Are You Asking, “When Should I Close My Business?”

When should I close my business? This is a question that, if you’ve done any type of business, especially in the real world (i.e. not the internet), you eventually have to ask yourself, unless you’re raking in the dough, of course. And, while I can’t speak for the brick-and-mortar stores because I don’t have one, yet, anyway, the insight I have is for online businesses which are, inherently, quite a bit less expensive to run, in most cases, but the principles, I assume, are the same.

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That is to consider impacts in time, income, and mobility, to borrow the TIM model from Tim Conley at foolishadventure.com. Basically, if your business is taking so much time that it’s not worth it to you, energy-wise, family-wise, growth and progress-wise, or the income is not enough to keep the business afloat and still get the things you want and need out of life with no clear break-point, not break-even point, but a point where, in the future, you can know that you’ll be doing OK.

I’m not talking way in the future. I’m talking a couple years, four or five max. But at that point, man, it’s really hard if you’re just barely scraping by, to keep on going if it doesn’t look like there’s a clear growth rate. And then mobility. If it’s got you tied down to a certain schedule, certain location, certain way of doing things that you just can’t jive with after a while, and it has overcome and surpassed the passion you have for the project, these are things you have to consider.

Does that mean you just have to close it and be done with it, call it quits, go get another job, at a desk somewhere? Maybe not. Maybe you sell it and use that money to start a new one that fulfills the things that you’re looking for. Then that should probably be your aim. Nothing wrong with going back and getting a desk job until you figure things out, but once you take that freedom of owning your own business, might be a little bit harder to go back.

Consider the time, impact, and mobility in the equation of running your business and only you can truly know whether it’s the right time. Unless, of course, you’re spending $5,000 a day and you’re only bringing in $100. Then it’s a little obvious, but you already knew that. That’s why I’m giving you some advice that just might not be very obvious. There you go. TIM it up. Keep on tugging and I hope the decision becomes a little more clear to you and that you have good luck.