Posts Tagged ‘entrepreneur’

“If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will take you there.”

…said the Cheshire Cat to Alice in Wonderland.  Those words are also the chorus of George Harrison’s song, Any Road.  

Small business owners, entrepreneurs and solopreneurs: do you know where you’re going?  Do you have written goals to get you there? 

My guess (and my hope) is that if you’re a small business owner with employees, you have written goals.  Creating a strategic plan and implementing that plan is a given in big business. However, planning strategically and purposefully — for your business as well as your life — is something solo entrepreneurs don’t always do. 

I’ve witnessed first-hand the power of the goal-setting process, both in my own business and with hundreds of clients over the last eleven years.  Being a huge advocate for clearly defined, well-stated goals that are in writing, I’ve decided to create a series of mini-articles here on my blog to guide you through the goal setting process. The very first step is for you – as a small business owner, entrepreneur or solopreneur – to buy into the fact that you must have goals.  

If you go into your garage, get in your car and back out of the driveway, what would happen if you didn’t know where you were going? What if you didn’t know if you wanted to go to Miami or Malibu? You must have a destination, a goal. 

Or try going to the airport, walking up to the ticket counter and saying “Can I have a ticket please?” The ticket agent will ask “What’s your destination?” (i.e. your goal) 

It’s plain and simple: “If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will take you there.” …and you may end up in someplace you don’t want to be.

Yesterday I went to Staples to ship an item UPS. (There’s no surcharge when you ship UPS from Staples.) Kelly, the customer service person, mentioned that the box was quite heavy and  I told her I had sold the item on eBay. She asked if I sell a lot of things on eBay. I replied that  I sell my own belongings that are no longer useful to me, but I have a friend (I’ll call her Monica) who has created an eBay business. Kelly was so blown away by Monica’s story that I want to share it with you.

I’ve known Monica for more than 25 years. She’s always been in sales and about 10 years ago decided to get into real estate so she’d have more flexibility and more time to spend with her kids. In November of ’06 when real estate sales had been down for a few months, Monica decided to be proactive and do something to supplement her income. A real collector and pack-rat, Monica started cleaning out her house from attic to basement and listing on eBay everything she no longer used. When she saw the potential, Monica expanded beyond her own belongings and today is an eBay Power Seller having sold nearly 3,000 items. Last year she earned nearly $30,000!

That Monica did this has never been surprising to me. But Kelly was blown away: she kept exclaiming “This is awesome! Monica is what America is about! She didn’t sit around complaining and she didn’t expect anyone to bail her out!”

So what about you? If you’re an entrepreneur whose business is down, are you sitting around buying into the recession? Are you waiting for a bailout?  Or have you taken the bull by the horns and decided – like Monica – to make lemonade out of lemons?