© 2009 Vinny Ribas

At 11 PM last night, the weatherman on TV said that it was going to snow overnight, and Nashville should expect 1-2 inches.  They warned that the roads would probably be a mess, so everyone should avoid any traveling if possible. If today had been a school day, every school in the state would have been closed by last night as a precaution.

I woke up this morning, prepared to shovel that 1-2 inches of snow and maybe even ice off of my back porch. Instead, what I saw around my house didn’t even amount to a minor dusting. I am sure that some parts of town received some snow, but for me it was pleasantly anti-climactical. After all, one reason I moved away from Connecticut was to get away from snow!

Even though the weather prediction turned out wrong, I am glad I was at least warned of the possibility so that I could be properly prepared. Everyone and every business needs to have some way of being warned of possible challenges on the horizon. Some people look to the news, while others count on the hearsay they pick up at the coffee shop.  Some people consult their horoscope and others consult a fortuneteller.

The accuracy and reliability of what or who you look to for analyzing what will or may happen in the future is vital to your success. It’s not something to take lightly. Too much talk of impending doom can completely paralyze you. Too much ‘fairy dust and roses’ can keep you from being realistic and properly prepared for change. Incomplete, wrong or irrelevant information can have you preparing for the wrong thing. Guesswork can throw you too far off base to recover from. Hang around conservatives and you’ll get one point of view. Hang around liberals and you’ll get the complete opposite.

So, who should you turn to? Some of the sources I mentioned are definitely worth monitoring. But why not also turn to the people who are directly involved in or affected by your business? Your customers can tell you how the consumer climate is changing in your industry. Your vendors can tell you how business is and what the trends are. Your management team should be able to tell you how your employees are feeling and reacting to what is happening in their lives. And your own gut feeling should never be discounted. No one can have as much intuition as you do because you are right in the heart of it.

The key to using the people in your business as barometers is asking them questions and getting to know them on a personal and ongoing basis. You can’t just do this when a crisis arises. That is too late. Plus, they will only talk openly if they believe that you care about them personally. You can get glimpses into the future from the things they say and do when they are truly being themselves. For example, customer surveys can certainly reveal trends in their infancy, but asking questions when you meet your customers face-to-face can reveal the emotions and decision-making process that went in to checking each of the boxes on the survey form!

No one can completely predict the future. The masses were wrong about the impending Y2K disaster. Our government didn’t see the events of 9/11 coming. And the weatherman couldn’t tell me tell me what the weather would be like over the next 8 hours at my house. But you can be best prepared for change or challenge when you have ‘inside information’. And no one is more inside than the people affected directly by your business! 

© 2008 Vinny Ribas

“I’ve got a great new idea for a business!” My wife has gotten used to that proclamation because it seems like I always have new ideas. Of course, most of the time she discounts them. But I can’t help it. I love business and I have a creative side to me.

This time, I decided to act on my idea. Being rather impulsive and impatient, I jumped right into the implementation phase. I did write a quick, one-page overview first to solidify my thoughts. But, I was up and running in under than a month, operating on less than a shoestring budget. And it didn’t take long to discover that at the rate I was going, I would be completely out of cash within just a few weeks.

Does this sound familiar to you? Many people start their businesses without really thinking the process through. They don’t take an intense look at what all of the real costs will be. This is especially true regarding the cost of marketing the business. New owners often underestimate the amount of time it will take to get a regular stream of loyal customers. They forget about a lot of hidden expenses ranging from paying workers compensation to bank fees. They often don’t realize how much manpower it really would take to accomplish their goals. And all too often, because they don’t have the proper financing in place, they have to cut costs by doing literally everything themselves. 

I have seen this sad scenario enacted time after time. So, before I got in too deep, I decided to write a full business plan, using my short time in business as my market research. Writing a business plan makes you think through every facet of your business. You have to evaluate your complete operational plan, establish your marketing plan, figure out how you are going to differentiate yourself from your competition, determine what kinds of employees you will need to hire and how much you will need to pay them, determine who you need on your executive team and even choose what kind of equipment you are going to need and how much it will all cost. I found out quickly that I didn’t know nearly enough as I needed to about various aspects of my business, like how and where to get the software developed that I needed and how much that would cost. Not knowing all of the right answers made me consult with experts in various fields to get the answers I needed, several of whom are now on my advisory board.

