. While I have many amusing stories to tell my future grandchildren of near-catastrophic injury (physical, emotional, financial) they were mostly all avoidable.

Too bad this blog wasn’t around for me seven years ago! Stay tuned for more Reserve ideas in future posts. And let me know what you think should be on the list.

Contributing blogger Mitch York is a personal friend of The VAR Guy. York coaches executives who are evolving into entrepreneurs. Find York — and his personal blog — at www.e2ecoaching.com.