When you start out running your business, everything seems to move at 100 miles an hour.

You’re forced to think quickly, make snap decisions, and grind each day so you can ultimately build the business into the successful venture that you know it can be.

At first, waking up before sunrise to make a start or burning the midnight oil instead of attending social events is all part of the process, and you have to love every gritty moment of it to succeed.

However, the danger that you and many business owners face down the road is that you’ll end up making decisions out of habit, rather than because it’s what you want to be doing.

You can find yourself on autopilot, going through the motions simply because it’s what you do, rather than with a goal or purpose in mind.

At this stage, you might find that it’s the business that’s in control, rather than you.

So, here’s how to take back control of your business so that it’s working for you as it should be.

Taking control by defining your goals and purpose

To begin with, let’s go back to the moment you decided you were going to start your business. What were your motivations for starting your company? And what was the long-term plan to get there?

For many business owners, the answer to the first is simple: to provide yourself and your family with the income you’ll need to live the kind of lifestyle you want.

The second question, meanwhile, shows how you can achieve that initial goal of providing yourself with the money you need in the future.

Common examples of long-term plans for a business might be to:

– Sell the business to a third party, divest yourself entirely, and retire on the income the sale generates

– Name your successor, perhaps a child or trusted staff member, and again fully remove yourself

– Hand control over to someone else while remaining in an advisory or consultancy position.

Remind yourself of these ambitions to give yourself a sense of direction and purpose with your business.

Alongside these considerations, you should also think about what kind of lifestyle you envisaged the business supporting you in.

Do you want to go on multiple holidays a year? Or are you happy spending time at home with your family? Figuring out what you want from life will further help you take back control of your business, streamlining the decisions you make.

Knowing “your number”

Once you know your goals and your purpose, it’s time to think about “your number”. In fact, you may have read our previous blog in which we discussed why only one number really matters to business owners.

In it, we explained how your number is the figure you’ll need to live the lifestyle you want. Some of the elements you’ll need to consider to find your number include:

– Your wider goals and ambitions. Whether that’s to take a cruise around the world or play at every major golf course in the UK, these activities all have a defined cost.

– Daily living bills and expenses. You need to include everything you expect to spend on a weekly or monthly basis, from food and utilities to smaller leisure activities.

– An emergency budget. You should always have money set aside to live on in the event that you need it. Typical estimates usually suggest having at least one to two years’ expenses in retirement.

This figure is instrumental in taking back control of your business, as it defines what you need to achieve with your company.

It might help determine how aggressive the business strategy you pursue is over the next few years, or the amount of income you choose to draw each month.

Ultimately, it may even play a part in helping you decide how much you really need when selling your business. After all, if your number is £1.5 million, why hold out for a sale price of £2 million when you don’t really need it?

Working with an expert

When you’re looking to take back control of your business, it can be extraordinarily useful to work with a financial planner.

A planner can assist you in working out what you want, and how much you’ll need to get there. Additionally, they’ll be able to show you how your decisions you make now can affect the outcomes you’re able to achieve later on.

At Cordiner Wealth, we can help you to do exactly that. We can use cashflow modelling to show you different scenarios for your wealth, visually demonstrating the effects of the choices you make. This can focus your attention on the things that truly help you to achieve your ambitions.

We can then design and implement a range of strategies and methods that will help you to do this. Whether it’s creating an investment portfolio with a balance of risk and reward, or helping you find the allowances and exemptions that make your business as tax-efficient as possible, we’ll create a plan that’s specifically tailored to you and your needs.

If you’d like help working out your goals for the future and how much you’ll need to reach them, please do get in touch with us at Cordiner Wealth.

Email hello@cordinerwealth.co.uk or call 0113 262 1242 to find out how we can help you take control of your business.

Please note

The value of your investment can go down as well as up and you may not get back the full amount you invested. Past performance is not a reliable indicator of future performance.

This article is for information only. Please do not act based on anything you might read in this article. All contents are based on our understanding of HMRC legislation, which is subject to change.