Valuable Lessons for an Entrepreneur 3 - Pay YOUrself

When I went home for the holidays I explained my business ideas to my uncle and how I am going to progress with them in the upcoming year. He questioned; “and how much are you going to pay yourself.”

“ What?!” This caught me completely off guard and the reality was that I was really not planning on giving myself a salary. This is because I have always viewed the personal satisfaction of your business making profits as a form of remuneration for the entrepreneur. I was not planning on paying myself a salary until I had hired the first batch of people and covered their salaries. Only then would I have created a Salaries expense for the business and thus been able to pay my own salary. Until then, my plan was to either continue working to ensure I earn or only take money from the business for myself if I was really struggling on getting by.

As part of our entrepreneur speaker’s series of lectures, we got a lecture from the entrepreneur who started Lobster Ink hospitality training, and only then did this significant lesson hit home for me. He emphasised how important it was to pay yourself what you deserve. If you have a salary target that you want to achieve by the end of the year or in what ever time period then make sure that you do what you need to do in your business, to reach your sales or profit targets, so you can reach that salary target. If you do not pay yourself, then you will start hating your business as you are not receiving or seeing any direct value of running it. This would be even more amplified if everyone else in your business is getting paid and you’re not. So in future I will definitely be rewarding myself monthly and work to be paid how much I want! After all, I will most certainly have earned it!