Before you venture into any form of business, you need to know the chief differences between running it in a small form or a big way. You also need to know the significant dissimilarities so that you capture the entire essence. You will then proceed to make the necessary choice, as well as the required commitment.
Below is a comprehensive and comprehensible guide that will help you in your critical choice of what form of business you need. Before we go through the guide, be assured that the smallness or bigness suggested here has nothing to do with size but with structure.
Are you ready for the guide? Let's go through:
Owners of Small Businesses: Either think they have the working knowledge or don't know it is necessary.
Owners of Big Businesses: Believe it is pivotal to maintain a regular and lifetime accumulation and application of knowledge.
Owners of Small Businesses:
- Have a blurred and uninspiring vision.
- Are uncertain about the primary purpose of their business.
- Have no clear mission statement.
Owners of Big Businesses: Develop a clear vision of what they want to achieve in 20 — 50 years, hence how their business will continue after them.
Owners of Small Businesses: Focus on business growth.
Owners of Big Businesses: Focus on people's growth.
Owners of Small Businesses: Use people to grow their business.
Owners of Big Businesses: Use businesses to grow people.
Owners of Small Businesses: Do the critical work.
Owners of Big Businesses: Delegate all the work, except vision and thinking.
Owners of Small Businesses: See workers as monkeys and so pay peanuts since their people do only a little work.
Owners of Big Businesses:
- See workers as the most essential resource.
- Pay handsomely since their employees do all the work.
Owners of Small Businesses:
- Trust no one.
- Believe that none of their workers except themselves can do the job well, engage in negotiations, save them money, and conduct the interview.
Owners of Big Businesses:
- Trust and believe in their workers.
- Allow people to make honest mistakes and learn.
- Are tolerant and have confidence in people.
Owners of Small Businesses: Do not teach workers.
Owners of Big Businesses: Coach, teach, train and grow workers to become leaders.
Owners of Small Businesses: Nurse the secrecy of finance, bank statements, income, and expenditures.
Owners of Big Businesses: Exercise free flow of information.
Owners of Small Businesses: Rule by fear.
Owners of Big Businesses:
- Rule by love.
- See the organization as a happy family.
- Regularly inspire and motivate their workers.
Owners of Small Businesses:
Monopolize responsibility and authority.
Owners of Big Businesses:
- Empower their workers.
- Share responsibility and authority.
Small Business owners cannot afford to leave their business since every growth depends on them; vacation is unadvisable.
Owners of Big Businesses: Are always on retreat, recharging their batteries and resting their brains, gathering new information, attending seminars, and sometimes relaxing their muscles.
Owners of Small Businesses:
- Are active in the rat race.
- Must keep running, or the business will grind to a halt.
- Must never be sick for long.
Owners of Big Businesses: Are not in the rat race. The business continues whether or not the owner is around.
Owners of Small Businesses: Hand over to their children on retirement, or the business dies with them.
Owners of Big Businesses: Retire young when in strength and have time and passion for growing successors.
Owners of Small Businesses: Are always busy and have no time to take advantage of opportunities outside their circle of business.
Owners of Big Businesses: Do nothing except active thinking and, therefore, grow a business empire and develop a conglomerate.
Owners of Small Businesses: Employers and employees have no job security since the owner is indispensable, e.g. in poor health.
Owners of Big Businesses:
- Are often in good health, as a matter of fact, since they are not too busy.
- Change their environment often and have time to recreate and check up on themselves. Job security is high; job continuity does not depend on the owner.
Owners of Small Businesses: Suffer low self-image, lack confidence, and therefore feel incompetent. The business place is a low self-esteem environment since the workers do insignificant jobs.
Owners of Big Businesses: Have a high self-image. The business place is a high self-esteem environment since the workers are involved in decision making, feel valuable, confident, and competent.
Owners of Small Businesses: Are either comfortable or rich, while the workers are poor or miserable.
Owners of Big Businesses: Are wealthy, while the workers are either comfortable or rich.
Owners of Small Businesses: Go to the bank.
Owners of Big Businesses: Have workers go to the bank or, better still, the bank comes to them.
Owners of Small Businesses: Are often overworked and overstressed.
Owners of Big Businesses: Always find fulfilment.
Owners of Small Businesses: Delegate enjoyment to staff and family members since they have poverty of time. Someone must spend the money.
Owners of Big Businesses: Enjoy their money, often travel and learn about other people, nations, and great cities. "The whole world is a big book, those who do not travel read only one page".
Owners of Small Businesses: Don't live a balanced life.
Owners of Big Businesses: Live a balanced life of work, play, and family.
You are welcome back. Do you now see the reason why owning a big business is more beneficial?
If you still believe sticking with a small business is better, you may need no further to read this article. It may be the last article of business information that will catch your interest. You may have read it too soon. I can safely suggest you share this article with a friend or a promising colleague. It will interest your competitor.
Should you aspire and decide to build a big business, you will have a lifetime adventure of discovering the ways of getting great results with least effort. You will never again carry the folly that further learning must end after university education.
My good friend, from the bottom of my heart, I thank you for coming with me this far. We are here essentially not to see through one another but to see one another through. We are in the same boat in this stormy sea called life. Sail we must, sink, we mustn't.
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Business and Finance