For small business owners and entrepreneurs, there are two things that you
will eventually come to know—the sooner, the better: One is about what to
expect and the other is about what to depend on.
A
Proverb for Businesspeople
Proverb: a short, meaningful saying that states a general truth or
piece of advice.)
For the want of a nail the shoe was
lost,
For the want of a shoe the horse was lost,
For the want of a horse the rider was lost,
For the want of a rider the battle was lost,
For the want of a battle the kingdom was lost,
And all for the want of a horseshoe-nail.
Have you ever read this before? It’s
often attributed to U.S. founding father Benjamin Franklin, from a book he
published in 1758, but I recently learned that he was quoting an earlier
source; it first appeared in the 14th Century.
I’ve sort of told a half-truth,
though. It wasn’t written as a proverb for businesspeople. Yet, it relates
well to them. Read it again:
For the want of a nail the shoe was
lost,
For the want of a shoe the horse was lost,
For the want of a horse the rider was lost,
For the want of a rider the battle was lost,
For the want of a battle the kingdom was lost,
And all for the want of a horseshoe-nail.
Change
Is Not the Only Constant Thing
Well, now I am reaching back to 500
BC with Greek philosopher Heraclitus, whose opinion was that change is the only
constant thing in the universe. I’d like to modify this slightly:
In your business, challenge
is the only constant thing.
That is the first thing an entrepreneur
must eventually come to know (the sooner, the better). Expect challenges at
every level. Don’t get upset. Don’t freak out. Expect challenges and handle
them as they come.
A lot of people who start a business
think that the only challenge is, “How do I make a lot of money?” They believe
that as soon as they get their business built up and the money starts coming
in, the challenges are over.
I wish it were so, but it isn’t. As
you grow, you’ll face more challenges of different kinds. For instance, at the time
of MOBE’s greatest growth, I found myself having to handle a competitor who,
for many months, has been feeding off of our traffic for the purpose of trying
to discredit MOBE and drive our traffic to his offer.
This presented several challenges,
such as finding the time to address the concerns of our affiliates and the
public regarding this competitor’s false statements about MOBE. And let me tell
you, lawyering up is also a challenge financially.
So, large-scale success doesn’t mean
challenges are over. Your product runs its course; you have to dream up new
offers to keep people interested—challenge. You’ve got to delegate activities
to other people so you can devote more time to the highest-paying
activities—challenge. And on it goes.
The
Power of One
I frequently mention that as an
entrepreneur, you will learn more from your mistakes than from your successes.
Sometimes, you’ll achieve breakthroughs—moments of clarity when the truth hits
you—before you get any real success or failure.
Back in 2009, before MOBE existed, I
was an affiliate for another online company. I had invested $40,000—all the
money I had, really—and wasn’t making any sales. Different from what you get
with MOBE, this company had no back-end sales team and I had to do my own phone
sales. They didn’t provide any online presence and I had to learn to build my
own website. They conducted a webinar for new prospects every day. You’d direct
your leads to it and then call them afterwards and close them … hopefully.
So there I was … I’d quit school and
was at home, working this thing full-time. Eventually, I figured out how to
generate leads and started to get a steady flow. I wasn’t too skilled on the
phone back then, so when the time came to close deals, I’d lose. They always
had some reason for not moving forward.
One night, after losing what I felt
for sure was going to be my first sale, I said, “That’s it.” I had enough of
it. My head hurt. I was frustrated and I felt like screaming. (Maybe I did.) In
my mind, I blamed my sponsor and the company for lack of help. I blamed the
system.
I gave up and went running. That was
all I could do at the moment.
In the darkness, I ran, my attention
on only my breath and the ground under my feet. Suddenly, it came to me: I was
alone in this business. I was the only one I could depend on to get results. I
could not control my sponsor or the company or the “system.” I could only
control myself and my actions. At the end of the day, my results were my
responsibility and my responsibility alone.
It was after having this
breakthrough that I made my first sale and commission.
What
about That Horseshoe Nail?
So, have you given much thought to
that Ben Franklin proverb? Let’s read it one last time:
For the want of a nail the shoe was
lost,
For the want of a shoe the horse was lost,
For the want of a horse the rider was lost,
For the want of a rider the battle was lost,
For the want of a battle the kingdom was lost,
And all for the want of a horseshoe-nail.
I think, business-wise, it’s easy to
see that “the rider” is you, “the battle” is the building of your business, and
“the kingdom” is your success.
If you fail, you can’t set the
responsibility of failure on the stable boy (who should have handled that issue
with the nail). Rather, the rider—you—had the responsibility to check the
horse’s hooves to ensure that the shoes were nailed tightly in place before you
rode off.
This doesn’t mean you can’t have
help, but you need to have a thorough knowledge of the tasks you delegate so
you’ll know if they are being done correctly … or not. That’s a subject for
another article, though.
Expect that there will always be
challenges and remember to only depend on yourself to meet them.
Matt Lloyd
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