Last year I conducted a survey where I asked about 50 small creative product businesses a wide variety of questions, ranging from how they managed their costs to what sort of turnover they were producing. One quite startling figure that arose from this research was that a whopping 75% of the business owners I surveyed did not pay themselves from their creative product business!

Paying yourself is something I’m really passionate about. Yes, it makes sense to keep money in the business to help it grow but if you’re not paying yourself from your business then how much freedom and flexibility, as a business owner, do you really have? You shouldn’t be working for your business, your business should be working for you.

In episode 12 of The Resilient Retail Game Plan, we’ll look at a number of key points that will help you start paying yourself as quickly as possible. We’ll look at reviewing profit margins and the importance of understanding the fundamentals of your business costs, as well as developing a cash-flow forecast from your sales plan and taking the fear out of taking money out of the business. We’ll also discuss the importance of controlling the biggest cost in your business - your stock; and how even if it’s just buying yourself a coffee every morning that paying yourself is essential to stop your business from devouring every bit of cash available as it grows.