We’ve said it before, but it bears repeating: if you’re considering buying a business do your business plan from the bottom up.

Yes, you have to get the marketing and sales right, but you have to take care of the bottom line, too.

For example, when I left a very good paying job at Ford to take over (with a partner) my family company, my wife made it known to me that she didn’t want to be deprived of the standard of living to which she’d become accustomed.

And she wanted a house just as nice in Reno as what we’d had in Dearborn.

And my business partner had to make similar promises to his wife, in order to relocate from Oakland.

What this meant in practical terms was that we were going to have to grow faster to get to our extra-financial objectives that we might have planned.

So, we pushed harder and maybe made some deals that we might not have otherwise, and we ran at the lengths of our financial capacity longer than we might otherwise have.

But it all turned our well, and my partner bought me out after seven years.

And I was off to new adventures in Scottsdale Arizona. And I had to make the same promises to my wife.

As they say, happy wife, happy life.