Start Small Finish Big : Fifteen Key Lessons to Start - and Run - Your Own Successful Business (9781627040068) by Deluca Fred; Hayes John P

Author:Deluca, Fred; Hayes, John P. [DeLuca, Fred]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: management, franchising, Entrepreneurship, leadership, Subway, micro lending
Publisher: Lightning Source Inc
Published: 2013-01-29T05:00:00+00:00

chapter eleven

Be Positive

America’s Dean of Motivation, Zig Ziglar, failed seventeen times before succeeding in the speaking business. He’s proof that the School of Hard Knocks won’t fail anyone who maintains a positive attitude!

As I look back on nearly thirty-five years of building and expanding Subway, I realize that my best experience was gained in the School of Hard Knocks. By doing my daily work I learned by trial and error how to rent a good location, how to make a sign, how to advertise, how to take inventory, how to train employees, how to attract customers, how to cut costs, and how to create systems that would ultimately produce a streamlined, highly organized, and profitable company.

The daily routine of doing my work, of doing things important to the business, gave me the crucial experience that I lacked and needed to succeed as an entrepreneur. I didn’t always learn by doing things right the first time. Often I learned by doing things wrong the first time and sometimes the second or even the third time. I’d have to step back, make adjustments, and try again and again to get on track. Often the work was frustrating, painful, routine, boring, and occasionally discouraging.

Over time I discovered that regardless of background, expertise, and education, many other entrepreneurs also earned their stripes by trial and error. They didn’t have all the answers when they started their businesses and they didn’t have the experiences they would need to build successful companies. They learned by doing the daily work.

Even very successful entrepreneurs continue to learn by doing their daily work. While being enrolled in the School of Hard Knocks is not always a pleasant experience, it is an important part of everyone’s business development.

The school doesn’t feed you the answers. It’s more of a learn-as-you-go, trial-and-error system. The curriculum at the school is often grueling, and some entrepreneurs repeat it several times with different businesses before they succeed.

Hard knocks can discourage people, and they can even destroy the ambition of others. The key to avoiding discouragement is to remember that all of your experiences and all of those hard knocks will help you do better in the future.

You never graduate from the School of Hard Knocks because in business there are always more challenges. You may start your business with a destination in mind, and you may work extremely hard along the way, but you probably won’t get to your destination in a straight line. In fact, sometimes you have to move backward before you can go forward again.

Problems arise, many of them unanticipated. There are supplier problems, cash flow problems, and people problems. Plus, there are new ideas, new technologies, new obstacles, new rules and regulations. Just when you think you’ve learned it all, the school knocks you back a grade. Discouraging though it may be, that’s the way it works when you’re an entrepreneur.

Even if yours is a very small one-person business that you’re operating from home, or from a garage, or from a small office, you’ll still be learning new lessons every day.

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