No doubt, you’ve been asked, “What would you do if money was no object?” I don’t love that question for a what-kind-of-business-should-you-start question, but it certainly has its place.
But when growth is the answer, I think you need a different question. And that question is an unusual one for microbusiness owners who generally have full inboxes, overloaded schedules, and stressed out mindsets.
What would you create if time was no object?
Yes, time.
This is a better question than the “money” question because money will always be an object. It’s a key metric for being in business. No, it doesn’t have to be your only metric of success, but if your business isn’t at least measuring the bottom line, it’s not a business.
The time question begs you to consider how you’re holding yourself back right now.
It can seem like the best answer is always to “do it yourself” in the micro business world:
- I can figure that out.
- I’ll give that a try.
- I can work on that next week.
But business isn’t really about doing it yourself. It’s about—as my friend and the founder of Maker’s Nation Isaac Watson said this weekend—“doing it together.” You can create exponentially more value with a team than you can on your own.
Planning to build a team isn’t about leaving your microbusiness behind. It’s not about giving up freedom or flexibility. In fact, it’s about gaining more of it.
Your ideas shouldn’t be a burden to you.
You should be able to envision ideas as big as you want them to be.
But you can’t do that if time is always a constraint.
…not when it’s so easy to get more time. You can buy more time for as little as $5-10 per hour. You can shortcut idea development by bouncing ideas off of other people. You can pull together bigger projects with less hassle than you thought possible.
The good news?
You don’t have to start by forking over money today.
You don’t even have to interview anyone or write a job description.
You just need to ask yourself, “What would I be creating today if time was no object?”
Letting yourself think about what you really want to build, the product you really want to design, the problem you really want to solve and how you’d take it all to market puts you in the right position to attract quality team members, better understand the role you play in your business, and create plans that launch your business into the future.
Example? Elizabeth Cronise McLaughlin, founder of 40% and Rising, the world’s first organization for breadwinning women. When Elizabeth shared the idea with me this summer, it was just a seed. But because she was open to consider how she could distribute the workload of her huge vision, that seed is sprouting and she’s got incredible people lined up as Charter Members, even as the team is still solidifying and before the organization has even launch officially.
Microbusiness should be a way to do more with less. But, unfortunately, it’s often used as an excuse to create something smaller, do less, and impact fewer.
So. What would you create if time was no object?
