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Why every business is the same once you grow:
A lot of people want to start a certain business because they enjoy doing a certain activity.
They want to start a web development agency because they enjoy designing websites. They want to open a restaurant because they enjoy making food.
Successful entrepreneurs think differently.
The cold hard truth is that every single business, when operated at a high level, is fundamentally the same.
The owner or CEO is not doing the thing. They are operating the company.
In a well-operated restaurant the owner is not in the kitchen flipping burgers. In a large web development agency the CEO is not designing websites.
In a tree trimming business that’s making $1 million+ in profit per year, the owner is not in the bucket with a chainsaw.
People go after certain businesses because they care deeply about a certain thing or they enjoy a certain activity.
And that is fine at the beginning. But remember this:
Every business, when it reaches a certain size, requires the manager or owner to do the same fundamental things.
In general, that’s sales, hiring, firing, management, delegation, strategy, and effective capital/resource allocation.
This is the real job of a CEO in a mature business. They step away from doing the service delivery themselves and focus on higher level tasks + building a team.
One of the biggest areas CEOs should be focused on is sales.
As the leader of a company, all you do is sell every day.
You have to sell people around you on your vision and your company. You have to sell customers on buying from you and your employees on working for you. You have to sell your vendors on serving you and your investors on partnering with you. It’s all sales.
You have to solve problems and have uncomfortable conversations about money. You have to hire and fire and manage employees. You have to delegate.
You have to outdo your competition on at least one level and hopefully more.
You have to deal with a steady stream of problems and personalities, and you can’t get rattled every time things go wrong. Because they will go wrong…all the time.
That’s why real operators can win in any business model.
Great web designers don’t build the best design firms. Great landscapers don’t build the best landscaping companies. Great plumbers don’t build the most profitable plumbing companies. Great operators do.
Take two car mechanics in the exact same town who each own a repair shop. Same access to customers. Same everything.
Put a competent operator in charge of one of them who is average at working on cars but someone who has successfully built and sold a business doing a few million/yr in revenue in some other industry.
Then in the other shop put a guy who’s a phenomenal mechanic and loves cars but is an incompetent operator.
This person has no desire to manage employees, sell, stay organized, market to new customers or hire and fire. One will flourish and one will not.
Can you guess which one?
The competent operator will thrive while the passionate mechanic will struggle.
Operators are the people who keep their shit together when the going gets tough.
They have real SKILLS that passionate dreamers do not.
They are good at seizing opportunities, decision making, problem solving, closing sales, managing other people, hiring, firing, training, and delegating. You know, all the hard, uncomfortable stuff that actually makes a business work.
Operators get excited about these tasks.
And this is what every real business becomes if it starts to grow past $1M/yr in sales.
So if your goal is to grow a business, you should focus on learning to operate and be indifferent about what business idea you pursue.
Because remember: building a business isn’t fun.
If it were fun, everyone would be wealthy and own great businesses.
Doing the not-fun stuff well, the boring and uncomfortable stuff, is what separates the successful entrepreneurs from the failures.
Doing hard and uncomfortable things that others aren’t willing to do is how you get ahead. If your life is too easy, you aren’t going to get anywhere.
Because it’s easy to clock-in at work, do the bare minimum, and clock out. It’s easy to show up every day and work on cars without talking to anybody else or trying to grow.
To go home, drink a beer, play video games, or watch sports.
Avoiding uncomfortable situations is natural. But going to great lengths to avoid discomfort is a sure-fire way to wake up 10, 20, or 30 years from now in the same situation you’re in right now.
No growth. No additional success. Nothing to hang your hat on. No freedom. No security.
These uncomfortable situations are what forge great business operators.
To me, the stress of business is all relative.
For somebody living a soft, easy life the smallest thing, like a mean email or a customer asking for a refund can shake up an entire day.
But a seasoned, successful, levelheaded individual who has grown comfortable with the uncertainty and volatility of life might forget to even mention the trouble at dinner that night.
The more discomfort we face, the better we get at making cool, calm, effective decisions while operating a business.
The more comfortable we get in those uncomfortable situations, the more we can accomplish.
The more real SKILLS we have, the better we will do.
Every day you get the opportunity to train your mind and build the willpower to handle the challenges that life throws at you.
It can be both humbling and enriching.
It builds immense character. It makes you better.
Passion is only one small component of success. And passion alone doesn’t pay the bills.
SKILLS and execution and being a great operator are worth 100X more.
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A few tweets from this week:
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(Note, alongside being a happy customer, I am also an investor in the business)
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Onward and upward,
Nick Huber