You've Got To Spend Money To Make Money
The 50's era American was pretty smart with her money. She earned, she saved, and she paid bills. Borrowing was not something the cool kids did, so she avoided it. She saved up for a home or a car or a refrigerator. Times were simple.
The 60's era American began to change her tune on credit, partially thanks to a big marketing push by credit companies. Instead of watching pennies and saving money, she could get herself a house NOW. And a car? Hot dog!
Jump to today's American and she is leveraged to the max. The house, the car, the vacations, the dinners out. Credit companies love it because they make a truckload of cash on her impatience to save and wait.
Aside from a home purchase and a car or two, it's safe to say that our modern day spending has gotten a little out of hand. We've bucked the old ways of saving by swinging the pendulum allllll the way to debt land.
But we missed the mark on the happy medium.
If you looked up consumer debt in the dictionary, what you would find is a cartoon picture of a vampire. There is only one way to describe it and it is this. Debt sucks.
But within all this talk of debt and money and budgeting, we've scared the living daylights out of us small business owners. The thought of having to put something on a credit card sends us into a panic. So what do we do?
Nothing.
Our businesses stay right where they are.
We invest some time to learn the free stuff. We go to the library to rent the books rather than buy them. We pour over YouTube videos rather than joining a mastermind or working with a professional.
Our DIY, penny pincher lifestyle drives the bus and loves wagging her finger in the face of growth, I mean debt.
We all know that in order to make money, you sometimes have to spend it. We can feel when our business has plateaued. We can tell when we've hit our wall.
But instead of getting around to buying a solution, we freeze up and look for all the freebies and the coupons for a more cost effective approach because lord-have-mercy debt is bad.
Honey, I am here to tell you that mindset is going to wear you out and run you ragged. Not to mention, slow you down.
It's like those days of driving 15 miles to a different gas station to save $.10 / gallon. Seems so responsible of you! Yet you drove 10 miles out of your way to save $2. Whoop-tee-freaking-do.
There is a difference between an irresponsible use of credit (charging that Big Mac for example) and investing.
In business (& hello you are a business OWNER) you will be required to invest. You can only take yourself so far. When you hit that ledge, then you have two choices:
Stay where you are and not invest
Grow and invest
You cannot grow without investing. It is that simple.
How do you expect to grow a business to a million dollars when you keep doing a bunch of $15/hr tasks all day long?
Look around your business - where are you being cheap? Where are you waiting to hire? Where are you waiting to upgrade your office space?
Where are you holding yourself back because you can't get over the mental hurdle that investing in your business IS NOT IRRESPONSIBLE DEBT?