Writing the business plan was a somewhat grueling and tedious process. However, having finished it (with extensive help from many other people), I now know what my total budget will be, when I will be profitable, how much financing I will need, how I am going to finance the business, when I can really start the business, who I need on board to start the business, what systems need to be put in place to launch the business properly and what legal assistance I need (SEC compliance, protecting my intellectual property, licensing my business model etc).  I know how and where I am going to market the business, how long I want to keep the business and what my exit strategy is.

In other words, I know without a doubt that I am on the right track. I am convinced that my plan is solid and my team is experienced and capable in the areas that I am not. I can approach investors honestly and confidently, knowing that I have a business model that will not only be profitable, but will provide a great return on their investment. I can now move forward with a feeling of power and conviction rather than fear and trepidation.

If you are entertaining the idea of starting a business or are in the early stages of the business, and even if your business has been in operations for a while, the best thing that you can do for yourself is write a business plan. It will either confirm your thoughts and process or lead you to make changes that will strengthen your position and growth. If you have written a plan for your business already, be sure to review it every 3-6 months. Tear it apart. Are you following your plan or have you deviated from it? Is it working as well as you expected? Why or why not? Are you making the income you had anticipated? What changes need to be made? What misconceptions did you have? What has changed in the market? What are the newest trends? When you review and rewrite your business plan to your true satisfaction, you will also renew that overwhelming feeling of power and confidence that will carry you through the inevitable struggles of being an entrepreneur!

© 2008 Vinny Ribas

In a perfect world, every piece of your business puzzle would fall into the right position as soon as you opened the box and dumped the pieces on the table. Your invention would work perfectly the first time you tested it. The first person you showed it to or told about it would immediately write you a $5,000,000 check and say, “Go for it!” Within a week, every appropriate retailer in the country would be calling you because they want to sell it for you. Within a month, your product is flying off the shelves because consumers just can’t get enough of it!

Unfortunately, it’s almost an unwritten law that it is going to take more time and more money than you expected to launch and grow your business. Over and over again, businesses fail because the unexpected stopped them in their tracks. Prices go up, demand slows down, competition moves in, key personnel quit, prototypes don’t work, the large customer you were counting on falls through etc. The list of things that can go wrong is endless.

Please don’t let this discourage you. There are things you can do to avoid being cut off at the knees by surprise events. Here are a few:

• Plan for the worse case scenario. Every aspect of your business should have safeguards and emergency plans in place. It’s no different than policemen and firefighters doing disaster training just in case there is a tornado or a flood. It may never happen, but you need to be prepared.
• Interview people who are experienced in your industry. Ask them about the bumps in the road that they had to navigate around, or the brick walls that they had to climb over to move their businesses forward. Bring one onto your executive team if possible. This will help you to prepare your company as much as possible. Don’t try to think of all of the “what ifs” by yourself. Some challenges will be industry specific.
• Stay on top of all trends. It is important to know what is happening in the world around you, not just in your industry. Many circumstances, such as a slow economy, can have ripple effects that touch all businesses.
• Start with adequate capital. Nothing can kill a business faster than not having enough money to weather the storms. Before you open your doors, it’s wise to set aside 18-24 months of operating capital, including your own salary. This allows you the freedom of taking up to 2 years to build the business properly, instead of scrambling for every penny 2-3 months into the business.
• Keep up with technology.  Be certain that you are providing the highest quality products or services in an acceptable amount of time. Never skimp on the technologies that will keep you competitive. If you do, your rivals might leave you in the dust.
• Study your competition. Your competition is studying you, watching your every move. They are trying to anticipate what you might do next to get or keep ahead of them. That is why it is vitally important that you know what you’re competition is doing, how they think and what their next move is. It is the only way you can avoid being caught by surprise.
• Measure your marketing. Never do any marketing in which you can’t measure its effectiveness. Not knowing what is and isn’t working will drain your marketing budget in very short order. Also, give your marketing efforts enough time to take hold.  Repetition is key in effective marketing. Remember that marketing that works for your competitors may not necessarily work for you, and vice versa.
• Study your customers. Survey our customers to find out why they do business with you and what might cause them to take their business elsewhere. Often, the things that we believe are attracting customers are only incidental, and the real reasons are completely different. When you know your customers’ likes, dislikes and habits, you can build marketing campaigns to emphasize those strengths before your competitors do. Also, be sure to have a customer retention program in place, such as a weekly email newsletter, that keeps your business in front of them on a constant basis.

