The proudest achievements of SMB owners across the country have been revealed in new MYOB research, and it’s clear that for the majority of you business isn’t business – it’s personal.
My previous blog post talked about the top three sacrifices business owners/managers had made since they started their business.
So let’s talk about your proudest achievements. According to MYOB research of more than a thousand small to medium business owners and managers, here are the top three:
- Having a child/children (54 percent very proud, 12 percent quite proud)
- Seeing my child/children do well in their studies and/or sports (49 percent very proud, 16 percent quite proud)
- Getting married/settling down with my partner (48 percent very proud, 19 percent quite proud).
Overall, there was more pride in achieving an array of personal/lifestyle milestones in contrast to achieving business milestones. However, the latter still ranked highly:
Milestone*:
- Having a child/children (quite proud: 12 percent; very proud: 54 percent)
- Seeing my child/children do well in their studies and/or sports (16 percent and 49 percent)
- Getting married/settling down with my partner (19 percent and 48 percent)
- Buying my first property (28 percent and 43 percent)
- Starting my own business (31 percent and 41 percent)
- Growing my business to a level that provides me with a comfortable living (36 percent and 34 percent)
- Paying off most or all of my mortgage (23 percent and 34 percent)
- Reaching my first month or year of profit in the business (32 percent and 33 percent)
- Making my first sale (29 percent and 32 percent)
- My graduating from university (17 percent and 24 percent)
- Helping others start their own business (21 percent and 12 percent)
What do you think? It became clear as day when MYOB CEO Tim Reed said “for Australia’s business owners, business isn’t business – it’s personal.”
Behind every business is a person – a person dedicated and committed to their business as well as their personal life. Whether it’s doing what it takes for their business or spending Saturday morning cheering their kids on at a footy match. Or both at once (we can thank technology for that).
It seems many large businesses and government departments forget the face behind the smaller businesses. As the engine-room of our economy, you all deserve to be recognised, congratulated and to be heard.
So if someone says that ‘you can’t have it all’, I wouldn’t worry – many of you already do.
What are your proudest achievements?
*NB: While not all respondents had started their business (88 percent had), it was still a more likely milestone than any of the personal milestones listed for respondents to rank (e.g. 75 percent had children).
