What business problem keeps you up at night?

Have you given much thought to how you became an entrepreneur?

Some of us became entrepreneurs out of necessity, either to supplement an existing income or to replace a primary source of income. Others may have become overwhelmed with the demands of work and wanted to have more of a work-family balance, and set up a business in hopes of achieving this balance. Still, others may have decided that they could ?build a better mousetrap? and started their own business to prove it. Whatever the reason, there are more self-employed people now than ever, that those numbers are growing.

In fact, the Small Business Administration estimates that there will be 6.6 million businesses WITH employees by 2005. That's a staggering number of folks who are out on their own. Yet, do we have the proper skills to build and grow a business? For most of us, the answer is "no".

We may have specific knowledge of a specific topic (auto mechanics, clerical skills, financial planning, etc.), but that does not qualify us to run and build a business--assuming that we want to grow beyond a one-person operation (or what I call a "Practice").

That's the focus of the new content I promised to add as I refocus on small and mid-sized business--how to grow beyond a 1, 2 or 3 person business that depends on the founder, to a robust business operation that is sustainable and/or marketable after the founder moves on to other opportunities.

Building a sustainable business is all about people and process (with a little technology thrown in for good measure).

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