I'm Successful and I know it

I’m Successful and I Know It

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The Sale

If you own a business, are looking to start one or just love new idea’s, Shark Tank is probably your favorite show. Almost every other night when my wife and I are able to, we’ll sit in front of our TV and just debate one sided with or against the sharks. The show is a perfect reality for anyone wanting to grow and expand their business.

I’d like to invite you into a unique business opportunity that I fully believe will change the rest of your life, for the good. I’ve surveyed tens of Americans from all over this country and found something worth investing both your time and money in. I live in Orlando, with my company based primarily online and I am looking to expand my business beyond my home into stores, that I know the American people and even global citizens will find beneficial. I’m asking: $600,000 for 10% stake in my company. Now that I’ve left you on the edge of your seats, I’d like to present: Lemon flavored water.

Some businesses want to grow before they KNOW

Well, I don’t have a crystal ball, but I can predict it’s going to be hard to convince a room full of sharks that lemon flavored water a 6 million dollar business – even with headquarters in Orlando in the summer! Just like in the show, the reality of expanding your business is that you’re going to run into snags.

In order to stay on top of your growth I’ve come up with, something super cheesy, that I am very proud of:

KNOW

Know

Nothing

Operates

Willingly

Nothing is going to work without being excessively honest with yourself. That is the only way you’ll KNOW to GROW.

Let’s do a quick self-analysis: (Remember, we’re being honest here)

  • Do you have a business plan?
  • Do you have a mission?
  • Have you done a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) analysis?
  • Have you written out a desired time line? (how you plan to grow)
  • Have you gone out, doing field work for your product to get opinions?

If you answered no to any of the questions listed above, reassess yourself for a moment. You have to stop yourself from saying, “Oh, we’re growing too (fast/much/popular), we don’t have time for any of this!” These are barebone questions that are designed to help you expand your business.

If you ignore these questions, you’re going to experience a very brief success. Every person that starts a business would love for their business to successfully expand; a lot of us want our company to be the next Apple, Google, McDonald’s, or Starbucks. If you aren’t going to go back to your roots when you started your company, growing successfully will become a huge problem. Although growth to some is a huge success, to MOST, growth will be a huge disaster.

The problems that you carry in with you often expand right alongside the business. Here’s just a brief list of problems that may crop up:

  • Business grows too fast
  • Personnel issues
  • Disagreements among ownership
  • Marketing incorrectly
  • Family issues
  • Complacency
  • Metamorphosis of company culture
  • Changing role of owner
  • Lack of standards and controls
  • Technology
  • Stale products or services
  • Lack of investment
  • Stubbornness
  • Poor Leadership

If you notice, a lot of things on the list above are personal problems. If we know nothing operates willingly, then we need to be honest with ourselves. The key to business expansion is learning. Learn from your mistakes, learn from your customers, learn from your competition, just be open to being intentional to learn things you didn’t know before. The truth is that you don’t know what you don’t know. So learn!