BNI SuccessNet - Third Quarter 2001

I talk with a lot of budding entrepreneurs, and am constantly amazed at how many have not conducted anything close to a prudent amount of research as they start their business. Yet they often act as if they MUST get their business going RIGHT NOW, or they will just pop.

This kind of impatience is dangerous.

I do my best to talk them down off the ledge. I walk the fine line between slowing them down a little, and dousing their entrepreneurial fire. No use talking about due diligence, planning, or fundamentals. When would-be small business owners get that far away look in their eyes, the only thing I can get them to focus on is the concept of passion. Not passion for being a business owner-passion for what the business does.

I believe it's critical to make that distinction because there will be times when you will hate being a business owner. Trust me on this one: When it all goes south in a hand basket, you will wish you were anything but the one on whom the 800 pound "buck" stops.

But if you love "what" you do instead of how you do it-if you would rather be selling suits, fixing fenders, or baking bagels than anything else in the world, that passion will sustain you when all of the business stuff clouds up and rains on you.

Kelle Olwyler is one of our excellent Brain Trust members and co-author of Paradoxical Thinking. Kelle likes to talk about values, and during a visit on my show she helped me think of another way to focus on passion. I call it, Core Entrepreneurial Values (CEV).

From now on, I will ask an impetuous entrepreneur, "What are your core entrepreneurial values? What is at the core of why you want to start this new business?" If the answer is money, independence, status, etc., those are motivations, not values. At least not the kind of values that will get you through the week when you don't know how you are going to make payroll.

But if the answer is suits, or fenders, or bagels-if you go to bed thinking about them, dream about them, and wake up thinking about them-well then, those CEV will not only allow you to deal with the cloudy days, but will actually help you grow on the rainy ones. And if you can learn how to grow in the rain, think of what you can do in the sun.

Now go spend an hour writing down your Core Entrepreneurial Values. Then send me a copy.

Jim Blasingame, a businessman and radio personality known as "The Small Business Advocate," has been very supportive of BNI and its founder Dr. Ivan Misner, conducting monthly interviews with Dr. Misner on the subject of BNI and word-of-mouth marketing. His website is www.SmallBusinessAdvocate.com. Some of the live interviews with Dr. Misner and articles he has written can be found in the archives listed.