Setting Up Your Business of Life

What does it take to set up a business? You might know of someone who has set up his or her own business. Or you might even have set up your very own venture.

Let me blog about this and show you that by planning our careers from our school days, we are already unconsciously or sub-consciously setting up our very own business of life.

What Happens in a Typical Start-up?
I did a quick chart below to show a basic framework of setting up a business. In simple terms, the founder of the business goes into a venture with a business idea, bringing his expertise and experience. In putting together his business plan, he has to decide what products and services his business wants to offer and to which target market or industry. He also has to decide what his core competencies and strengths are, relative to his competitors and what benefits he brings to his prospective customers.

Besides the sales and marketing aspect, he has to decide how to fund his business - whether it is through getting investors or borrowing money. From a financial perspective, he has to decide what business assets to acquire in order to generate sales for his venture, how to price his product or service, and how much profit margin to make from his product or service.

Starting up Life's Business
Let's draw a parallel of the above against our own lives - looking at it from a "business" perspective. Now imagine stepping into the working world of business. Just as you have to decide what products and services you want to offer the market in a typical business venture, you too need to decide what you want to offer to your "customer" - in this case, it is your employer who is your customer.

Your business plan is actually your career plan (that is, if you do have one). Like a business, you will have to decide which target market you want to go after by choosing the industry that you want to work in that you can be successful. You being highly successful or rich is dependent on what "business" you want to get into. If you have ambitions on being a doctor or a private banker, that would have significant implications on your "business model". And don't forget that just like the real business world, there are going to be lots of competitors all offering similar products and services. So you need to be different. Here's where personal branding comes in!

Can you see how applying business metaphors to your life can be useful?
Now don't forget that just as investments are needed in any business, over the years you too have made an investment in yourself with the education and training courses you have attended in the business of life. The extent of how much you invest in yourself directly impacts your future success!
(or maybe you didn't bother to invest in yourself and flunked your examinations.)

That's the reason why a medical or law degree costs much more than a degree in teaching. The earning power of these occupations differ extensively. But take heart, as we have learnt in the business world, it is not just about how much money you make. It is about how much money you save. Or in business terms, it is about your profit margin (defined in accounting terms as the difference between the purchase price and the cost of bringing the product/service to market).

When I discovered how relevant business concepts are in setting up one's business of life and how we can effectively run it like a business, I was blown away. I decided to try it out - that was five years ago. Since then, I have increased my net worth by three-fold!