Because of my situation I feel very qualified to give advice to other businesses or people who are contemplating starting a business.
How many times have you ever heard another person say "I had a chance start a certain franchise or buy into a certain business or a certain stock, but I was concerned about failure and didn't do it and I could have been rich and successful if I had"? I have been hearing that ever since I was kid working in sweat shops and mills of Rhode Island and I made up my mind right then and there that I would never utter any of those words if I ever got a chance to break out of the loop that I was in at the time working as a "mill rat". Don't get me wrong, it's a proud occupation and if that's all you can or want do in life then it's your life and your choice and it's fine with me. My dad managed to break out and so did I. It's just that I always had the fire in my belly that drove me constantly to do better. Believe me, it's not always an asset. I walked away from some very good factory jobs in my day because of that fire in my belly to do better. I paid for it a few times too! When you have had a wife and five kids in 8 years it puts everything on pins and needles at times, but we are all still together since 1950. Now, having warned you, I will move on.
Today I want to talk to you about lost opportunities. As a matter of fact, another title for this blog could be
"Broken Promises, Broken Dreams, and Lost Opportunities".
Not every business opportunity is really on the level or turns out for the best. Many businesses fail because they were not a real business to begin with. There is no such thing as easy money and there are many people who will do anything for a buck and will flat out lie and misrepresent the facts to you. This definitely will lead you to failure if you go along with them because they are just blowing smoke at you to flim flam you for a fat franchise fee and after that they just fade away into the breeze like that smoke that they were blowing all along. Sometimes really good business opportunities fail to work out because the new business owner just doesn't have either the time, energy, or knowledge to succeed. In spite of all the free customer support they receive they simply give up and never really market their new business. I have seen a lot of that in my 60 years of being in businesses. People change, economies change, business changes, romances come and go, but new opportunities arise all the time in spite of it all, but be prepared to market your business or fail for sure!
I started one of my best current companies 28 years ago in a part time backyard garage operation and it grew very slowly until the advent of the Internet and now that business is in many states in America and also in several other significant countries. With our newly self developed marketing programs we will be in every country in the world within 5 years maximum. Yes, I said self developed because no one else can do it for you and being number one on the search engines is only a fraction of the equation. I wish it was that simple! Position is one thing and purchases are another.
We get hundreds of sales leads every day and yes we sell a great deal of products, but finding other people to sell your product in other states or countries is a whole different situation. Good marketing people are hard to find. When we first started that particular business we ran into so many problems it was incredible. It would have been very easy to just quit, leave it alone and go on the something else, but we did not. We could just leave the business as it is and live off of it for the rest of our lives, but that is not my style either. I want to expand and create more jobs for our people and in other countries too. It may take up to 5 years, but we will get the job done.
So here is my advice. If you see what looks like a great business opportunity and you are really, really, really interested and willing to work very hard for more than simply 8 hours a day then you must thoroughly investigate that business. Insist on talking to the owner. Check the company name and owners name out for warnings on the Internet and do whatever it takes to get all of the facts about that business. Then, if you still believe in it and if it looks really solid you either take the shot and grab onto the brass ring, or stay where you are, do nothing, and be satisfied with what you already have. It's a simple choice.
As for myself, I just turned 80 so I'm rushing headlong down the Internet pulling my companies along with me determined to sell our products in every country in the world because the world needs them and that is the most important fact of all. So like they say, "Go find a need and fill it"!
Thanks for reading!
Walt 33
