Starting a Business Videos

CONNIE HERNANDEZ: I think the most important warning I have for small business owners is, you have to decide from the beginning if this is going to be a revenue stream, or you are going to turn it into an asset. If it is a revenue stream, then things like sales and marketing aren’t even going to really concern you, because a revenue stream… I go to a chiropractor. And I told my chiropractor the other day, I said, “You know, you’re in a really tough business,” because the only way he can make more money is to increase his rates. There is only x amount of hours he can work. And if he wants to make more money he’s either going to have to take in other people, which brings its own set of problems, or he’s going to have to raise his rates. But for him, that business is a revenue stream—as soon as he can no longer work, he no longer has revenue, except whatever investments he’s chosen to make. And a lot of small businesses are in that position—they don’t know whether they are creating an asset or whether they are just creating a stream of revenues. And we know people—we have a friend who has been in business for 35 years, and he can’t quit, because if he quits, the revenues stop. So he has created a stream of revenue but he has not created an asset. We chose to try to create an asset. We want to create the processes and the systems so that even if we’re not here—if we choose to go live in Mexico for a year, the business is going to continue, it is its own entity, it is an asset.