Some precautionary measures may seem tedious, time-consuming or expensive. Some might also seem quite obvious. However, every precaution that you can take equips your company with the tools, knowledge and wisdom that will keep you afloat during the wildest storms. The better prepared you are, the better your chance of not only surviving but thriving during those rough times when your less-prepared competitors don’t.

It is all too easy to get so caught up in the day-to-day operations of our businesses that we lose track of our goals and our progress towards them. It is also common that we get so busy running the business that we don’t take the time to take a hard look at the big picture. As the business owner, it is important to always know what is going right and what’s going wrong in your business. You should be completely aware of why are you growing (or not growing) at your current pace. You should have one eye on your competition at all times. You should be looking for ways to fix problems in your industry or that your customers have. You can take advantage of challenges and turn them into huge profit centers for your business if you learn to listen to what others are complaining about.

One of the most common tools that business owners and strategic planners use is called the SWOT Analysis. SWOT stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. By simply listing what each of these are as it relates to your business and its performance ever 3 months or so, you can insure that you keep doing the right things and fix the things that are wrong. You will also recognize trends that you can either lead or ride, and you can ward off potential serious problems.

I strongly suggest that you bring your entire executive team together to perform this evaluation. Everyone has a different perspective, so the things that you see as strengths may actually be seen as weaknesses by the rest of your team, and vice versa. It’s important to have everyone’s thoughts and input in order to see a true picture of your business as it is at this very moment.

Here is a closer look at why each of these components is important:

• Strengths: Make a list of all of the things that make your company strong. Include key personnel, your capital position (if you are fully capitalized), your geographic location, your reputation, your market penetration, your successful marketing campaign etc. Don’t leave anything out. Once you’ve done this, you’ll know what you need to keep doing. You’ll know who you need to reward or protect. You’ll know where you need to continue marketing or what might possibly the focus of your next marketing campaign. You’ll understand what is giving you an edge over your competition. You’ll also have a handle on why your customers buy from you, why your employees stay with you, and why you have a lot to look forward to!

• Weaknesses: Make a list of all of the things that weaken your business. Include under-performing employees, location, lack of capital, holes in your executive team, unreliable vendors, an ineffective marketing campaign and anything else that you can think of. You may feel like you’ll never be done with this list because we all know there are so many things we’d like to change or improve. Doing this exercise alone may bring to light problems or challenges that, when fixed, can turn your entire business around. It may also uproot some serious situations, such as bad employee moral or poor customer service, that will take some hard work to reverse or repair.  But once you’ve included all of the company’s obvious major weaknesses, you are positioned to develop a very productive and profitable to-do list for yourself and your team.

• Opportunities: Make a list of all of the opportunities that your business has to increase its profitability, market presence and/or reputation. These might include making facility or equipment improvements, entering new markets, finding new resources, developing strategic partnerships, hiring a key employee, accessing additional funding etc. The entire direction of your business, the introduction of a completely new product line or the chance to become the leader in a certain segment of your industry are all possible outcomes from this exercise. Take each item listed very seriously and watch your business transform for the better right before your eyes!

• Threats: List everything that is threatening the short and/or long-term success of the company. This could range from changing trends or increased competition to a lack of sufficient capital. Take a close look at the weaknesses you listed and determine what the outcome will be if you don’t find a way to turn them around, because these are also threats. Are you at risk of losing employees? Is your lease about to expire or your rent about to increase? By acknowledging all of the things that can hurt or destroy your company or its progress, you can begin putting plans in place to thwart them. Once again, take each item very seriously. If it is big enough of a threat to put on this list, it’s big enough to command immediate attention!

Once you have completed this list, your next task is to prioritize the weaknesses and the threats you listed, then strategize on ways to reverse them. Also prioritize the opportunities you have so you can begin the process of taking advantage of them. At the same time, analyze your strengths so that you can develop ways to capitalize on them. You might even use this simple exercise to build an entire short-term strategic plan for your company.

© 2008 Vinny Ribas

Every one of us has our own comfort zones in our personal lives as well as our business lives. When we’re in that space, we are floating along almost on automatic pilot. We repeat things we’ve done and said before, and don’t have to take any risk. Nothing more is expected of us that what we are already delivering. We’re completely confident in our ability. We’re comfortable, and at some level we’d like to stay like that forever.

