The Ultimate Roadmap to Financial Loss
Imagine you inherit few million dollars from your parents’ property, or receive huge funding from a business partner for starting a new venture. Your feet are in the air as you swim in the thoughts of a luxury lifestyle, without ever having to worry about running short of finances to pay off your monthly bills. You start dreaming of chilling on the seaside 12 times a year, while your money is safely deposited into a bank account to sustain you and your family for the rest of your life. The sudden taste of wealth makes you unwary of the harsh realities of the global financial and economic systems, and you start believing that you can save your way to richness for the next few generations of your family tree.
The truth is people can go from health to sickness, friendships to enmity, richness to poverty and contentment to desperation, even in the extreme sense, at different times in life. The universe is designed to make us go through trials and varying circumstances. We cannot simply take a break from our struggles in life purely on our own chosen timings or age. That’s why those who get too content for a while make the mistake of getting onto the wrong road that ultimately leads them to failure.
Today we’re going to discuss the roadmap of one’s choices that would take anybody from wealth to poverty, particularly in the case of starting a new business.
Quit your day job right away
Most people, when they get access to a large amount of funds and start planning to run their own business, assume that they are secure enough to quit their full-time job right away. This is a huge mistake. Any business, before it kicks off, requires constant funding and investment, whether big or small, for various purposes. No matter how vast your bank balance is, if there is no money coming in, you will face tension every time you pay out anything, whether it’s for personal or business purposes. If you say goodbye to your stable source of salaried income too early down the road, you might face hiccups in maintaining your current lifestyle in peace, let alone being able to make the right kind of investments for your business at the right time.
Avoid business consultation from experts in the field
No matter how much of a business expert you think you are, getting advice and consultation from a specialist in the field you’re looking to start a venture in carries more weight than you can imagine. This is an era of specialization, and all startups need to target a clearly definable niche, in order to hold a unique selling proposition to attract customers. If you avoid consulting experts in the field, you will end up making silly mistakes in terms of your kick-off business strategy, which could lead to huge financial losses or, even worse, loss of morale. Nobody would force you to follow the exact strategy as advised by a consultant, but the suggestions of a consultant can, at the least, help you avoid making the wrong choices in the very basics of your action plan.
Do not allocate any budget for marketing
A new businessman who is super confident about his great idea might fall into the trap of assuming that everybody would like it too, and line up to buy his products/services as soon as he launches. But he forgets that for people to even know about your products/services, they need to know about them first. For them to know, they need to be shown or told about them first. Along with pitching your products/services, it’s utterly important to convey how they’ll be solving a problem in the community you’re targeting — and that’s where marketing comes in. Some people would make large investments in opening up a fancy office and hiring full-time employees straight away, before deciding on any marketing budget to get their business off the road. That’s a big step on the roadmap to losses that can potentially lead your business to failure, and you as an individual to poverty.
Buy the most expensive car available in the market
Okay, we all like luxury transport and some of us can afford it too. But the timing to make a cash purchase (or even lease) of an expensive car needs to be well thought of, before deciding to go for it. Once your business gets settled and starts making some small streams of income, it would be lovely to upgrade your transport vehicle to reflect your growing status in your personality. But for those who take this action too early in the process are setting themselves up for ridicule and loss.
Take a vacation on every weekend
Holidays and vacations are good for health and state of mind. But going off on a holiday too frequently could be damaging to your work, especially when you’re in the starting and struggling phase of your business. It would be different if vacations were just some time off to cool off your mind, costing nothing more than your time. But sadly, that’s not true. Vacations cost money too — the money that’s too precious for you to spend too generously on yourself in times when you need to keep emergency funds for your own security as well as business kick-off.
Constantly show off your wealth on social media
Social media fan following has both pros and cons. But as a new businessman, if you’re in the habit of showing off your wealth all the time, you’ll be getting some evil eyes on your life before you even begin to generate some revenue out of your business idea. Sometimes, it is good to stay low key, until you can gather sufficient strength in terms of brand loyalty and sales figures.
If you’re guilty of being on the roadmap as described above but still have funds available with you, it’s not too late to take corrective measures and save yourself from further financial loss.
Originally published at https://opinined.com on October 20, 2019.
