A question that consistently comes up is how to know when you’re ready and able to go full time with your Amazon business. Most of you work a full time job and you’re ready to get out. The thing that no one ever talks about is the transition period.
It’s easy to know when to get started (literally right now) and what life would look like after the transition, but what about the middle ground?
The transition period can be a make or break point – you either quit your job too soon and cannot support yourself or family, or you never end up going full time and making that transition at all because you’re too afraid that it isn’t the right time.
Here’s our little framework to better position yourself for the transition and knowing when it’s the right time, no matter what your circumstances are.
It’s important to note that if you love your job, but you want more income, you never have to actually quit your job to grow your business and income.
Lowering Your expenses
In order to ease this transition period and hopefully decrease the time it takes you to get to that point, you’ll want to decrease your expenses. Sure, that’s super simple and basic Dillon. Give me something I can actually use, you’re saying, but hang on. As with many things we talk about on this blog, it’s the simple things that have the highest impact on your success. So start by lowering your expenses – the bigger the gap between your expenses and your income, the more comfortable you’ll be able to make the decision to go full-time.
Having lower expenses will also decrease how much income you’ll need to go full time with your Amazon business.
Knowing Your Risk Tolerance
Knowing how much risk you’re able to handle is very important as well. Being a single twenty-something guy allows a bit more flexibility than having a wife (or husband) and children to support as well.
Be very self-aware of your personal situation and base your decision knowing what works for you. Should you wait until you’re bringing in $10,000 a month in profit before you quit your job or could you move to Thailand and live off $1,000 a month like a King/Queen for a year while building your empire?
That’s completely up to you.
The Failsafe Method For Going Full Time
The easiest way to know it’s time was taught to me very young by my step-father who had dealt with this exact situation when he started his company many years ago – Go full time only when your day job is getting in the way of making more money with your own business.
That does not mean making more money in the sense of opportunity, but factually keeping you from making more cold-hard-cash.
When you’re completely exhausted and cannot give any more, when you’re maximizing your business’ growth but you need more time, this is when you can begin to consider going full time and quitting your job.
You’ll want to ensure you can still cover your expenses with ease at this stage (remember to lower your expenses!) and the transition is a relatively easy one to make.
The only time this transition becomes difficult is when you cannot support yourself, but you go full time anyways. Not only is this risky, but it could be the downfall to your company and have you back at the job you hated to begin with to pay the bills.
I want you to sit down and really figure out where you are within this framework – risk tolerance level, expenses and if your job is actually getting in the way or not. Once you have these very simple answers, you can effectively make the decision to go full time or not.
Either way, we’re incredibly happy that we can be a part of your journey 🙂
About The Author: Dillon Carter
Hi, with James, we're building Amazon tools that we wish we had when starting our own companies. We love tech, coffee, building systems and all things Amazon.
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