Why Are You In Business?

This quote came across my desk this morning.

It’s from Brad Sugars:

“You should think of yourself as a business owner first, your profession or trade second … i.e. You are not a doctor, you are the owner of a medical business …”

These are very powerful words.

I often hear people introduce themselves in this way:

“I’m a dentist”

“I’m a plumber”

“I’m a lawyer”

“I’m a financial advisor”

Instead of saying:

“I own a dental office and we create beautiful smiles”

“My business solves all your plumbing problems”

“I’m a partner in a law firm that specialises in wills and estates”

“I help my clients get wealthy”

Do you see the difference?

Someone once told me you need to be a better marketer of what you do, than a doer of what you do.

And when you concentrate on telling people what your business does for its customers, as opposed to telling people what your trade is, you are indeed making yourself and your business stand out from your competition.

Why do people label themselves, and allow themselves to be labelled?

Have you ever heard someone say about someone else:

“Oh, he’s a dentist.”

“What a TYPICAL dentist”

“You’d expect that from a dentist”

Nobody is born a dentist.

They learn how to drill teeth and fix them.

Nobody is born a plumber.

They go to technical college and learn their trade.

I used to say:

“I’m not a dentist. Dentistry is something that I do”

And it is my trade that I perform.

It is not what I am.

With regards to your business….

James Malinchak said:

“Always remember – you are NOT in business to run a business! You are in business as an entrepreneur to create FREEDOM for yourself!”

A lot of people decide to go into business but have no concept regarding what the purpose of their business is….

They simply create a look-alike job, except this new “business” is really just them doing a job with them being the boss of them as well.

The purpose of owning a business is to be rewarded for what that business provides:

Services. E.g. Dental services
Employment to members of the community.
Business for other businesses to provide to your business. E.g. Flowers, cleaning, laundry, stationery, phones, etc…

If your business is not providing you with profit and therefore reward for owning the business, then all that you have is another job, and without the benefits of being employed by a proper entity.