Most everybody who starts a business of their own begins with a very small group of people or no other people at all. In my particular case it all started with just my wife and me. “We” were our group! That is OK because that is usually the way it begins for most other business builders. It is called “Humble Beginnings.” You start very small and continue to grow it bigger as each week comes and goes. There will always be challenges in the early goings because everything is new, exciting, and different. Relationships need to adjust. You yourself are beginning to change and grow. Your life is busy and your daily schedule just seems to get busier and busier. Don’t worry about anything. You are going to make it through the rain. You will survive. Just remember other people have gone through the very same thing you are going through. They made it through and so will you! Your responsibility is to keep on putting forth the required effort to cause your business to grow. Don’t worry about anything else…..just do what needs to be done to produce growth. Effort always precedes growth. Even if nothing seems to be growing, just keep on putting forth the consistent effort that will cause growth, and eventually growth will begin to happen for you. Just don’t give up and don’t stop working. Becoming successful is going to take some time!
As your business begins to grow, you’re going to have to grow mentally with it. You will do most of the work yourself at the start. Later on as you teach and train other people to do what you are doing, there will be lots of other folks growing and the overall business you started will take off growing with a life all its own. It will amaze you how fast things will start happening as more and more properly trained people keep rising up to higher levels of leadership themselves.
You are the key. That is why you must have a very good and well qualified mentor and coach from whom to draw knowledge and information and subsequently put it into use in the lives of other people you are now beginning to mentor yourself. The rule is to first learn what to do and then do it for yourself. Then teach other people how to do for themselves what you have taught them to do. Then get out of their way and let them do that which they know to do. Let each one teach one how to help and do for themselves. Be responsible,…be a leader. Keep the process simple. Don’t complicate it. The more people you can teach how help themselves without you having to do it for them, the greater and faster will be your business growth and related profit.
The best way to lead is by example. Make sure that you are doing for others exactly what you are teaching them to do for themselves. If you are the leader then you will have to get all of your followers to buy in to you and your methods first. Your example as a leader is what they will have to buy in to. No one will follow for very long a self designated leader who is not doing what he is teaching others to do. You have got to be real, visible and transparent to all of your followers. Your example should be doing most all of your talking. The fruit that you are producing should be speaking volumes to all of your followers.
As your business continues to grow and produce new leaders, you will quickly begin to see that you will not be able to help everyone. That is OK, you don’t have to. The other up-coming leaders will begin to vie for more and more of your time and attention. You need to be on the look out for the most qualified people who are growing into some type of a leadership role.
It will soon enough become the right time for you to make a quality strategic decision as to who and how many other leaders you will be able to adequately coach and mentor all the while your business continues to grow. As the time of decision/ selection nears, you as the overall leader are going to have to come to the conclusion that all good leaders will reach at some point in their leadership careers. You will have to realize that you cannot do it all for everyone. So you weigh the choices and make the selection under the over-arching ground rule that you will only be able to Do for One what you wish you could Do for Everyone.
To become the most effective leader that you are capable of becoming, you are going to have to train up to an average of 10 to 12….rarely if ever up to a maximum of 20….other men or women to become great and effective leaders. These selected people are going to have to possess a great desire to learn and grow on a continual basis. They will have to be teachable and keep themselves in the creative phase of continuing to build and grow the overall business. They are going to have to demonstrate a willing submission to you and to your vision for the ongoing growth of your business. In short, they are going to have to demonstrate through their actions, not just their words, that they are totally committed to you and the purpose of your business, as well as their own.
From this point forward, you want to build and encourage and teach and train these selected few how to do the very thing you personally would do as if they were in your shoes. These will be the future leaders that will carry your business forward into the future. These selected ones will simply be an “extension” of you. They will grow into people who think, act, and do just as you would do yourself, using their own personality, of course.
Together as a team in synchronization, the business will begin to grow and run itself as smoothly as a well oiled machine. That is really what you are after isn’t it?
So as you are training up your followers, keep a good eye out for the sharpest people who demonstrate their loyalty to you and your business and who always are hungry to learn more knowledge about their assigned tasks, and who most importantly are eager to accept new and bigger responsibilities than they presently have been given. It will be these hand picked people who will wind up running your business with you as you grow and move into the future. Always be on the look out for these “special” selected ones. They will go on to become the most valuable people in your business.
There is an old saying that I coined over 30 years ago that is still applicable to this day. It goes like this: “I would rather run with one who really wanted to run, than to drag 20 others along who really didn’t want to run at all.”
You cannot do it all just by yourself. If you try you will either burn out or you will check out of the growing phase of operating a business.
When that happens nothing is going to grow and improve.
The solution is simple and always works. Develop a team of leaders. Invest your life into them and add as much value to them as you possibly can. Teach them, mold them, and train them into the men and women to whom you would trust your life. Share the wealth with them. Always bathe them with large and larger quantities of praise and recognition. Edify them to their own followers every possible chance that you have.
Help them to get in life that which they really want….In so doing, you, in fact, will always get that which you really want.
When you do it right….everybody wins!
Peace and love to all of you…….Poppa Bear