I will not let my small business make me small minded.
– Brendon Burchard
I love that quote. What is says to me is that, if you have a small business –and most new home salespeople are themselves a small business –you don’t have to be narrow minded. Instead of thinking within very tight, well-defined boundaries, you can choose to think outside the lines. Widen your view …expand your vision … diversify and multiply your options.
To grow your business, you want to think big; and by “big” I’m not suggesting that you need big money to succeed.
There is a myth out there that says it takes money to make money. This implies that you
must start with a lot of money to make a lot of money. If that were really true, how could
Steve Jobs, David Oreck, Bill Gates, Rachel Ray and countless others have
succeeded? They had very little seed money.
Jobs founded Apple with $1,300. Dell, a pre-med student, started his computer
company with $1,000 in his dorm room then dropped out of college at age 19 to build it.
Five years ago, he donated $50 million to his drop-out alma mater, the University of
Texas.
John Mackey and Renee Hardy borrowed money from friends and family to open a small
natural foods store in Austin, Texas, which became Whole Foods Market.
Ross Perot founded Electronic Data Systems with $1,000.
Newly-married Ruth & Elliot Handler started a business in their garage that expanded
into the top toymaker in the world, Mattel.
In 1995, in Pierre Omidyar’s living room, he wrote the technical code that would allow
him to start a web-based company called eBay. Within three years, it was ranked
number 326 on the Fortune-500 list of companies.
Two teachers and a writer invested $1,350 each in 1971 to open a Chicago coffee shop
that evolved into Starbucks.
Adolph Coors invested $2,000 to form Coors Brewing Company, one of the largest in the
world.
Each one of these small business owners proved that, to succeed, you don’t need
unlimited resources. You just need unlimited resourcefulness.
Big businesses are grown by people who prove they have the resourcefulness to grow
small companies.
Being resourceful means making the most of the time, energy, money, connections,
health, talents, passions, and other assets you have. Use them to overcome obstacles,
to find overlooked clients, to achieve over-the-top results and to overtake your
competition by envisioning success where others see failure.
Teddy Roosevelt summed it up this way: “Do what you can with what you have where
you are.”
Be a person of resourcefulness who thinks big.
