■ A fortnightly business advice column by Whakatāne accountant and business adviser, Jason Lougher

My son Ralph turned eight recently. Cake, too many kids in the house, a pile of presents that took about four minutes to get through.

At some point in the afternoon somebody asked him what he wants to be when he grows up.

An accountant, he said. Like Dad. Straight away, no hesitation, and I did not really know where to put my face. Poor bugger.

The part that got me was that he did not have to think about it and I did.

Ask an eight-year-old what he wants to do with his life and you get an answer in a second and a half.

Ask me whether I would pick the same thing all over again and I would probably want a walk and a coffee first.

I ask business owners a version of that question most weeks of the year.

What I usually get back is the sensible version.

Steady growth. Get through to Christmas. Bit less stress this year. All fair enough, and almost none of it is what those same people told me when they first sat down in front of me.

The thing is, nobody decides to want less. It happens a bit at a time.

Costs go up, a good staff member leaves badly, a season goes sideways, and each time the plan gets trimmed to fit the year in front of you.

Do that for long enough and you end up running a business you are genuinely good at and no longer all that interested in.

I see it a lot, and I want to be clear that it is not failure. Most of the owners who tell me they feel flat are running profitable, well organised, perfectly safe businesses. Nothing is broken. They have just stopped being in it.

I started doing something about that in my own business, and it was not a plan. It was the opposite.

I sat down with a blank page and worked backwards, and I have used the same four questions with a lot of people since. It takes about an hour, and you do not need anyone to facilitate it.

The first one is where you set out to get to. The original answer, the one you had before you knew what it would cost, not the version you would give the bank.

Most people find this harder than they expect, which tells you something on its own.

The second is what you have actually done since. Start at your first customer and work forward to last Tuesday.

This is the question that catches people out, because written down properly the list is always longer than they give themselves credit for.

We remember the couple of years we did not move and forget the 10 we did.

The third is what it taught you. The bad hire. The contract you should not have signed. The part of the business you carried a year longer than you should have. You have already paid for that education, so you may as well take delivery of it.

And the fourth is the one that matters. What would make you want to do this for another 10 years?

Asked on its own, that last question gets you something dutiful about systems and processes.

Asked with the other three sitting in front of you in your own handwriting, the answers come out specific, and they are almost never about money.

Getting back on the tools one day a week. Handing over the part of the job you have privately hated for six years to somebody who would actually enjoy it. Building the second site.

Taking six weeks off to find out whether the place runs without you. Getting rid of the type of customer you have come to dread.

None of that shows up in a budget, which is probably why nobody plans for it.

Recently, Tramel Edelsten - from Good Eastern Taphouse - in Rotorua said something to me that I have not been able to shake.

We all need to fall in love with our businesses every so often. She is right, and I have not found a better way to put it.

It sounds soft coming from an accountant, and I am aware of that.

But nobody expects a marriage to run for 30 years on the effort of the first one. You keep turning up, you keep making a bit of a fuss, you keep asking what the other party actually wants.

The business is the one relationship most of us never think about in those terms. It is just there, like the building. And it will keep going while you are thoroughly bored with it, which is the trap, because there is no particular day on which anything goes wrong.

So, if you have been feeling flat, do not start with the numbers. The numbers are probably fine.

Take the hour, take a blank page, and put your phone in another room.

Ralph, for his part, has his answer and no plans to revise it.

Which gives me about 10 years to make the job look worth it. Worth working out what yours is.

■ Jason Lougher is the owner of Calc Business Advisors & Chartered Accountants. Our team advise businesses throughout the Eastern Bay of Plenty — and across New Zealand. Like this article or want to chat? Feel free to send me an email: [email protected]