For many people, becoming an entrepreneur, having your own business, working at your own pace, and being the boss is a dream come true. However, some business owners also realize one day and wonder how they can get out of it. Unfortunately, being a business owner is not for everyone.
Some entrepreneurs are reluctant to the advice that sometimes quitting a business may be the right thing to do. If you’re planning to close the doors for good, it’s best that you have an exit strategy in place, and you should know when it’s time to execute it. With that being said, here are some signs and truths that indicate it might be time for you to look for something more worthwhile to do with your precious life span:
1. You don’t dream anymore.
Do you still remember the days when you were so thrilled about starting your business? Every night you think about it before you go to bed. You brainstorm at the dinner table with your family. You asked everyone to listen. You’ve dreamed about taking over or revolutionizing your industry or envision the lifestyle your future family would grow up to. But if today is only about just surviving through the day or even worse, making it through payroll, then maybe it’s time to think about doing something else.
2. You become so busy that if you get some time off, things begin to fall apart.
Starting a business of your own needs plenty of hard work, patience, and long exhausting hours. But do you still need to stay all night and work straight through the weekend five years later? Then this is not a good thing. Before you give up everything, look for ways to get your life back in balance. Distribute responsibilities to reliable employees, and support them with training too. However, if you’ve accomplished these things but didn’t harvest any success, it could be time that you consider selling the business and move forward to what you want to do next.
3. You’re body is giving up and you get easily stressed
As human beings, we can be fragile even if we use all our strength and flexibility. Our bodies often suffer because of our drive and perseverance. Plus, entrepreneurs are more prone to mental illnesses like depression if they get extremely stressed. If you’re always feeling tired, ill, or run down on a daily basis, it’s not a good sign. Your body may be telling you that it’s time to get rid of that load on top of your back or just drop everything all together.
Give yourself a break and arrange an appointment with your doctor first, never forget the importance of taking care of your mind and body. After that, seriously rethink about cutting back on your responsibilities, getting yourself out of the CEO position, or maybe sell the business soon.
4. The money isn’t there or never was.
Perhaps you’ve shifted industry because of rivalry or modifying technology, or maybe you can’t motivate yourself to go through the motions, or your customer service is bad. For so many reasons, the thousands or millions of dollars are not really there, even worse, they never were. Nonetheless, if the money is not there or it’s completely gone, it’s definitely a sign that you need to move on. Don’t live your whole life worrying about money and financial matters. The grass may be greener on the other side, as long as you apply the courage, braveness, energy, and goals you used to have as an entrepreneur, you’ll be able to accomplish anything you would want with the next stage of your career.
However, if you think you can still save your business, try filing a tax depreciation. Depreciation is a deductible tax on business costs. It gives businesses the opportunity to recuperate the expense of an entitled asset by writing off the costs over the period of its beneficial life. If your business doesn’t consider depreciating its assets, it can experience a huge impact on its profits.
5. Your business cannot operate well in your absence.
If your business can run like clockwork, whether you’re present or not, then it means that you did a job well done. You’ve established a lasting business, congratulations! But this doesn’t mean that after being successful at something, it doesn’t mean that you should be entirely doing it continuously. The trends in business always change, it’s not constant.
Once your business runs alright without you being there, you’ll be able to explore more new opportunities and challenges outside of your company. But if your business can’t survive without you and it’s still going downhill, then maybe it’s a great idea to begin thinking about exiting completely. Most probably you’re better off somewhere and be successful following your next dream.
