Your idea probably isn't great...but it doesn't matter

In the past 3 months I've read the book, "Start Something That Matters" by Blake (not Tom) Mycoskie, twice. It's a really great book that tells the story about how TOMS Shoes was started and grew.

There's one small quote that jumped off of the pages that I have been thinking about a lot lately: "...the success of most ventures actually lies in the execution phase, not in the idea."

For years I was always searching for the perfect business idea, but always afraid that if I committed to one idea that the next week I would think of a better idea and not be able to pursue it because I had already committed to the previous, now sub-par, idea. I had fallen into the trap that most people do: that success in a venture is directly tied to how innovative the idea is.

I'm learning that nothing could be farther from the truth. Of course, you need a decent idea with a good market for your idea, but that won't make or break you in your endeavor. What makes you successful is how you are able to translate your idea it goals, and your goals into an executable plan, and then the day-in day-out, week-in week-out, month-in month-out execution of that plan. There are some other variables, obviously, but if you can get up each day and execute your plan with great consistency, the odds of being successful are exponentially higher.

Some people have a hard time translating their ideas into a plan to form executable tasks. I believe it is actually somewhat of an art-form and and something that takes practice and can be learned. But if you are one of those people that struggles with that, then find someone around you that can help you do that and that will keep you accountable.

By the way, I believe this concept applies to all areas of life, not just business. You can have great ideals for being a good spouse or parent, but if you don't execute or act that out each day, it won't matter what your ideals are because it won't translate into meaningful action. A teacher has to execute about 180 days a year in front of students that don't want to be in class. It isn't the teacher's ideals that will make them great, it will be the grind of getting up each day and engaging kids in a way that imparts knowledge in a stimulating fashion, which in turn could produce the outcomes that the teacher envisions for his/her students and school.

Business Purpose #2: Invest into other people's lives

Business Purpose #2: Invest into the lives of our clients and employees

Behind every business there are people; people that have dreams, fears, struggles, families, sickness, seek affirmation and the list goes on. Most of us have worked for companies where we were just a number: employee JA-8941. It's pretty uninspiring to be a number...to know that at the end of the day your company really doesn't care what happens to you in your personal life as long as it doesn't interfere with you showing up at 8:30 on Monday morning and as long as you can get the TPS Reports out by the end of the week, and the rest of the time they really don't care what happens to you in your life.

We are so over that model! We are seeking to humanize our clients and employees and treat people as just that, human beings that exist for more than just creating widgets  We are looking to invest into those that we come in contact with in our day to day business. This plays out in a lot of ways, many of which will never be published on a web site or a Twitter post, but they happen quietly and respectfully.

I must add a disclaimer, we aren't perfect ourselves at this and we haven't even done all of these things listed here yet, but these are some of the ways in which we are/and hope to invest into our clients and staff.

• Dream Dreams and Live them out - Help our employees develop clear paths and opportunities for them to discover and pursue their personal dreams and passions.
• Be a Blessing - Seek ways to bless the lives of our employees' and clients' families.
• Invest in Families - Pay for weekend retreats for our employees and their spouses.
• Inquire - Ask people how you can pray for them. It's amazing how non-threatening it is to ask this and how willing people are to share their struggles. Most people are really grateful that someone cares enough to ask them about their lives.
• Pray for Others - Pray for our clients and employees. Each Monday morning my business partner, Phil, and I get together at 7:00 to pray for the upcoming week. We use this time to pray for our business and for those that we are going to come in contact with during the week. 
• Give Back to the World - Send our employees to other parts of the world where they can give back to. We haven't quite figured this out, but we hope to provide opportunities for our employees to go and give back to places in the world that have great needs that we can help meet.

Business Purpose #1: Meets the needs of our families

Business Purpose #1: Meet the needs of our families.

This seems like a pretty basic purpose and it really isn't that earth shattering, but I think it is important to state and set goals around what that will mean for us in the coming year. If we cannot meet the needs or our own families through our business or don't have a plan to get the business to a place where it can support us, then we probably should reconsider whether we should even be in this business. 

We believe it is vitally important that we build our salaries into the financial model and pay ourselves on a regular salary schedule so we can take care of our families. There may be times where we need to pay ourselves less for a while due to the nature of a startup, but our goal should be to get to a point where we are drawing a regular salary.

I've met people who don't have their own salaries built into their financial models or don't have any sort of idea what they should be paying themselves. This is very unhealthy for businesses as it creates a false financial picture and reality of their business.  It is a very healthy practice to pay yourself a salary no matter how much it is starting out. It could be $50 a week or $5,000 a month, but either way you should build it into your model even when you are starting out.

It's also demoralizing to work on something and not reap any sort of financial reward. It's human nature to want to be see the fruits of our labor and financial reward is a big piece of that. We want to make sure that we aren't robbing ourselves of that psychological encouragement as we ramp up the business. There are enough challenges and hard work ahead of us with this start up and we want all of the encouragement we can get, even if they are small victories starting out.

What's the purpose of your business?

What's the purpose of your business?

This is a question that I started exploring much more intently while living in Malawi, Africa in 2009-2010. Living in Africa causes one to return to the basics of living and surviving, which is why this question emerged for me. Business in Africa for most people is a simple means of survival. Buy $1 worth of tomatoes, sell them for $2 and feed my family the next day off of the $1 of profit. This simplistic view of business was one of the factors the led me to rethink my entire paradigm of business. (I could probably write a whole book about my business learnings in Africa, but I'll keep it brief for now.) I began reading, networking and exploring a new paradigm for the objectives of business. This learning continued as I returned back to the US the summer of 2010, but I didn't have a very practical way for it to be applied until the summer last year when I started my own business.

As I've moved down the path of starting my own business, I've been blessed to have people around me that have served as advisers and offered up their experience from which I could learn. As I've sought out advice from these people the question, "what's your business' purpose(s) or objective(s)?" has continued to surface. A few things that I've learned about the purpose of business:

• I've learned that if I/you can't answer this question (or aren't seeking the answers to this question), then we probably shouldn't be running our own business/organization.
• I've learned that if making money is my/your only objective for our business, then we will never be satisfied with our business endeavors.

So over the last few months my business partner and I have developed the purposes of Torrent Consulting and in the coming blog posts I will share these purposes. They aren't über polished or word-smithed very intensely, but I'll share them and maybe you'll find them helpful.

Blogging...again

This past June I left my job and started my own consulting company, Torrent Consulting. Starting this business was 5 years (at least) in the making and one giant leap of faith on June 15th! The process of starting this business has been an amazing journey and one which is a result of many years of learning, working, dreaming and praying.

With Torrent we are striving to create a business that goes beyond just trying to make a living or produce a lot of profits for the owners. Torrent has a bigger purpose, one that is more expansive than just financial success. Torrent is a bit of a case study to see how we can integrate our faith, values, life goals and purpose into a sustainable business model.

I've decided to start blogging about this venture and the various facets of developing a business that is integrated more holistically with my life. I don't have it all figured out by any means, but I have learned a few things along the way over the past 10 years of working and starting businesses, so maybe it will be helpful for some of you out there. I'll try to take a play out of Seth Godin's playbook and keep the blog posts short and succinct.

Happy reading!