If you ever plan to be successful at bringing your ideas to
life and achieving a successful plan of action, then you must never let the
gears in your head stop turning. I sincerely believe that any business can be
successful but only if it is planned and implemented properly. It doesn’t
matter if you want to start a poop scoop business or a technology firm, if you
don’t follow the proper channels and devote 110% of your time to meeting your
goals, you most likely will not be successful.
I speak from real experience on this matter, as I have
failed more times than one and it took me a very long time to figure out why.
The answer is simple, I spent too much time thinking that I was a business
owner and could go fishing while my business made me money. Well, that did work
for a little while but after several years of not constantly plugging away at
how to become more successful, I went under. My business was the same size
after 5 years that it was the day I opened it. I was making sales, getting
plenty of time off and getting all the bills paid on time but what I wasn’t
doing was developing a business. All I really had was a job that I took
advantage of and my success quickly became failure.
Now, as my wife and I begin our journey into our new
business we can take all the mistakes that I have learned along the way and
implement a real plan of action. I should mention that my wife always supported
me and believed in me but she never quit her day job; and it’s a good thing.
Today, when I woke up I was thinking about our business and things I could do
to be productive. I have been sitting here at work all day thinking about ways
to be productive, what can I do when I get home? Should I work on the website
or should I work on our inventory? When I go to bed at night, I lay there
staring at the inside of my eyelids and thinking; what can I do next? What
could I have done differently today? I honestly do not even turn on my
television anymore. If I have time to watch TV then I have time to be
productive on our business.
This is what it takes people. The keywords that I am finding
to success are “Devotion”, “Dedication”, “Sacrifice”, “Commitment” and “Planning”.
I read a quote once from an unknown author that read like this: “A hunting trip
without a plan is nothing more than a walk in the woods”. As a hunter, I can
assure you that this is as accurate a statement as I have ever heard. Yes,
there are the occasional lucky ones that have success without planning but they
are few and far between. You could buy a lottery ticket and become a
millionaire overnight but only if you are the lucky 1 in 7.6 Million. I’m
sorry, but when it comes to the success of our business and the rest of our
lives, I personally do not like those odds.
You must have a solid plan and you must be willing to work
as hard and long as it takes to achieve your success. If you aren’t willing to
work a full time job and then come home and put in another 40 – 60 hours per
week trying to get your venture off the ground, then you may as well not even
begin. If you aren’t willing to give up some of your time in the night clubs
and on the lake or the 2 hours per night/day watching your favorite reality
series on television, then you shouldn’t even begin. Trust me, I know this to
be a fact (unless you’re just darn lucky of course).
On Saturday and Sunday mornings, we wake up and start the
coffee. Instead of flipping on the television and watching the programs that we
enjoy, we sit in the bed with our coffee and work on our business. Sometimes it
is making some of the items that we sell and other times, it is working on the
website and/or our social media presence. Either way, we are waking up thinking
about our venture and we are being productive over a cup of Joe. This is what
we have learned to be the key to success and we have every intention of being
successful at this business adventure. We are eating, sleeping and breathing
our ideas and will continue to do so as long as it is necessary to become a
success.
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