Way back in the last century (1991, actually) a survey was conducted by my research firm, MarketWave, Inc., of over 6,000 people who were not, nor had ever been, business owners. The question was a simple one: If all obstacles were removed, would you like to own your own business?

In other words, if what ever was stopping you from starting a business didn’t exist, would you at least attempt it? Basically, would you prefer to be an entrepreneur, or an employee? Eighty five percent said Yes, they’d prefer to work for themselves. Which means 15% misunderstood the question on the survey.

After all, if what ever concerned you enough to not attempt a business venture didn’t exist, then you’d have no fear of doing so. I mean, who wouldn’t want to be in control of their own life? To have the freedom to make their own decisions, work their own hours, and write their own pay check?

Even using the conservative 85% figure, that would mean about 200 million Americans want to start their own business, but have never even attempted it! There must be some pretty compelling reasons, we thought, so we set out to find out what they were. To no one’s surprise, it was never about preferring to work for someone else’s business, but rather the incapacitated fear of starting their own.

And it was the same four fears, every single time.

It takes too much money. They didn’t have tens-of-thousands, or hundreds-of-thousands of dollars to invest in a business (and they didn’t know anyone else who did).

It takes too much time. They didn’t want to work 80 hours a weeks for the first year or two to get their business going.

There’s too much risk. Over 56% of all businesses fail in the first two years, and they’d have to quit their job, so there was no safety net.

They didn’t know how. They’d never taken any business courses. They had no business experience. They don’t know anything about taxes, accounting, marketing, and they myriad other skills a good entrepreneur must possess.

Not all responded with all four objections, although most responded with more than one. Surprisingly, “I don’t know how” was the most common response. A lot of folks said they wished they had taken the plunge earlier in their lives, but they just weren’t the Mavericks they once were. They had a mortgage to pay and a family to feed. They felt is was “too late”.

Now comes the fun part.

Would you ever consider going into business for yourself if…

Read full article by Len Clements at MLM Insider

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