Here’s a real problem for many small business owners, particularly those who engage in what are commonly known as the “professions.” An added expense to maintaining a business is additional expenses to one’s personal lifestyle. This is sometimes known as “the golden handcuffs.” A professional needs to maintain a certain image to attract business, and then has to chase increasing amounts of dollars to pay for that image. He or she needs the right clothes, the right car, the right house, and to eat, shop and be seen at the right places. If at some point the professional wants to take a step back and simplify his or her life, the golden handcuffs make it difficult to do so.
The entrepreneurial life is an interesting one isn’t it? At one end, you can have a guy strolling barefoot down his hallway to his home office clad only in his cartoon character sweat pants and a white T-shirt. At the other, you have a guy who needs a closet full of $2000 suits in order to create and maintain what he deems to be the appropriate image for his business.
Will the business you want to create push you into an expensive image to maintain?