thinking/critical

Most of us spend our lives growing into an ability to face reality, only to find out that reality isn’t all its cracked up to be. After all, it can’t take you anywhere else but here, can it?

The biggest danger to a business owner is lack of originality – generally demonstrated by virtue of getting trapped in his or her industry’s trends. Industry trend following simply turns your business into a commodity business. Avoid the trap, and maintain your margins.

People avoid leadership responsibility for many different reasons. Perhaps the most powerful reason is that true leadership involves the most humbling personal sacrifice.

The difference between small and large business is a difference of scale. All the same things need to be done, from sales to service, from information management to product development, from ordering supplies to cleaning the bathroom. And don’t forget the taxman. It is no surprise that business owners find themselves far far from the activities that drive revenue and profits – and they don’t know how they got there. This small exercise could mean the difference between a day well spent, and a day sent down the well.

No, I don’t believe innovation is unimportant. I do think the word is over-used, and I think people would rather attend expensive seminars in San Francisco to learn about it than actually engage in it. But I think it’s important. I also think it is woefully misunderstood. And I think the primary reason for our ongoing misunderstanding is our failure to recognize the importance of relevance.

Here’s where the confusion between chaos and order, creativity and confusion begins to cost. The entrepreneur is generally a person who dislikes any restrictions on their freedom. They don’t want a boss, they don’t want to follow rules, and they don’t want to be told what to do. Creation of systems is not their strong suit. Not only that, but they resent any system to which they are subjected. But the dynamics of communicating and planning with 3 people are significantly different than the dynamics of communicating and planning with 20 people. And the challenges expand exponentially with each doubling of the workforce. Systems, the very thing renounced by the entrepreneur, are necessary to grease the wheels of a group of people trying to work together effectively.

The answer to what business are you in is trickier. The enduring challenge of business is to figure out what will provide profits. One of the major failings of most small business owners is the fact that they are unwilling to shift gears and turn attention to what earns them profits. That may sound crazy, but it happens all the time.

I’ve seen really bad ideas get out of the starting gate and get implemented – and cost a fortune year after year as the entrepreneurs behind them desperately try to justify their original decision. I have one word here – euthanasia. Not of the executives, but of their bad ideas. Unfortunately, this doesn’t happen often enough, because it takes more courage to kill a bad idea than to put it on life support.

How hungry is your heart? If you can’t tolerate going to bed at night with a flutter of anxiety, if you can’t stand the idea of working 80 hours a week and still feeling like you haven’t done enough, if you can’t tolerate the idea of being unsuccessful with this venture, there are other career options for you that would be better than this one. You could buy a franchise. I’d suggest Chik-fil-A if you can get past the screening process.

These three ideas are so simple, yet they are profoundly effective in helping you build your business. Why? Because selling doesn’t lead to relationships, but relationships do lead to sales. And relationships are a lot more fun.