Tuesday, May 8, 2007

Walking Off the Cliff

There are a lot of things they don’t tell you in business school about running your own business. Probably because they don’t want to scare you off.

There’s a lot of talk about needing to have marketing talent, financial savvy, an analytical mind and brilliant negotiation skills. What they don’t tell you is that most of all, you’re going to need a bottomless supply of courage.

When you start a company, if you’re like most, you feel like you’re walking off a cliff. You’re doing something you believe in, but that you’ve never done before. The unknown is scary, deep and, well, unknown. After a while, you get more comfortable as you successfully overcome obstacles and grow. Then, you hit a situation that is new — a transition to the next step of the business — like hiring a management team, opening a new location, or entering a new markets.

Then you realize, “walking off the cliff” the first time was only the beginning. There are many more stomach-in-your-throat moments to face.

Standing on the edge of a cliff, especially after you’ve survived the original leap, can be a very dangerous time. You might shy away from taking new risks because, unlike the situation at the beginning, you may have much more to lose now if you are wrong. Or, you know how to run the business as it is, but not how to run it as it will be.

Most companies cannot stay where they are; the force to grow is pulls at them like the tide pulls out the moon. So, the new “walk off the cliff” has to be taken at each transition point.

Author Barry J. Moltz sums it up in the title of his book, You Need to Be a Little Crazy: The Truth About Starting and Growing Your Own Business. He says, you not only need courage, you actually need to be a lunatic. “You need to be a lunatic who has a steadfast long-term belief in her vision — a lunatic who will try anything, ask anyone for everything, and see everyone as a source of help. You also need to be comfortable being alone in your beliefs because the only thing others will agree with you on is that you are indeed crazy.”

Only someone who is crazy, and courageous, and an occasional cliff jumper can survive the challenges and transitions that a business brings.

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