In Honor of “Small Business Week,” Let’s Talk About How Small Business Sucks

[Richard Peck]

Beautiful, thank you very much for the insights! That's what I was trying to get from Kyle's original post.

It's strange to think about these questions. It honestly never crossed my mind "can my RE business scale?". If I can sell more units of my product, it can scale.

Scale happens in 3 ways:
- People (hire people to work for you, employees are leverage)
- Capital (investors allow you to do bigger things)
- Tech (technology like software products, can scale really well without additional cost per unit)

I wrote the questions before I was told that the sandwich shops were franchises; I thought the mom/pop one @Kak mentioned was started from nothing, which is why I was curious as to what they could do to make it a scalable business.

It's your right to reject my idea. But it is my way - I decided I'd become a RE Developer, and then worked on it until it became true.

What makes me successful vs those who aren't?

Define successful first. I always feel less than what I could or should be ... it's fine, just because I am not yet smart enough to scale up even further doesn't make me unsuccessful either.

What works for me is that that I am always tinkering and changing things in response to what I see in the market.

That's kept me in business when others failed entirely. First goal: survive. No matter what. Existential threats are always there. Second goal, outcompete others. Do better than them. Even 1% better is a huge win.

Thanks. To be clear, I didn't mean to say I rejected that people can decide/choose, they're entirely capable of doing so.

I meant that "deciding" to do something isn't conducive to becoming successful at it.

I'm not as far in the journey as you but I know from my own experience that it's healthier to set realistic goals with an eye for bigger things rather than picking huge goals with no plan to achieve them.

A lot of people set stupid goals and their motivation fizzles out after 2 weeks.

When I don't know how to do something, I try to do it any way that my mind tells me. When I realized that getting access to capital was one of 3 key things needed for my dream of having such business, I started.

Asking questions.

Good questions, give good answers.

Bad questions lead to bad answers. Bad question is "why wasn't I born rich?" or "why can't I figure out how to start a company? why didn't I make millions yet?" The answers are universally bad: BECAUSE: I am an idiot, I am not lucky, I am not worthy, I am bad, I am not as smart as that other person and so on. ALL bad answers.

Good questions "I need capital, how can I raise capital?" "if I wanted to meet a wealthy person, where?" "what can I do today so that if I did meet someone successful they would want to talk to me?"

People, good people, always want to help others. I was surrounded by good people because I worked hard, was honest, was open and was clear to my self in what I wanted.

As far as inflection point... glad you asked, especially in this thread. One day I was listening to @Kak radio show, then I called him. I was frustrated because I'd been working super hard for a long time but somehow something wasn't quite working. I didn't see a way to get out of my own way. He reminded me to "think big, then think BIGGER". I honestly don't what what it was about that statement that flipped the switch.

My mind went racing. Didn't I already think big? What would be bigger? I imagined 10x bigger than my current plans. And I'd be damned it did solve my problems. Except for the one, how to get 10x the capital lol. But that's OK, I now had a clear goal. Went to work on that goal immediately.

MOST people I talked to laughed, some were a little mean. Some were rude. One guy told me "that's stupid, stick to what you know". I approached a national company, pitched them and they laughed because "why do we need you, we'll just do what you are proposing ourselves, but thanks ha-ha".

I talked to lawyers, found one who was taking companies public. Learned about compliance. Talked to doctors, who had savings. I learned a lot of why I could NOT do it...

I've lost count of shitty meetings.

Then by accident I came across an old connection. He had just set up a family office for managing his wealth. And he was struggling because it took so much work. Hired a few staff, a CFO and he was still "slaving away". He realized he knew what he wanted but he wanted someone else to do it for him. When we reconnected he had just come off a very bad experience of "trying to figure it out in real estate on my own". We had trust from before, but never a business relationship.

The concept I had, the vision and the program was a 10/10 match to his needs. Problem now was... he wouldn't be "the only one". Yup. Too much risk for just one. I can't blame him one bit. He was right.

But now I had a lifeline. I had a lead investor in a very large program. Having a "sponsor" was so big, now people would listen more. And his name gave ME credibility.

I would write a book on all the stories, but ultimately my message is simple.

You keep trying different things until one works. That's the way.

"Good questions, give good answers.

Bad questions lead to bad answers. Bad question is "why wasn't I born rich?" or "why can't I figure out how to start a company? why didn't I make millions yet?" The answers are universally bad: BECAUSE: I am an idiot, I am not lucky, I am not worthy, I am bad, I am not as smart as that other person and so on. ALL bad answers."

SUPER valuable insight (thank you!) - I've found the same myself.

If you ask self-deprecating / self-defeating questions, you get a response in kind.

High achievers take initiative and ask questions focused on next steps.

Really good example I saw about it the other week was Nelson at Cape St Vincent.

"You keep trying different things until one works. That's the way."

Yes, I've found the same thing. Often, the most carefully laid plan is not going to work. Have to bring fierce energy that cannot be ignored. Persistence + ferocity = progress.

-

Thank you for the replies - very interesting!

 

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