Starting and running a business often requires that you get out of your comfort zones. It may mean taking on a new role, like moving from employee or sole practitioner to employer. It might mean switching your mindset from friend or co-worker to being the boss, which at times requires a completely different approach to everyone around you.  You may need to learn a new technology or master a new skill, even though you’ve been doing things the same way for a long time. You may have to adjust your hours or even your vacation to meet the demands of the business. You may have to raise capital for your new venture. For many people, that is the scariest transition of them all. After all, asking other’s for money might make us look needy, weak or vulnerable. You might be thinking, ‘I don’t want to ‘take on that much debt’, - which is erroneous thinking because that is not how raising capital properly works. And of course, no one wants to be responsible for losing someone else’s money if for any reason the business should fail.

If any of these paradigm shifts are keeping you and your business from reaching your true potential, there is good news. If you stretch yourself to move your business forward, these new roles and attitudes become your new comfort zones. You learn to thrive in those new zones. Things that might have seemed scary at first are now second nature to you. Things that frightened you before now exhilarate you. You start to challenge yourself to stretch even more. Even raising capital will become a fun game! And as you realize that you overcame the challenges that first loomed like mountains in your way, you’ll find yourself seeking out bigger and better challenges!

Whether you’re buying a new house or needing to make executive decisions, change can be scary. And of course, making those initial moves to get out of your comfort zones is the key to jumping to the next level. Here are some suggestions to help you take those first steps:

• Talk to people who have ‘been there, done that, bought the tee shirt’. Whether it is a formal (paid) relationship or just a conversation over coffee, ask them about all of the things that concern you. Chances are they had many of the same fears. Find out how they overcame them. You may need to find different people with different experiences to answer all of your questions. Often times a lack of knowledge or understanding is the only thing that prevents us from moving forward.
• Analyze the “worst case scenario”. Most often you will find that making a few mistakes until you get it right will not cause any long-term damage. Sometimes you learn the most during the transitional phase because all of your energy is focused on getting it right.
• Talk to the people who will be affected by your changes and voice your self-concerns. Most people will give you a grace period to make the adjustments you need to make. This can work in your favor, because they will rally around you to support you.
• Prepare yourself by reading, doing research, taking classes or simply asking for help or guidance. The more informed you are, the clearer the steps become that you need to take.
• Declare your decisions to change to people around you. Ask them to become your accountability partners, keeping you in check while pushing you forward at the same time.
• Manage your change by making sure that you are not taking on too much at one time. If this is a really big decision for you, just take baby steps.
• Keep focused on the end result. Use reminders such as photographs, a screensaver, a calendar etc. to help you make transformational decisions. Visualize what the future will look like if  you just overcome one obstacle at a time.
• Surround yourself with successful people who are comfortable with change and making big decisions. Just learning how they think will influence your ability to step up your game for the better.

Keep in mind that change is inevitable. No matter how hard you try to stay in your comfort zone, something is going to shake you up. It may be things that are completely out of your control like a natural disaster. However, often it is driven by the people around you, such as when the company you’ve dedicated your life to for years decides to downsize or move to another state. The best way to avoid being forced into change is to create it and direct it yourself. By initiating change, you have the opportunity to pick and choose what it will be and how it will affect both you and your family.

Many CEOs and small business owners are stumped at how to grow their businesses. There is no denying that they work very hard. Still, they seem to hit a brick wall when it comes to increasing their customer base, and ultimately, their profits. The most common reason they give is that there are not enough hours in the day to do all of the selling, bookkeeping, inventory management, and still take care of their customers.

Other CEOs and business owners have the opposite problem. They have too many customers, and thus they can’t manage them all properly. There is not enough time to service everyone, let alone follow up on each one. The end result is frustration and a reputation for poor service.

Both of these situations usually have one thing in common that is stopping them from stimulating and managing the growth of their businesses – the CEO has made himself a part of the customer chain. He or she believes that the only way to make sure that everything is done properly is to be integrally involved in the sales and service of each one. In other words, he is working ‘in’ his business, not ‘on’ his business.

