Let’s face it – being an employee is easier than running your own business!  As business owners, we get that.  We know –

We traded the security of a pay cheque for the risk of a sale,

We chose the chance to trust our own instincts over following the herd,

What it’s like to not know when the next customer will walk through that damn door!

Yep, we choose these gambles, and more, every day and we do it because of the promise of control over our destinies and the chance to become someone that being an employee simply cannot fulfil. 

One of the biggest mindset hurdles all small business owners must overcome in order to go from small beer to Chanpagne player is the fear of taking on debt.  Yet, given all the other risks we take on, why do we baulk at this?  Is it because –

We perceive the risk of being able to pay it back is too great?

We are willing but conventional lenders are reluctant to provide finance and that scares us? 

We are unwilling to provide the family home as security for the loan? 

They could all be true!  Yet we overcome all the other obstacles so why do we let finance hamstring us? 

Many of us don’t get finance because we don’t truly believe in our business idea and abilities or because we can’t get a lender to buy into our dream.  Consequently, we are creating a future of struggle as we cannot fund the resources all businesses require to grow.  So we do everything ourselves, get stressed out and end up tossing in the towel 3 years after we open our doors.  Ladies, this is a very common situation and when combined with our wonderfully innate ability to second guess ourselves it spells doom from the beginning.

The solution.  Speak to your accountant, tweak your business plan, mould your vision into a more market-friendly one and get on with applying for the loan that will enable your dream.  You’re not meant to know how to do all this yourself so get over the fear of not knowing it.  Why?  Because doing everything yourself will contribute to your downfall.