Preparation

Assessment: Assessing Your Family

A spouse or partner who is jealous of the time you spent on your new business – time spent away from the family, time spent travelling, time spent meeting urgent deadlines, even time spent entertaining prospective clients if that is a necessary part of your business – will find it very difficult to accept the added hours that self-employment inevitably brings.

A spouse or partner who has never wanted financially, or ever known insecurity, will find it very difficult to accept that there will not be a good-sized pay-check in the envelope or in the bank account at the end of the month.

You need to make sure that your spouse or partner is 100% behind you in your new venture before you commit yourself to it. Without that support, you find that difficulties in your business spill over into your personal life and vice versa – perhaps with disastrous and irreparable results.

And you need to think about your children, if you have any, or others who depend on you, whether financially, emotionally or for your time. You may have a sick and elderly parent, who requires constant care and attention. How will you balance the time and energy you can devote to them against the time and energy that your business needs in the early stages? And will your parent understand when you miss your daily visit for the tenth day in a row? Will a phone call do instead? If not, how do you plan to cope with the situation?

The best way to assess the support of your family is to talk through a number of scenarios about the business and family life to test their reactions. How would you feel if we had to do without a holiday next year? Or cut back on eating out? Or …?

Ask. You might not like what you hear, but it’s better to hear it now than when things are falling apart at work and at home at the same time.

Now move on to consider the other aspects of assessment:

• Yourself
• Your team (if you have one)
• Your family
• Your idea
• The market.