Or maybe you want to buy a tutoring service franchise because you like more structure, a chain of command, someone to ask for help. Maybe you're used to a more regimented business organization with business systems to follow. Maybe you're not an educator and need support with the education or tutoring end of the business.

Seriously, if you choose either path, personality is one of the most critical areas for you to honestly assess before taking the plunge. It's a mistake to go any further in the planning stage until you give yourself an honest evaluation on personality.

So lets begin in the beginning before we talk about choice of business entities, tax considerations, insurance, business systems...zzzzzzzzz.

When you start adding people (I mean office staff as well as tutors for tutoring different subjects, and clients) to your business, stress goes up. The success of your small business will depend greatly on your personality and your ability to keep stress in check.

Do you have savings or accessible investments to cover your expenses until your business is in the black? Ask yourself: what would happen if everything went wrong? What's my worst case scenario? Would this absolutely crush you, or would you rebound and be wiser for the experience? Are you beginning to see how small business success and personality go hand in hand?

You really need to FEEL this in your bones. The feeling of absolute panic where the walls are closing in. No escape. No tomorrow. You're house is being forclosed, your cars are being repossesed, you owe, owe, owe, and have no where else to turn. Still smiling? Still think your plan for small business success and personality fit together? Wonderful!

Are you a natural worrier? Do you stress easily? Or are you stress resistant. Only you can answer these questions honestly.

Businesses usually don't like to talk about "feelings", but you need to think this through. Because small business success and personality has everything to do with how you “feel”.

How would your life be different if you start waking up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat, heart racing? Do you already do this? Do you have good medical insurance?

I'm only partially kidding here because stress is a killer, no joke. And more importantly, how does your body deal with stress?

Time for a little stress story. I tend to internalize problems. I'm not a shouter, crier, screamer or erupter. I just stay quiet and try to figure it out internally. When I was in law school, about my second year, I began losing blotches of hair.

I didn't feel as though I was under more stress (although subconsciously I knew I was). The problem with how your body handles stress is that you generally don't feel it until the stress reveals itself in a physical manner.

I'll spare you other maladies that my doctor attributes to stress, but believe me, they aren't pretty, and they are most definitely disconcerting when they appear.

Be prepared to make a bunch of mistakes.

Do you need someone to hold your hand when you make decisions? Are you hesitant to make decisions? Do you have problems with self motivation? Are the answers to these questions depressing you?

Let's switch to more positive questions. Do you like having the final say on how things work? Do you have a naturally optimistic outlook on life? Do you have a "can do" attitude? Do you like to fix thing of solve problems? Would you like more control of your financial future? Are you fairly stress-resistant? Small business success and personality have everything to do with how you handle these stressors, and situations. If you're still depressed, maybe this isn't for you.

Here's the bottom line on small business success and personality. Starting a tutoring service is stressful. Certain types of business personalities tend to deal with this better than others.

Money will be tight, you will work longer hours, it's never as simple as you had anticipated, people are more difficult to deal with, the business won't grow as fast as you wanted, some people won't like you (no matter what), schools will think you're blaming them, tutors won't show up for tutoring, kids won't show up for tutoring, parents will want to reschedule because baseball, football, soccer, basketball, vollyball, track practice will be more important, parents will try to tutor as little as possible (saving money) and expect miracles (their kids will be on honor roll by the end of the week).