{"id":10601,"date":"2016-08-03T09:36:58","date_gmt":"2016-08-03T14:36:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/?p=10601"},"modified":"2016-07-21T09:40:14","modified_gmt":"2016-07-21T14:40:14","slug":"passion-and-profitability-required-in-small-businesses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/2016\/08\/passion-and-profitability-required-in-small-businesses.html","title":{"rendered":"Passion and Profitability Required in Small Businesses"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_5782\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-5782\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-5782\" src=\"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/Success.-Photo-by-BruceBerrien-on-Flickr-300x198.jpg\" alt=\"Success sign\" width=\"300\" height=\"198\" srcset=\"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/Success.-Photo-by-BruceBerrien-on-Flickr-300x198.jpg 300w, https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/Success.-Photo-by-BruceBerrien-on-Flickr-200x132.jpg 200w, https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/Success.-Photo-by-BruceBerrien-on-Flickr.jpg 700w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-5782\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Photo (CC) by BruceBer, on Flickr<\/p><\/div>\n<p>A common question I get asked is, \u201cWhat small business should I start?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>My typical answer is: <strong>\u201cThink about starting a business around something that sparks your passion.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I have a valid reason for giving that answer. The small business you start will take an incredible amount of time. Plus, as you build the business, you will have countless times when you may just want to quit. Those are the times when your passion, or perseverance, will get you through.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Yet passion, while necessary, is not an entirely sufficient variable on which to build a long-term, sustainable small business. Doing that requires that your business makes money.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>And the money you make <strong>must do more than just pay for supplies<\/strong>. It must cover labor costs, pay for the rent and utilities, and cover taxes, marketing, distribution and the management costs of running the business.<\/p>\n<p>A long-term, sustainable business also will pay the owner for the risk he or she has undertaken, as well as providing a return on the investment.<\/p>\n<p>Finding that profitable business takes time and effort. Ask yourself:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>* Does my product or service have a market? And will that market keep coming back? If so, how often?<\/li>\n<li>* Will the market pay a price that gives me the profit level I need\/desire?<\/li>\n<li>* Who are my competitors? Do I have a sustainable advantage over them?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Some people can\u2019t offer positive answers for these questions. Yet they still go into business. The reality is the business is more like a hobby. That\u2019s OK as long as you understand what you are giving up and that you will be subsidizing the business in some way through time.<\/p>\n<p><strong>So, what business should you start?<\/strong> It should be one for which you have passion <strong>AND makes you a profit.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A common question I get asked is, \u201cWhat small business should I start?\u201d My typical answer is: \u201cThink about starting a business around something that sparks your passion.\u201d I have a valid reason for giving that answer. The small business you start will take an incredible amount of time. Plus, as you build the business, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","episode_type":"","audio_file":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","filesize_raw":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,17,21],"tags":[52,244,48,156,242],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10601"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10601"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10601\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10603,"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10601\/revisions\/10603"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10601"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10601"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10601"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}