While this might work for some businesses in their earliest stages, it stifles its proper expansion. The reason this is a problem is because the only way a business can grow is by duplicating its customer chain. The customer chain is comprised of the various touch points that are required to take a person from a prospect to a satisfied customer. For example a common customer chain for a copy machine business might be:

Marketing departments develops sales and marketing pieces ► Salesperson calls and sets an appointment with a prospect  ► Salesperson meets and courts the prospect  ► Prospect agrees to make a purchase ► Transaction is completed and arrangements for payment is made ► Serviceman delivers and sets up product ► Accounting department sends customer monthly bills ► Salesman follows up with customer to check on his/her satisfaction ► Serviceman drops by for regularly scheduled maintenance ► Marketing department sends customer monthly newsletter with coupons, information etc. ► Salesperson calls on customer to try to get them to buy other products or upgrade the one they bought

Obviously, for this business to conduct a large volume of business, there would need to be more than one salesperson, more than one serviceman and possibly more than one bookkeeper in the accounting department. When the CEO places himself in one or more of these positions within the customer chain, he too would need to be duplicated. Obviously this is impossible, since there can be only one CEO. Thus for the business to thrive, the CEO needs to situate himself above multiple customer chains, coordinating them, managing them, increasing their effectiveness etc, without being an internal component of them. Then, when one chain gets filled, the CEO simply needs to start a new chain and oversee it. This allows for unbridled but managed growth.

Any business that relies on one person to always be a part of the customer chain is self-limiting. A doctor can only handle a limited number of patients, but one who opens a clinic and hires other doctors to serve the patients has no limits on his growth. A chef who opens a single restaurant can cook for a finite number of customers every day, but the chef who opens a chain of restaurants, with other cooks using his recipes in each one, has the opportunity to serve as many patrons as he wants.

This is just one example of business structure that can be self-defeating. If you construct a flow chart of how your customers or clients are acquired, serviced and followed up on, you can easily analyze which actions or processes can or can’t be duplicated, automated or even eliminated to allow easy reproduction of your entire customer chain.

My wife Connie and I spent most of the past month on the road. We spent 10 days in Los Angeles at the most amazing business conference I have ever experienced (CEO Space). When we got home, we had no heat in our house. We knew we’d only be home for one day and then we were heading out of town again, so Connie scrambled to get a repairman to check it out. The repair was done, and we left the following day for 11 days on the Gulf in beautiful in Destin FL. It was a great week of relaxing, reviewing what happened in 2007 and planning for 2008. We came back ready and raring to dive back into business.

After that tremendously peaceful vacation, we returned to a house without heat again. We ended up having to put entirely new heating and air conditioning units in our house. The heater was put in on New Year’s Eve. Then, at 11 PM, our carbon monoxide alarm went off. We called the heating company again. The repairman showed up at 11:45 PM (still New Year’s Eve), and told us that the installers had put our unit in upside down. On New Year’s Day, 2 new repairmen came and repositioned the heater. 4 hours later, we still had no heat. The next repairman told us that the last installers had neglected to connect one wire.

I am not asking for your sympathy. What I want to point out is that unexpected things happen that can completely derail us if we let them. We certainly didn’t expect 2008 to start with us having to commit to thousands of dollars in home repairs. However, we choose to look at it as a motivator to work smarter this year to build the income that we have been working diligently to develop. We have made the decision to reach for the stars, so that something as mundane as a broken heater is nothing but an inconvenient bump in the road, rather than a lifestyle-threatening occurrence. And most important of all, to accomplish this we have begun to surround ourselves with more people who are smarter and wiser than we are who can help us achieve our goals and our dreams!

Let’s face it – stuff happens! When life throws a high-powered curve at you, how do you react? Is it a strength-building or strength-draining event?  Do you plan ahead for such circumstances, or do you simply pray that nothing will ever go wrong? Are you resilient, bouncing right back from such imposing setbacks, or do they fatally crush your spirits? The time to decide how you are going to react and respond is not when something unexpected happens. It is right now. Prepare your mind ahead of time to accept the fact that obstacles are going to be thrown in your way, and that the timing will be anything but perfect. Resolve right now that you will not let them stop you in your tracks. Accept them for what they are – just a part of life, and do your best to be prepared for them. If you don’t, you will constantly be worrying about the unavoidable, and that worry will keep your mind from thinking constructively about all of the great things that will also be coming your way in the future.

Here are some ways you can either prepare yourself for or minimize the impact of some unexpected events:

• Have a ‘contingency fund’ – money that you have set aside for unpredictable financial setbacks. Do this for your personal as well as business finances.
• Take inventory every 6 months of the things that you own that might require major repairs, such as your car, the roof on your house, your computer, other office equipment or machinery etc. Note their conditions. Be sure that you are keeping up on all of the required maintenance.
• Get the best health insurance that you can afford. No one is always in ‘perfect health’.
• Backup your computers regularly! Losing vital data can kill a business in a nanosecond.
• Keep important documents in a safe place. Be sure that someone you trust knows where they are and how to access them. Do this for your personal life and your business.
• Be sure that you have a succession plan for your business, and a completed and up-to-date will for your personal life.
• Work ‘on’ your business, not ‘in’ your business. Teach others how to operate the company in your absence.
• Have ‘key man insurance’ – life insurance on the key personnel in your business – including yourself. It can be critically damaging to lose someone who is vitally important to the business, not to mention costly and time consuming. 
• Ask your insurance agent about other forms of coverage that you should carry. Protect yourself every way that you can!
• Do everything legally. Never cut corners! Illegal activity, no matter how small, can come back to haunt you in a very big way!

