My son Caleb fell out of his tree fort yesterday and landed smack on his head.
He was bruised but not broken.
His escapade brought me back to my younger days when my brothers and I built a huge tree fort.
In our desire to "build it big," but limited by our shortage of nails, we rationed our nails to one nail per board.
Essentially we built the fort up and up until we ran out of nails.
The fort was a whopping seven stories high! We had never seen any other kids build a tree fort so big. We were proud.
The fort had not been erected long when my brother Paul was eager to show it off to a neighbouring girl. Becky and Paul were up on the seventh floor, while Rob and I were working on some details on the third floor.
Suddenly, we heard a loud noise followed by some shaking of the fort, then more noise and more shaking. At this point we realized what was happening and jumped out of the fort to the forest floor to avoid being squished to death.
The fort, held only by the token nails, had given out under the weight of Paul and his friend and floor after floor collapsed on each other. Luckily for Paul and Becky, one of the levels had more nails and their demise was prevented.
In a rush to build our businesses and grow huge, we don't put enough attention into the details that can prevent our downfall.
We forget some of the little details; perhaps its customer service, or accounting details, maybe its human resource policies or proper training.
Sometimes it's the fact that we are human and end up burning out.
As a business coach and even in my own businesses, I have seen it when as business owners we work on our business without considering the consequences.
Building a business is like building a tree fort.
It takes planning, tools, hard work and some foresight. What is the business for? How big do we want to build it? How many people can it take care of? What is going to be our exit strategy?
What are the risks?
In our exuberance to build something, grow something and own a business, we don't think about the costs.
What are the costs of putting all this energy into this business? What are the opportunity costs?
What could I be doing instead? How will this affect my family, my finances, my health?
When business works it is fantastic, but the reality is that almost 60 per cent of small businesses are not making very much money or anything at all.
There are some things we can do to improve our success. Starting with proper planning, strategies and forethought, we can prevent many issues and reduce our risks. By working on the business basics that will help us reach our prospects and customers with great products and services that are priced properly and with margins that will enable us to be profitable can be a great start.
With planning and knowledge you can set your business up for success before you even start or turn it around if it is heading in the wrong direction
Dave Fuller is a certified professional business coach and the author of Profit Yourself Healthy. He can be reached at [email protected].
