I spent a little over an hour (was busy, that was all the time I could carve out to watch TV) watching the Winter Olympics tonight. Tonight there was a lot on the Men's Figure Skating, Short Program. It was pretty amazing what these guys can do on the ice. What is even more amazing is how much time and dedication they put into preparing for this event. The work involved is nothing new, but as I watched some of the backgrounds of the people competing, I am reminded of how much work goes into your own small business.
If we put as much time and dedication into our businesses as these Olympic athletes do, we would all probably be doing very well in our respective operations. No matter what problems may befall these athletes, they manage to overcome and put on amazing performances. We as business people have to remember to apply the same amount of time and effort into our businesses as the Olympic athletes put into their performances. We may have bad days, or the economy may be taking it's toll on our particular line, but, if we really and truly spent as much effort as the athletes do in their profession, we would most likely not be struggling in business.
Working your own, home based business is tough. But with preparation, planning, practice and ultimately execution, your business will develop and grow. It has to, despite the economic factors. In business, you should not just have one and only one form of income. If you walk into any store, you don't just see one product for sale. Even if it is one TYPE of product, it is not just one product. You have to make contingency plans. You have to plan that if one item doesn't sell, or there are problems, or whatever, that you can easily move to another item that will sell. Just like the Olympic athletes that may make a mistake in a routine. If they mess up in one place, they have trained to make it up elsewhere. They do not stop in the middle of the competition and decide they are done. They rely on their training, complete the routine (even if there were mistakes) and work to make the best of what they have left. They do not quit.
Small business owners should take the same approach. The athletes plan, and train and plan some more. They develop contingency plans, they build in alternatives, they expect to do one routine, but depending on the current situation, they may change the routine a little to suit the new, revised situation. As small business owners, we too have to plan, train, and plan some more. We have a plan, but we need alternate plans and approaches to what may be the same problem. We cannot just go out and expect our perfect plan will work in an imperfect world. We need to be realistic, but we need to have the determination to work things through.
Olympic athletes train at least 4 years, and for many, most of their lives to have an opportunity to compete on this scale. Why wouldn't we as business owners put the same amount of work into our businesses. The athletes don't think of their training as work, it is more of a passion, a way of life for them. They love what they do. We should also look at our business as a way of life, a passion. If you don't like what you are doing, then why are you doing it? You have to be passionate about your business, or it will not survive. I have seen many successful businesses ultimately fail because the owners lost the passion for the business.
If we spent as much time working and planning our business as the athletes do to prepare for the Olympics, we will all be like Olympians. One thing to perhaps consider is to find a coach or mentor for you and your small business. The athletes all have coaches, someone who will root them on when times get tough, someone who will be there to lend a shoulder to cry on. We all need a coach or mentor, they can be a close friend, or a family member. But they really need to be someone who has experience in the business area you are working in or planning on working in.
In order to keep this blog short, I will defer the discussion of business mentors and coaches to tomorrow. But tonight I wanted to remind all the small business owners out there that in order to be successful in anything, be it business or sports, or ultimately the Olympics, you need to plan and train. Then you need to put a lot of time into training, continue planning and keep working the business. Very few small business will just start up and go without an extraordinary amount of work. But, like the athletes in the Olympics, once you put in all that work, then success will come your way.
Until tomorrow...
No comments:
Post a Comment