 These are not secrets by any means. Just a little common sense can that go a long way toward insuring your peace of mind in the face of adversity. Add anything else you can think of to the list. If you email me at vinny@ceospacetn.com with other safeguards that you can put in place, I will comprise a checklist that you can revisit several times a year that can be a big help in insuring that you’re never turned upside down by the strong winds of change!

On Sunday, I leave the beautiful hills and rocking sounds of Nashville TN to attend a week long CEO conference called the Free Enterprise Forum, produced by CEO Space. This organization provides the most powerful business launch and growth training in the world. I have attended this conference t least 10 times, and I learn more every time I go. The faculty are all Fortune 500 trainers or executives. This coming week, some of the faculty will include Mark Victor Hansen, Jack Canfield, John Grey, Bob Proctor, Harv Eker, Lisa Nichols, Bob Circosta and many more, all of whom got their start in this organization! During the course of the week, the faculty remain completely accessible to coach any CEOs who need help with their businesses, or who might need doors opened for them.

If that weren’t enough, there will be about 1000 CEOs on site, helping each other find whatever customers, capital, resources, contacts, strategic alliances or professional support they might need to move their businesses into hyper-growth mode!

This is where I learned all of the information that is in my book, “CEO Secrets”. If you’d like more info about the book or CEO Space, please contact me at vinny@ceospacetn.com.

Why Think Big?

It is very common for many entrepreneurs to want to start their business small and then grow it organically from the income it generates. For someone who is satisfied with a modest income or having a hobby business, there is absolutely nothing wrong with this line of thinking. Other entrepreneurs, on the other hand, know that deep in their hearts they want to build something big that will have a lasting impact on not only their own lives, but on the lives of their families and on the world itself.

Some people, even though they have big dreams, still believe that building a small business is the least risky way to do things. Of course, it is important to play some things safe. Taking one step at a time is definitely necessary to insure any company’s success. However, the inability to “think big” right from the start or early stages of a venture can cause challenges to rapid and profitable growth. Thinking big also doesn’t mean taking on too many tasks at one time. In fact, it can actually lessen the amount of risk that is taken!

Here are some thoughts and concepts that are important to grasp when building your business:

• It takes the same amount of effort and the same amount of time to build something big as it does to build something small. The difference comes in simply taking different steps based on a modified plan that is designed for a bigger and more profitable end result.
• Building a small business usually requires that you use your own money, or borrows money to fund the business. This is very risky. When a business is designed to be big, it is possible to raise capital from investors, eliminating the financial risk on the part of the founder.
• It is much easier to attract a powerful executive and advisory team to your business when the plans are to build a large venture. Smaller ventures are usually one-man or family operations. Having access to the expertise that an experienced team brings to the table eliminates the need to rely on your own knowledge and experience.
• Larger businesses have greater opportunities to diversify their income, again eliminating a major risk factor. Many smaller ventures are much more vulnerable because their profitability is based on one stream of income that can be easily affected by many uncontrollable factors.
• When you build a large business, you can raise adequate capital to launch and grow the business effectively, and still have enough in reserves to weather those storms that will inevitably arise. Smaller businesses often have just enough capital to survive, or are undercapitalized from the start. Any slight downturn in their income, their industry or in the general economy can be financially devastating.
• The eventual rewards of successfully building a large business are often enough motivation enough to keep you fighting through the hard times. When the rewards are smaller, it is easier to just give in and try something different.
• The systems that are put in place to handle a small amount of business may not be able to handle a large volume. Planning for larger volumes of work from the start eliminates the need or redesigning your current system or designing your entire systems twice.

If you are the type of entrepreneur who wants to go for broke, don’t be afraid to think big right now. Surround yourself with limitless thinkers, visionaries and successful entrepreneurs. Let them start to shape your thinking and your confidence. Then reach for the stars!