On-the-spur-of-the-moment creativity, analytical thinking and dogged defiance are valuable “assets” every business owner must aspire to develop to remain effective. My “training” in these has occurred in the most unusual ways. There was a 7 year season in my life when I went through extended periods of personal and corporate “brokenness”; I mean, I had very little money on me to “manage” and “survive” on. Try and see how you would navigate your way through some of the daunting scenarios that I had to overcome:
- With little finances at a point in my career while waiting to transition from one job to another, how did I figure out a way to eat balanced healthy meals every day for 3 weeks without borrowing money from anyone for my sustenance?
- With no money in my company’s accounts, how was I able to reach out to large numbers of our target market within 1 week and get them to pay for our company’s newly designed brand without advertising on radio, TV or the press?
- I worked hard to develop a pacesetting brand that was sure to receive massive patronage once launched. I undertook an expensive recruitment process to hire a “competent and highly professional” Events Specialist to market and gain corporate sponsorship to enable me launch and implement the brand. She had four months to make things happen.
To my utter dismay and shock, as we entered the third month, I realized that this newly hired individual had far less competence and professionalism than her CV claimed! By month 3, she had neither been able to gain one sponsor nor client to enroll for our pacesetting brand! If I don’t take a quick decision on the way forward, failure and embarrassment will stare at me and my company in the face!
I fired her instantly and decided as CEO, to ensure that the event came on regardless! With no sponsorship gained, just one month to make things happen and very little working capital, how I eventually gained 47 clients to enroll for our pacesetting brand, organized a successful launch ceremony and implemented an inexpensive yet high quality 4-weeks event, is a story to share another day.
Wisdom Gleaned:
I have learnt the hard way that “limitations” or “lack of resources”, cannot be used as “excuses” for non-performance and up until now, I have very deep objections with business leaders who think otherwise. I believe my mind is the greatest asset I have and the more I activate it to solve complex challenges, the more creative, analytical and defiant I become.
My “7-years broke season” instilled in me a totally different mindset. Whenever I’m confronted with limited resources, I tell myself that every tool I need to perform must be hidden within those “limited resources” so I task myself to find ways of transforming those limited resources into “assets”. If I have to deal with a “no resources” scenario, I challenge myself that perhaps my skills, experience, analytical thinking, creativity and boldness are all the “resources” I need to turn around that situation; so with grace and resilience on my side, I forge on to get things done!
Coming up next week: What does intense focus have to do with being an effective Business owner?
