Posted: Aug 24, 08 7:54am

For me, wanting to own my own business was not about money. I could have made more money working for others - at least when I first went into business. I could have done it in less hours with less physical labor, too. If I had given the 100 + hours a week my first and second business took, I could have had two full time jobs!

I wanted to establish that I could go out on my own and become independant and earn a living from my own risks, ideas, and implimentations. I have owned four enterprises in three distinctly different fields of knowledge. Each of the first three was a success in terms of supporting a family and selling two of them for a profit when I tired of it. The third and fourth are still operating - meant only to suppliment income and won't be sold until ... whenever.

I opened businesses at ages 37, 42, 51 and 68. Each of the first three lasted the critical five years plus. The first one was sold after five years and had grown from a hole in the ground to an enterprise with over a million dollars of sales a year and two branches with favorable long-term leases on super locations. They still exist - I sold them in 1981! I last visited one of the branches when I visited Seattle in 2000. I did not tell the employees who I was. They still treated me as if i was special - the same method I taught my elployees two decades earlier.

The second and third overlapped. The second grew from a two-person organization to 25 with six-figure monthly revenues. The third was a one-person operation that still exists. I am the one person. The fourth was an investment of capital into hard assets that produce a steady income that has afar greater return than it would by leaving it in savings while the assets continue to grow in value. Isn't it nice to jhave something that the more you use it, the more it is worth?

When I get a new venture off the ground, I feel almost the same as I did the day that my first child was born. I don't have the belief that I need to die to protect it but otherwise, it is a creation emerging partly from within me.

I love the risk. I hated working for the man even though I made some nice paychecks toward the end of that road. No matter how well I did, he took the recognition, the money and the good will that my talent created or enhanced. My reward is knowing I created something, whether it was a great ad, a technique for selling that you never see in a book, a novel concept for use of assets or even the unique manner I used to hire the best employees.

I'll tell you a bit about the the latter one ...

One of my businesses was a retail establishement that dealt in high-end product. When I would interview a salesperson prospect, I would allow the person to "sell" a customer who came through the door. Of course, I had an arrangement with my sales staff that they would be paid commission on the sale so they were comfortable. I also wasa smart enough to have them cue me when a "be-back" walked in the door. No way the prospect would be allowed to touch that person.

Most of them were totally shaken when, in the middle of the interview I'd say, "See that couple? Go sell them something! Everything has a clear price tag on it and you are authorized to have ten percent play room but there is no added incentive to sell at the full price."

Some of them were so shaken that they couldn't do it. I eliminated them immediately. In sales, youi have to think on your feet and be prepared for the unexpected.

I'd have an unobtrusive member of my staff - often the "girl" at the desk (my wife, much of the time) listen in as they took the challenge. I looked for honesty, connection to the client, listening skills and the ability to help the customer without appearing to be skinning him alive as many salespeople are wont to do. If I wanted used car salesmen, I would have gone to Reedmans!

Anyone else you know do that? I think not. But I had a staff that didn't turn over every time it rained ... and it rained a lot in Seattle.

That was one of thousands of tricks I employed to make each business successful. I didn't read them in books although I admit, when I went into a new business, I read everything i could get my hands on before I opened.

Another thing. I never bought an existing business. I didn't believe in adoption for me. When you adopt a business, it is not like adopting a child; you have to spend years paving over someone else's mistakes. I'd rather make my own and learn from them. Also, many businesses sell because they are secretly in distress., The books are cooked, the conditions in the market include the good and bad will that the previous owner established.

Here is the secret about money: If you work specifically for it, you will come to believe that money in and of itself is important. It will become your God. You will end up rubbing it between your legs to get your sexual thrills. You will have to because your spouse will long since have left you because you gave all your attention to the pursuit of money.

If instead, you work for higher values, you will be a more contented person and - here is the key word ... AND - the money will come in; maybe more than if you work for money. When you work for money, you lose so many little steps in the human process that you might end up screwing yourself royally because what you missed might be the critical step that takes a business from toddler to childhood where it walks without you holding on.

Of course money is essential to survival but the acquisition of massive amounts of it do not improve your lot once you pass the critical point at which you have enough to live comfortably, send your kids to college and retire without having to switch from IAMS to Purina for dinner!

What's your story? How do you get to where you are or how do you plan to. I hope my words hit some of you who dream of big houses, big cars, big trips. If you have all those things and lose your emotional center, you will have a pile of wood, plaster, steel and a big belly from eating all the garbage on those big trips. You will also be on the verge of becoming an alcoholic because to get the taste out of your mouth of all the phony people you will accumulate, you will either have to drink yourself into a stupor or do what the lions do - lick their asses to get the taste of humans out of their mouthes!

Pax vobiscum and muito obrigado for the last 8 minutes of your time. I hope you found some value in some of my words and it leads you to argue, question, explain or discover ... al of which are necessary to be a success in any business that takes more brains than muscle ... though you will need that too. Someone has to clean the bathroom before you can afford to hire staff to do it.