Financial Tips | Money and Kids

Cashspeak! THE BUSINESS FAMILY - CASHSPEAK
Header Ads

8/13/06

THE BUSINESS FAMILY

As the old saying goes, “two heads are better than one.” This holds the most truth in business ventures. New entrepreneurs are just starting their financial journey. Most of us have only a small amount of capital, but enough ideas to run an advertising firm for years. Some of us can make the entrepreneurial leap on our own, but most of us need a little help and support in order to make our dreams a financial reality.

The business family is your group of similarly motivated individuals that help make ideas become realized. The reason it is called a family is because you MUST be able to trust the group you help assemble. Business partners can sometimes be untrustworthy or might only be out to achieve their own ambitions. One key to success is to be able to decipher between the two.

Your business family is your most trusted group of associates that you can look to for support, help, motivation, finances, and/or ideas. In order to prevent any power struggles in the group, no one person should be designated as the “leader.” Instead, when an idea is introduced to the group by one member of the business family, the member that created the idea should be the one dictating the direction of the project. If two people think of the idea, then the development of the idea should be split into two parts.

Keep in mind that there is no minimum of maximum number of members of your business family. There are two ways to organize the members of your business family. First, your business family can compose of members that share the same area of expertise. For example, if you create a business family with members who all have a comprehensive understanding of the real estate market, your entrepreneurial venture should probably be in real estate investment and/or development. The other way to create a business family is with members who all have different areas of education. For example, my business family, consisting of three members, including myself, have high levels of education in the law, real estate, engineering, management, economics, and food. This wide range of education gives us many options as to our entrepreneurial journey. Either organizational way is fine and can lead to mounds of success.

Just a few last points to remember:
1. Your business family must be comprised of your most trusted associates and must be more than mere “business partners;”
2. The person that created the idea takes the lead for that project. There is no fixed leader in your business family;
3. There is no minimum nor maximum amount of people that can comprise a business family, and people can join or leave as the group changes and/or becomes successful;
4. Two ways exists to form the business family and both ways are equally effective; and
5. Your business family is your foundation on which to build your entrepreneurial empire.

Remember to have fun and build your dreams into financial reality. As Dr. David M. Burns once said, “Aim for success, not perfection. Never give up your right to be wrong, because then you will lose the ability to learn new things and move forward with your life.”

No comments: