Could You Retire without Losing Customers?

by Joan Friedlander

There's a question for you. Here you are, perhaps in the first few years of business, hoping with all your heart that you'll get things to the point where you're making plenty of money, taking vacations, enjoying your work to the hilt, and offering a valuable service. Why would I ask you about retirement?

Back to the question. Why talk about retirement now? Because one day you may want to. (And, if you don't want to retire, per se, you may want to do other things.) I suppose it's a little bit like building your investment portfolio. When you're young-ish you feel you've got plenty of time to prepare for retirement - later. However, if you're building a business where you're the main client attraction, you don't want to wait until later to think about the day when you may want to be less involved. Trust me. I know.

It's always more difficult to change a course of action than
to start out that way in the first place.

Generational Differences in Readiness?

If you've got young children your business, like your children, is most likely in growth mode. Generation X folks (born between 1965 and 1982) were the first generation of latch key kids. It was during their formative years that an increasing number of women entered the workforce and divorce became more commonplace. I suspect this generation has a special sensitivity to the impact of what it's like to grow up without parents around and are especially interested in building a business so they are also available to their children.

Many a mother - and a few fathers - have told me their children come first. Your drive may actually put you ahead of the game. By necessity, to be available to your children AND run a growing business, you're going have to bring in help and create a talented team in order to serve more customers. To do so you'll be required to create systems, services and policies others can easily replicate. As a result, you'll have a head-start in creating a business that can continue serving customers when you "retire."

Us baby-boomer folks (born between 1946 and 1963, or so) may have some catching up to do. We've been "forever young," and may have started our businesses with a slightly different motivation, to make our mark on the world, to some degree carrying out the idealism of the 50's and 60's in our business ventures. By all means, we want more freedom, but we may not have started out with the end in mind. If this is the case for you, there's no time like the present. Afterall, it's said we have 2 mid-life cycles now, from 40-60 and 60-80. Better get in action!

Getting off on the wrong foot - where do things go awry?

Perhaps you guessed it. We're back to the principles set forth in the E-Myth. Execution of these principles may not be as easy for a service-business, but they are possible and necessary.

"It is in the infancy of a business that the technician runs things, and infancy is when things start going wrong. At this stage, the technician IS the business, and he works and works and gets more and more exhausted until finally he realizes that the business must change or collapse. Since it is hard for the technician to change, most businesses end right here, with burnout and hopelessness." Source: Mary Symmes, http://www.zeromillion.com/entrepreneurship/emyth.html

Entrepreneurial Perspective puts you on the right path

You, the technician, must become the leader if the business is ever to run without you and if you want to retire while it continues to generate revenue. This is not easy to contemplate when your personal brand is so strong, or your passion so great that you can't imagine your clients will work with anyone else, nor that anyone else can do what you do. I share with you, from The E-Myth, Revisited (by Michael E. Gerber, 1995, HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. page 71)...

"The Entrepreneurial Perspective sees the business as a system for producing outside results - for the customer - resulting in profits. The Technician's perspective sees the business as a place in which people work to produce inside results - for the Technician - producing income."

The key lies in where you put your attention. The three words that matter most are "for the customer." The job of your business is to deliverable reliable, impactful results to your customers. How do you start? By planning how your business can do that, not how you can do that. They are different questions.

 

by Joan Friedlander, © 2008. All rights reserved.