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Building a Business is Really Simple
Get out of the garage.
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This article was published on April 04, 2011. So far, 2 people have left their thoughts. Share your own thoughts.
My friend Alan Wyngarden has done some adventure travel and says: “The hardest thing about climbing a mountain is just getting out of the garage.” Huh? Actually, it’s pure genius.
A year ago I shared a business concept with Alan around building intimate assisted living homes that I had heard about.
I didn’t have the inclination to do anything with it but wanted to see if others I knew might benefit from running with it. I shared it with a number of people who loved the idea, but only Alan gave birth to it.
Yesterday I attended the open house for his first home. It is gorgeous and Alan has the best people in the industry working for him, creating a unique, honoring and beautiful environment for those who need a little assistance at an advanced age. It even has raiaed gardens for them to plant without bending over – great stuff.
I chatted with Alan about this last summer and within a week he was moving on the idea, with the full dream realized yesterday, only a few months later. The others who thought it was a great idea never moved on it. Alan is thinking he’ll have five of these homes up and serving the elderly in the next year or so.
Building a business is really very simple. You just need to get out of the garage. As with climbing a mountain, the training isn’t the problem. It’s leaving the garage to DO the training that hangs us up. GETTING STARTED stops us more than any other thing in business. If we would just get started the rest of it would fall together for us.
But we wait. We research, we talk, we think, we plan, we collect data. We believe we need to get it all figured out before we move. But neither life nor business works that way.
Planning never creates movement, but movement can create a great plan.
Alan had no experience in the industry when he started moving. He just got out of the garage and started looking for a property, then started sniffing around to find those who might be able to help him build an expert team.
By the accounts of others who have been in the industry for years and who own many of these types of homes, he’s hit a home run with both his facility and his team. He didn’t get there by reading. He got out of his garage. And that movement created a marvelous plan.
Building a business is really quite simple. We just need to get out of the garage.
Speed of Execution is so important to success. What great idea are you sitting on that you just need to get out of your garage and get started?
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Elise Adams
04/11/11
Great post! I realized early on that I’d had just enough naivety to get going on my concepts….over the following months there has been honing and pruning involved….and now I’m at a place where growth is steady and the sky is truly the limit. I LOVE your statement that movement creates plans. Until this point, just past 6 months in to living/breathing/doing my business I am finally ready to make a solid ‘business plan. Although I’ve tried several times, there was much I needed to learn by the doing of ‘it’ first. This kinesthetic business model isn’t celebrated everywhere. I love reading your blog to hear this unique, doable, successful perspective!
Chuck
04/13/11
Elise,
Thx for the great feedback. And you’re right, this “Implement Now. Perfect as you go.” approach isn’t how academics and Harvard MBAs would have us do it.
Also, I use a simple 2-page Strategic Plan to run my business – have for years. The simpler the plan is the more likely we are to use it. I actually run most of it off the bottom of page 2 (what should I do this month to build a Mature Business?).
Complexity is alluring, but simplicity rules.