Gene Marks on Professional vs. Emotional Investment

 
Do you think of your small business as your baby? Business expert Gene Marks recommends severing emotional ties in order to maintain a professional mentality.
 

Video Transcript

The professional mind set versus your emotional ties to your business. It’s such, it’s such a great issue because we all really do get emotionally tied to our business. It’s, it’s our baby. And, and you know, we’ve started this business and we created it from nothing and now I’ve got 5 people and oh, look at my office, it’s wonderful, and we love our clients, so it’s – it becomes like your baby. The smartest business people that I know, that I have met, and the ones that I’ve read about and the ones that I’ve interviewed, they have the exact opposite approach. You know, they do not look at their businesses – big or small – as their babies. They don’t get emotional about a business. They get emotional and passionate about their people, but a business is just assets. So when you, when you read about companies, big companies, when you read about well-known entrepreneurs that are investing in companies, selling off their investments, buying this company, carving off this division and selling that, buying that co – they’re, they’re doing it ‘cause they’re looking at a business as nothing more than an asset that provides return on investment, that has a lifespan, that might get to a certain stage that, look, you know, I’m, I – I can only run it so good to this stage. I’m going to sell it now ‘cause somebody might be able to do a better, you know, job with it going forward, plus I can get return on my money. So, you know, business people that I know that – I mean, businesses – it, it really is all about building value and getting your cash back out. It’s money. And the smartest business people that I know, the, the ones that are wealthiest, they don’t get so emotionally tied into their businesses that they own. They view them as assets and they are always thinking in their mind how am I going to get the most value out of this asset and when I going to cash out?

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