Is Total Freedom the Right Goal for a Business Owner?

Total freedom doesn't have to be the end goal of owning a business. For a service business owner, a useful goal may be having enough control to choose the responsibilities you want to keep, including providing stability for people who depend on you.

On The Friday Flush, host Eric Yim, co-founder of Protocol, asked email designer Brook Slagle about a possible future: a small group of clients, close relationships, strong income, and the ability to travel.

Brook's answer went somewhere else.

“Over the last three years I've been pivoting away from that freedom is the end goal to being able to provide a sense of stability for other people in my life.”

What happens when freedom means having as little responsibility as possible?

Brook called his earlier approach “freedom maxing.” He described being bought into having as little responsibility as possible, then realizing that it diluted meaning for him.

His view was direct: “By definition, the only way that anything is meaningful to you is because of the sacrifices you have to make for it.”

That's a personal view of meaning, not a rule every business owner has to adopt. But it raises a useful question: when you picture a better business, are you trying to remove every commitment, or make room for the ones you care about?

Which responsibilities do you want the business to support?

For a home service business owner, freedom might mean getting out of constant scheduling problems or being able to take time away. Those are reasonable goals. They don't require treating every responsibility as something to escape.

You might also want to offer dependable work to employees, stay available to longtime customers, or provide more stability at home. Those commitments take time and can limit your options. You may still decide they're worth keeping.

A practical way to think through this is to separate the responsibilities you value from the problems you want to fix. For example, wanting to support a crew doesn't mean you have to keep handling every scheduling change yourself. The commitment and the way you manage it are separate decisions.

How should that change your growth and marketing decisions?

Before deciding how much more work to pursue, write down what you want that work to support. “More leads” doesn't tell you whether you're trying to fill an existing schedule, support another hire, or build a smaller business around customers you want to keep serving.

Those goals can lead to different decisions. If stability is the priority, consider how additional work would fit your capacity and existing commitments. If more time away is the priority, consider who would handle customer communication and daily decisions before you increase demand.

This is planning guidance, not a promise that marketing will create freedom or stability on its own. Marketing can help you pursue work. You still have to decide what kind of business you want that work to sustain.

Brook's shift offers a useful place to start: name the people and commitments you want your business to support. Then decide which responsibilities to keep, share, or change.

Protocol Text is a marketing services business based in Lincoln, Nebraska.