If you are expecting only information regarding your business assets and liabilities, guess again. Running a successful business takes much more than excellent money management. Although one of the three budget essentials for your growing business naturally includes finances, the more important aspects of growth are budgeting your time and your sanity.



While you rightly assume budgeting finances are a necessary part of growing a successful business, the practice is far more difficult to accept. After all, you have a vision of what your entrepreneurial venture needs, and you want to provide the elements for building a bigger bottom line, in the least amount of time possible.

Unfortunately, you have steak ideas on a hamburger budget. Be patient! Spending money you do not have will not guarantee higher profits. Instead, you run the risk of losing what you already possess. More than one businessperson has put a home up for collateral, and lost. Do not be tempted to overextend your assets. Then, if your professional life hits hard times, your personal life is not sacrificed.

Which brings up another budgeting essential: guard your time. For example, many new businesses can be compared to a new baby. Both take an unreasonable amount of time and attention in the beginning. Naturally, you want to spend as much time as necessary to make sure your baby enterprise grows into a profitable experience.

However, do not become one of the individuals who are so concerned about reaching the pinnacle of success for the family, you forget the loved ones. For example, "Joe" has a wonderful business idea, in addition to the enthusiasm of 10 men. To nurture his idea to profitability, he works 16-18 hours per day, he is always taking business trips to attend educational seminars, and his cell phone seems to be surgically attached to his ear.

As a result, the kids do not see "Joe", except for a few moments on the weekends. His wife is starting to feel like she is married to a total stranger; and he has been eating reheated food for a year now. He has been so busy minding the store; he has let his family down. He forgets to budget his time to include his partner and his children.

Finally, it is absolutely essential that you budget your sanity. Is growing your business going to drive you insane? Not if you take care of yourself. Watch out work-a-holics! You may only require five hours of sleep per night; you may be driven to succeed yesterday; you may enjoy working. However, if you do not lay down the baton and take a break, you could end up pulling your hair out one day.

For instance, "Sue" is driven to succeed professionally. She eats, sleeps and breathes her business. If she is not at work, she is reading books on how to make her business better. If she is not reading, she is attending seminars to learn more about marketing, customer service, and employee management.

Then, the day comes when "Sue" checks with her bookkeeper, and the business is still not showing a profit, she has to fire an employee for lack of productivity-even though she likes her personally, and her family is about ready to commit mutiny because she has changed. She is never home anymore and never has the time to have fun. "Sue" falls into a deep depression, and if she does not figure out how to budget her sanity, along with everything else, she could lose everything she has worked so hard to achieve.

So, if you want to succeed in both your professional and personal life, practice the three budget essentials. Basically, do not dig a bigger financial hole than you can afford to crawl out of, if your business hits a snag. Spend quality time, away from the office, with the family. Do not eat, sleep, and breathe work, or you could be doing it alone. Finally and simply, take care of yourself. Do not put so much of yourself into the business that you fall apart, if it takes longer to prosper than you expect.

If you adhere to the three budget essentials, you will have a better chance of growing a successful enterprise. You will have the support of your family and friends. Plus, you may have a little time left over for yourself.