Twice in the last few months I have heard the comparison of a business to a child. Both times it was a very good comparison and I wanted to elaborate a little on those.
One of those times was from Mark Cuban on an episode of Shark Tank. A couple of women who had a clothing line, were talking about how they wanted to expand into Europe right away, even though they still had a lot of work to do here in the US. Mark was trying to show them that they need to treat their business like a child and not rush into things. It needs to be nurtured and allowed to grow before letting it experience too much.
The other time was from Gary Vaynerchuck who talked about treating your business like a 2nd child. His point was about not micro managing every single detail and panicking over everything. If you’ve got more than one kid, you know that difference. You know you were way too careful with the first one. There’s things you let your second child do, that you would have never let your first.
Both are valid points and wise advice to follow.
Baby Steps
Rushing into things is an issue I run into often with clients. They have a baby and are in a massive hurry to have him hitting home runs with the Yankees. They expect this baby to be out on its own already. It just doesn’t happen that way.
There are no overnight successes. Find me a case where you think there is one and I’ll show you the years and years it really took. Often times we see something new and we think it must have just started and is an instant success. The reality is that it’s only new to you, it’s been around for a long time taking baby steps to success.
The biggest problem here is when you make bad decisions or rush things, because you think they aren’t moving fast enough. You wouldn’t take a 5 year old and put him in the outfield on a major league baseball team, right?. You can guarantee he will fail. Discouragement will be all he remembers.
You have to take baby steps and slowly work a business into bigger challenges.
Crawl, Walk, Run
Having a 9 month old baby right now allows me to see this firsthand. He first had to figure out how to crawl. Now he is standing and taking a step or two here and there. He is slowly learning how to move more. He is gaining strength and balance every day. Understanding more about his capabilities with each step. It really doesn’t matter that I know someday he will be able to run. He could be the fastest runner ever some day. None of that matters right now. What matters is allowing him to crawl, walk and then run.
Rushing him into walking or running right now would be a waste. It would only hurt him in the long run.
The same goes for your business. It must be allowed to crawl to build strength. It must then be allowed to walk, step by step. And in time, it will be able to run.
It Will be OK
As Gary recommended, treating your business like a 2nd child means, not micro managing everything. Not panicking over ever little bump or bruise. With a first child, every injury is a major deal. The 2nd one, you’re a little less rushed to look at that little scrape on the knee.
Often times with a new business, there is a tendency to over react to each slow down or bump in the road. This leads to more bad decisions that only make things worse.
An understanding that a scrape on the knee is no big deal, helps a lot. You still want to attend to it of course. But you don’t want to call in the paramedics.
So take a look at your business, are you micromanaging it to death? Or are you protecting it but at the same time, not overreacting?
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