Who Should I Pay First?

If there is any skill most of us have brushed up on as a result of the deep in the economy,  it is this - thinking twice or even thrice before making any major financial decisions.  For a long time, I must confess I felt my business colleagues were simply nagging about nothing especially regarding their sales dwindling, until the wheel finally turned on me.

I must say, I have learned so much from the current state of the economy more than ever before.  One of this lessons is this - identifying and understanding my priorities and sticking with it regardless.

For a period in my business I put my overhead before paying myself.  So for instance, I would pay all of my staff and then take home whatever was left, if at all. 

Now, I have clearly identified my priorities. I have decided to pay myself first, hence my family first and then with anything left pay or hire additional help.  Frankly I had to go back to the drawing board and re-think, "Why am I in business?".  "Am I in business for my vendors, supplier or contractors or customers only?"  One of my primary reasons for being in business is

1. To fulfill God's heart desires for my life (helping people using business as a platform)

2. To support my family

Here is the moral of this - if you are in business for yourself and you are eager to have employees, my suggestion would be to wait, work and build your business to a point, where:

• You can simply pay yourself a decent amount first along with your monthly business expense essentials

Doing this will help you know how much you have left to spare to bring on more hands. I have found that paying yourself first, fuels your energy, passion and compensates you for your HARDWORK.  It urges you to carry on even when the going gets tough. 

If you are constantly putting yourself last on the payroll, guess what will ultimately happen? You will eventually quit or resign.  Think about it for a second - pick any one of your excellent, hard-working employees/contractors and choose to always pay them last with whatever you have left when everyone is paid or better still refuse to pay them because you have "more important" bills to pay first and watch if they'll stand right by yourside forever.

So why do business owners do this?  Why do we do this to ourselves and think we can get away with this strategy for as long as we think?

I'd love to hear your comments, what changes are you making?