Irony of Owning Your Own Business...

[Charles Shepard]

Five years ago I started dreaming about owning my own business. Just about anyone who has been in Corporate America long enough has thought to themselves, if only I was in charge. Well, I decided to make the jump. I left my position in middle management for a Fortune 500 Company and used my life savings at the time to invest in a franchise. I had done it!

I had done it alright! Three months into the small business I had gone through most of my working capital and was facing the real prospect of having to shut it down. Fortunately, I had pretty good support from the franchise corporate office and was able to turn things around. I made it through my first year! Usually a sign that your going to make it in the long run. Year two and eventually year three passed and I had purchased a new company vehicle and had hired an employee. I thought I was literally and figuratively living the American Dream! Then year four came along.

The business I had was a custom window treatment business, blinds, draperies, shutters, etc. So it was closely tied to the housing industry. And unfortunately for me, my territory was comprised 80% of new housing. So during year four (2008) the bottom fell out of my business as the bottom fell out from underneath the housing industry. We shut it down in December of 2008.

But all is well right? With over 20 years experience in the business world, most of which was with Big Four (Accounting) and Fortune 500 companies I would be a hot commodity now that I had four years of starting and running a fairly successful business. The downfall had been because of the economy, not some hair brained ideal that went awry. So I would be fine right? WRONG! Owning and operating my own business provided me great general business experience. But it didn't translate back to the business world. No one said, wow, you can do just about everything, let's see what you can do for us! Everyone wanted to know what had you done SPECIFICALLY lately. So having my own business for four years was almost like having a four year gap in my resume! No one cared about the small business! Sure, they were empathetic about my situation but I might as well have been doing nothing as far as it related to getting another job. I had to re-work my resume to de-emphasize the four years of having the business and go all the way back to my middle management days in Corporate America. So I had two choices, start a new business which would leverage my most recent experience or scratch and claw my way back in to the corporate world I had "dreamed" of leaving. Considering I no longer had the money to start any business of much substance this was a great choice to have huh?

So what is the moral of this story? Don't start a small business? Never leave Corporate America? Never go back to Corporate America? Once you leave you can't go back? Actually, it's none of these. The moral of this story is education and proper planning. Before you "make the jump" to start your own business, understand that the longer your in business, the more challenging it will be to go back into the corporate workforce if you change your mind later. Typically, the longer you've been in business, the more successful you have been and the less likely you will want to go back. But considering that most small businesses don't make it for a variety of reasons, more likely than not, you will be trying to go back sooner versus later. So knowing that, how do you prepare?

First of all, either start networking or continue to maintain the networks you've already started. This will be invaluable to you in the long run. Sure there are job message boards like CareerBuilder, Monster.com, etc. But you and about 5,000 other people are applying for each job they post. If your going to find a new job, there is a 90% chance it is going to be through a contact you have, personal or professional, not through these job message boards which are just the modern day classified ads.

Second, don't burn any bridges you may want to cross back over later. You can remain cordial and periodically meet former colleagues for lunch etc. just to stay in touch. This way, you have advocates for you in the corporate world if you find you need to return.

Finally, be humble. The greatest mistake I made was believing that there was no way I could fail. I'm not saying don't give 100% to the business. Just understand that good isn't always good enough and things beyond your control can bring you down. Having a Plan B and maintaining a safety net are not a sign of weakness or that you aren't committed. It's just plain smart.

Hope this blog helped.


Good Luck and God Bless!