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Dr. Marshack's Book
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Available At
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SELF-ASSESSMENT EXERCISE |
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YOUR BUSINESS LIFE PLAN
Excerpted from ENTREPRENEURIAL COUPLES: Making It Work at Work and at Home.
Your Business Plan
Answer the following questions as honestly as you can. There are no right or wrong answers. The purpose of this exercise is to help you identify your business/career values and goals so that you can pursue and develop a business or career that embodies them.
- Describe why you and your partner chose to work together as an entrepreneurial couple.
- Whose idea was it to start the business?
- How did you pick the service or product to market?
- Who is the boss? Why?
- How did your parents make decisions, especially if they were an entrepreneurial couple?
- If you had a million dollars would you sell your business? Ten million? A hundred million?
- Describe your business goals in terms of their meaning to you, your partner and your family.
- What plans have you made for your business when you retire?
- Could your spouse step in and run things if you were disabled or deceased?
- In what ways have you prepared your children for participating in the business?
- Describe one of your greatest business failures and what you learned from it.
- What are you most proud of with regard to your business?
- How are you and your partner viewed in the community as a business couple?
- What image does your business have in the community? What Iimage would you like it to have?
- If you could start all over again, how would you design your business differently?
Evaluating Your Responses
There are many more questions that I could ask you, but if you have been honest, you are off to a good start on brainstorming for your business life plan. Notice patterns and themes. Notice contradictions and inconsistencies. Marvel at and appreciate the ways in which you and your partner are "in sync." The questions and directives given here may spur you to many discussions. I hope so. Notice where you and your partner agree and disagree. You may be even more confused before you are finished. Do not be discouraged. Confusion often indicates that old, encrusted foolish consistencies have been knocked loose and are rattling around until you can find a new organization or framework for your life.
Summarizing Remark
Write one sentence or a brief paragraph summarizing what you learned from this exercise and what you want to change.
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