According to Amy Osmond Cook, ask any leading
entrepreneur about the secrets to their success and you'll more than likely
find that it's often the valuable lessons that come through hardships, trials
and challenges that best serve their long game. Statistically, 90 percent of
startups fail. There's much to learn from the minority 10 percent that strike
it big, not the least of which is the simple fact that had they never even
tried, they'd have failed by default.
In the search for
insight on what it takes to win, I asked three successful entrepreneurs -- the
head of a corporation, the head of a family of related organizations and an
individual businessowner -- to share what they've distilled from the flow of
collective experiences that channeled their paths to prosperity. Here is what
they said.
Redefine
your concept of failure
Every startup dreams of
making it big and sometimes that growth can't come fast enough. But, fast
growth can spell utter ruin when you lack the footing to keep pace. No one
knows this better than Doug Andrew, who is still paying for this lesson that
came in 1999, when his family was in the pre-Y2K emergency-preparedness kit
business.
Andrew's entire family,
including his six children, were involved in this "family
entrepreneur" experience of assembling the kits over an entire summer.
Even the kids' friends got involved. While the non-family employees received
paychecks each week, the Andrew clan collected nothing, believing their
position as stakeholders would pay off handsomely. They also knew that they'd
risk it all should something go wrong. "Disaster struck, all right, but in
a form that was unrelated to the feared Y2K rioting, computer failures or
storms," Andrew said.
That something came in
the form of a giant purchase request. "We got to work like never before,
creating the unprecedented number of kits," he explained. "The order
was delayed, postponed and delayed again -- until January 1, 2000, came and
went without much incident. At this point the order was canceled."
Doug was forced to
liquidate inventory for pennies on the dollar, refusing to take the bankruptcy
route. "The sum was large enough (in the multiple millions of dollars)
that I am continuing to resolve the final portions of that experience
today."
However, what Doug
calls the 'Summer of Failed Business' turned into a defining family experience.
"My children, who had spent an entire summer in hard labor, learned the
hardest entrepreneurship lesson of all: Sometimes deals fall through. But, as
time has moved on in the 18 years since this failure, my now-grown children
say, 'We didn't make any money, for the entire summer. But, that experience --
side by side, as a family -- was the best time of our lives.'"
Today, Andrew's Live
Abundant wealth and retirement strategies consulting enterprise has grown
exponentially -- by more than 1000 percent (10X) in just 48 months. He's
watched his company's revenue increase 10-fold with many of his former
competitors becoming clients. And he's done this with two of his sons at his
side: Emron Andrew as CEO and Aaron Andrew as the company's top financial
consultant. The "failed'' family entrepreneurial endeavor compelled both
sons to create financial footing for themselves at early ages. They co-authored
"Millionaire by Thirty" with their father, whose work has landed on
The New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller lists.
Reconsider
what you believe to be impossible
Who defines what's
"possible?" In many cases, when you approach problems from a new
perspective, an obstacle you consider to be insurmountable turns out to be the
construct of your own problem-solving approach. Take the case of Steve Down,
founder of Even Stevens, a sandwich shop that donates a sandwich of equal
nutritional value to the community's hungry for every sandwich sold.
Several years ago,
while enjoying a delicious hoagie at a Denver restaurant, Down's assistant
remarked, "How could a person possibly improve upon this?" His
assistant challenged him to come up with an idea before lunch was over and he
did. Compelled by the Tom's Shoes model in which Tom's gives away a pair of
shoes for each pair sold, Down envisioned his concept for direct-match eatery
altruism.
The model seemed
impossible in the restaurant industry -- a sector beset by high volume and low
margin. To address this challenge, Down selected a CEO who had led two prior
successful restaurant chains and paired that individual with a leader from an
entirely different industry to find efficiencies that had never before been
considered in food service.
Out of this thinking,
not only has Even Stevens become a highly profitable venture with 19 locations,
the company has contributed more than two million sandwiches to date. The
principles employed have become a theme Down believes is even more important
than "conscious capitalism" -- he calls it "cause
capitalism," and is passionate about teaching and using its principles
throughout his companies and speaks and writes about it everywhere he goes.
Focus
on one thing
A longtime
entrepreneur, Alysa Rushton noticed that most business owners are focused on
far too many things at once, which means constantly divided attention, slow and
incremental progress and an inability to realize huge leaps and gains. But, the
magic happens, she's learned, when you focus on one thing in your business.
Are you interested in
strategy or execution? Are you trying to offer a broad range of products or
services in hopes that something will truly take off? These are questions you
should be asking yourself and at the core, you have to have a good grasp on
your primary objective -- the one thing that works, not the many that don't.
In Rushton's case, she zeroed
in on one of her online courses. She soon realized that when she gave it her
undivided focus, the single course produced six figures in revenue very
quickly. "What I learned in this process is that you don't necessarily get
things right immediately out of the gate," she said. "There is a
process of refinement that needs to happen with any great new idea, but that if
you stick with it and continue to improve and evolve your best idea, you'll
create a massive impact and generate great income."
Struggles and setbacks
are part of the startup game and all opportunities come at a cost. But, even
the price of failure can yield great dividends. The sooner you embrace this
reality and leverage it to your advantage by re-framing your approach, the
sooner you'll succeed. It's all just a matter of perspective.
#DubemickyInspiringGreatnessDaily.
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