You want to start a business? Alright, so what is your business plan?
If you’re opening a restaurant- why am I going to come?
If it’s a clothing store- why do I want to buy from you?
If it’s a carpentry business- why do I want to hire you?
“Well, I want to open a restaurant with comfortable chairs and tables, and serve good food”
Oh WOW! That should be neat and BORING! Hey everyone let’s go eat at that place that’s like everywhere else!
Blah Blah Blah! People don’t eat at places just because you’re there… well maybe a handful of people who are lazy and hope your place is good enough so they don’t have to drive far. But you need more than a handful! You need people who will become regulars and will share with others who will become regulars- so what’s going to get them to come to your place?
You can’t afford to fit in with everyone else. You can’t afford to fit the standard mould. If you do, you’re just increasing your risk. That’s right it’s too risky to be normal. You’re not going to discover something new by fitting in, you cannot discover- or be innovative by trying to be like what you think people will expect. People don’t go to places because it’s what they would expect- absolutely not- it’s quite the opposite. They want to see something new, something exciting, something they’ve been searching for!
So why do so many businesses open up- and they’re just like the last one that closed down?
There’s a building on a very busy strip of road that I go down quite a bit. Several years ago it was a bar. I would see at the most 5-6 cars in the parking lot when I drove by. After a while it closed down and someone else rented it- and you know what they opened up? …ANOTHER BAR! This one stayed open for about the same amount of time before it closed. Then another tenant moved in and opened …yep, a bar- but this guy was smart, he put a sign up that said “Under New Management” …wow. Again it closed and the lease sign was back up. I have seen it reopen at least two more times since- once as another bar, and then again when someone got creative and made it a bar and grill. Why?
Why do we waste so much energy doing the same thing as everyone else? What’s our reasoning? What’s our logic? If we see someone doing it and they’re not getting the results they expected- why do we want to do what they’re doing? We seem so eager sometimes to fail in the same ways as others have, by choosing to replicate what didn’t work for them.
See if you do the same thing as everyone else and you fail like everyone else than you don’t stand out and you don’t get ridiculed. BUT, if you dare to be different, challenge yourself to discover what works, follow your passion, your vision of the result you want regardless of it not being what’s the norm- then you will get laughed at… at first. But when it takes off, you buy the property, and then open a second one- everyone says “Why didn’t I think of that?”
God has designed us and put something in us to be great at! We must discover it- and then ACT! Being afraid to fail is not the kingdom way. If you’re going to do something- you need to be passionate about it! If your restaurant is going to look like other restaurants, you better have a passion for service like no where else.
If you’re going to open a clothing store- pull out your passion while doing it- do something unexpected! Offer hemming in your store, without having to send it off. Offer custom designs to be embroidered on the clothes they buy while they shop. What if you put a runway right down the middle of the store with strobe lights that you could turn on when someone walked down it- offer 10% off for those who do! Give the sales associates cameras to flash when a customer does it- How fun an exciting would that be? What a fun place to go!
You might be laughing, but it’s the birth of new ideas that someone implements- that leads to success.
Whatever business you start- bring out your passion in your work, have fun with it. Think about what everyone would expect to see then make sure to stay away from that, and bring out the unexpected.
