Here we go, it’s decision time!  If you’ve done what was necessary at the foundation and survival stages of the growth model you should be able to make the necessary decision now.

As you will recall from my previous post “Is Indecision Keeping You and Your Business from Success?”, the main goal of self-sustainability stage is making the decision to just step away from your business and let it sustain your current level of lifestyle, or enter the rapid growth stage and grow your business into a big corporation.  If you cannot do the first, then you’re business is not ready for the second!

Self-Sustaining Cash Flow

If you completed all the foundation stage requirements for marketing, sales, and operations then these departments should be creating break-even month after month with no questions asked.  If you applied the same principles to the requirements in the survival stage then you should be creating a very nice profit month-to-month as well.  If this isn’t the case, then you’re stuck in “nowhere land!”

By creating a systematic method to create break-even every month you graduate from the foundation stage.  Then expanding the system to generate consistent profitability on top of that breakeven, you graduate from the survival stage, which means you’ve achieved the self-sustainability stage.

So, why do I discuss the foundation and survival stages in an article about self-sustainability stage operations?  That’s easy, because the things that I said were critical to operations in the foundation stage and the survival stage are what most small business owners question and avoid!

Many small business owners say, “it’s too early to be thinking about this stuff.  As a result, when these naysayers get to what they believe to be success they cannot step away from their business because they’re stuck in nowhere land.

If you’re not sure of the operational requirements of the foundation and survival stages, I would recommend reading the two articles titled:

Business Success = Self-Sustaining Business

Some might argue the point.  But, I would argue that a self-sustaining business is what the most admired entrepreneurs of the world, i.e. the Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Warren Buffets, Richard Branson’s,  have in common.  They built an asset in their business that has made them financially independent.

That’s the reason most of us started our businesses in the first place, wasn’t it?  While it may not be the primary reason you started it.  Your passion was the primary reason.  Building your business still must be a primary objective or your passion cannot be fully realized.  If you cannot achieve the self-sustainability stage, using your business as a method for achieving life independence and financial freedom is a crap shoot!

If you’re still a little fuzzy on the idea of what you need to do to create a self-sustainable business download our eBook.  This eBook delves deeper into what is required to create a self-sustaining business.

For those of you that have already achieved the self-sustainability stage, SHARE!!!  How did you begin looking at your business differently to help you building it as an asset so that you could become financially independent?