What’s Your Motivation to Open a Small Business?

The thought of starting my business scared me. No question about it. But there was a moment where I asked myself – what’s my motivation?

My answer was “freedom.” The feeling I felt about responding with that answer gave me a sense of relief. Yes, the other perks of it played a role, but freedom was key to have in my life moving forward.

How am I going to create that freedom?

That was the next question I asked myself. I needing to figure out what my next move was going to be in life. Was I going to go into a new industry and start over, or maintain my path?

I sat down and analyzed my options to help make this decision. There were various industries that I was interested in, so I laid out the obvious choices first. Going back to a corporate role was ruled out immediately. Moving up a corporate ladder was not intriguing to me at that point.

After generating the list, I reached out to leaders of each industry. I asked for their feedback and absorbed the information they provided me. These contacts didn’t hold back at all. Honesty is the best you can ask for when trying to make a life-changing decision. Some people might avoid the negatives when providing info about their careers, so it was great to get the truth from the start.

The other angle was staying the course in marketing. I had tried to start my own digital marketing business several years ago, but knew I needed more knowledge and/or a team. I figured if I’m going to try this again, I should put a business plan together, and assess if it would be financially possible.

Not only financially, but mentally and physically possible to maintain a serviceable amount of clientele. This included customer service, upkeep and continuing to learn innovative ways to market a business.

I took enough time to think about both angles and my thought process kept pointing me to the benefit of freedom. My motivation to move on from a corporate career was the ability to have that freedom.

There was no more denying it when I realized that’s what I truly wanted.

What’s your motivation?