Expensive Hobbies for Business Owners

I was sitting here thinking about this past weekend when I went to watch a triathlon.  I was having a brief conversation with one of the participants who remarked how much money they spent on the training, equipment, and fees associated with the event.  There was the wetsuit, goggles, swim cap, new running shoes, road bike, running clothes, cap, hotel room before the event, all of the time training, and the list went on and on.  The one question I asked was, “Well was it worth it?” to which he eagerly replied, “Of course it was.” 

That is the one thing you will also notice about business.  Things…hobbies…can get out of control and rack up the business credit card in a hurry when you aren’t paying attention. I call them hobbies because some of them aren’t always neccessities. Let me give you some examples:

• uneccesary business lunches
• over the top sales spiffs
• business trips (bringing that one extra person just in case)
• buying that new employee the new office equipment instead of using perfectly good equipment you already have
• all of the other things that seem essential but really aren’t

The funny thing is that at the end of the day, you’d ask yourself, “Well was it worth it?” and you frequently won’t get a definitive answer either way. In most cases you can justify the extra expense…with enough time. You may find that if you have to get creative to justify an expense, it may be one you could have lived without.  Like the roadbike you paid $1400 for, which you conveniently tell yourself you will ride every weekend after your triathlon, we as business owners can also justify expenses.

I am NOT saying that you should not do sales spiffs or ever be safe and bring that extra person to meet that important client, but I am saying exercise judgment in your decisions. The trick is cutting down on as many of these expensive hobbies that we can truly live without.  Sometimes little things do add up. David Bach refers to this phenomenon as the Latte Factor.  Not much money, but when adding up all of the morning lattes over a month…it tends to be more significant than expected.  These hobbies can get out of control, so in the end watch out….and see how it affects your bottomline.