3 Reasons You Shouldn’t Go Into Business To Chase Money

chase money

When I first hung up my shingle and opened the doors to my coaching practice, I often times would speak to individuals who wanted to go into business for themselves.  When I would ask them why, they responded with, “I see people making good money and I want to do it too. Show me how to make six figures with a blog.”

Of course, not everyone was in it just to chase money. But unfortunately it was something I heard far too often. Even now that I’ve become stricter about what kind of clients I serve, many people still get hung up on the money.

Look, starting a business is a great way to make some money and build an asset for yourself. In fact, people who build assets for themselves are way ahead of what one of my favorite personal finance bloggers calls the Conformist Majority. In other words, if you want to build wealth you are better off doing it by creating your own streams of income and the Conformist Majority doesn’t really get that.

A business also gives you more freedom and more choices when it comes to how much income you make.

  • You decide the rates.
  • You decide the pricing and if you ever want to give yourself a raise you have the power to do so.

It’s no wonder then why starting a business seems so attractive to people.  After all, it does give you more control over your finances and earning potential. However (and this is a very big “however”), if you go into business solely to chase money you’re going to be incredibly disappointed.

Below you’ll find the many reasons why.

1. Business success does not happen overnight

Sir James Dyson, founder of Dyson Company (and inventor of the dual bag-less vacuum cleaner) has a great quote that sums up the epidemic I see all the time in the age of the Internet.

In the digital age of ‘overnight’ success stories such as Facebook, the hard slog is easily overlooked. ~Sir James Dyson (Tweet this)

Boy is it true! People tend to forget just how long it takes to not just build a business, but to create wealth. And truth be told, the media perpetuates overnight success stories because they are fun. Who wants to hear about how it took someone over ten years to create a successful business? The problem is this teaches people that overnight success is the norm instead of the exception to the rule.  So when many of these people come up against challenges and don’t see the money right away, they tend to give up.

Let’s take a look at some of these “overnight success” stories and see what the real deal is.

  • Apple was around for a while, and nearly disappeared, before they introduced the iPod into the world and made a comeback overnight.
  • Software company Rovio was operating for almost 8 years and nearly went bankrupt before creating their smash hit game Angry Birds.
  • Oprah worked in broadcasting for more than a decade and was met with several career challenges before she became the billionaire we know today.

So, it would seem that there is a lot of hard work you have to put in upfront before you reap the rewards. If you are only in it for the money, you will not last very long. That is why it’s important to find some other form of motivation besides financial gain.

2. Helping people trumps making money (and it happens to get you paid)

The entire point of a business, whether they are selling a service or a product, is to help someone fix a problem.  That is why marketers often tell you to define your audience’s pain points. The pain your audience feels is a result of a problem they are experiencing. Your service or product is meant to help them fix this problem and in exchange you get money.

Apple, for example, addresses two major pain points: usability and design.  Apple noticed that computers and other technological gadgets were not easy to use.  They also noticed that the design of these gadgets were often times undesirable and cumbersome.

They fixed this problem by making their products extremely user-friendly and beautifully designed. And we all know what happened after that.

Any successful business will tell you the same thing.  The entire point of their existence, and the only reason they make money, is because they are helping someone fix a problem.

When you focus on being of service to your market the opportunities for prosperity show up. Before we go any further I want to be very clear about something. Putting service before money tends to get misconstrued and taken to an extreme. Part of my job as a business coach is to help individuals who are under-earning. Oftentimes they fall into the cycle of under-earning because they have taken the notion of “being of service” too far. This is a form of self-sabotage and is not at all what I am teaching.

What I am teaching is that in order to receive value in the form of money, you must first put value out into the world in the form of service. There is absolutely nothing wrong with a fair exchange of value, all I am saying is if you always put money before service you will not go very far.

3. Money does not equal success

Money, while important, does not equal success. Don’t get me wrong, money is a great way to measure how your business is doing and where it may need to improve. It’s tangible and can show us a pretty good picture.

What I mean is, money for the sake of making money isn’t success. This is why I, personally, don’t chase money. The reason I say this is because success looks different for everyone. For me success looks like making enough money on my own so that I don’t need to have a boss. For others success looks like traveling the world.  And even still for others, success could look like having a family.

That’s why it’s important to define what success looks like to you. This can be tough for some people so I usually meet clients where they are (understand their needs). If money is important to them I encourage them to ask themselves why they want the money.  This exercise is extremely revealing because it oftentimes shows what people really value in life. Once they figure out what they value they can see what a successful life would be like for them.

To put it simply, no one wants to chase money to just have money.  They want money because it allows them to do things they value.

Those things they value are clues for determining what success means to you. Therefore you can’t really measure success in terms of money.

Final thoughts on why you should not chase money

I want to end this piece by sharing something I saw all the time as a recruiter. I would interview individuals on all ends of the income spectrum. Sometimes I interviewed people who were making more money in a year than I’ve ever seen in my life. And you know what? Money never fixed their problems.

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About the Author

Amanda Abella is an online business coach, speaker and author of the Amazon bestselling book - Make Money Your Honey. She is committed to helping individuals have a better relationship with work and money through entrepreneurship, online marketing and money mindset. Her work has been featured in Forbes, The Huffington Post, and more.

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