by Rick Duree
If you find yourself entertaining a possible business deal and fear it might fall through, you may feel pressure to sign on the dotted line before you’re prepared or agree to terms that will hurt you in the long run. Don’t! Don’t get absorbed into the emotional black hole of thinking there’s only one deal out there for you. Once you’ve done a few deals, you realize that they never stop coming. Remember, everyone comes across at least one “million-dollar idea” every 10 years. Believe me, if this one goes down in flames, you’ll find another one soon enough.
This proverb is applicable across all types of entrepreneurial activity, such as choosing a business partner, loan parameters, insurance policies, funding source, website domain or location. Speaking of choosing a location, when we were ready to open our first store, my wife and I looked at a few buildings together. I was so anxious to open the doors and get going that I was entertaining retail stores that didn’t meet our needs.
They just weren’t very good. In fact, they were flat-out awful. But I didn’t want to lose out if someone came along and gobbled them up, and I needed to get that dang store open. I was about ready to settle on a poor location.
Fortunately, my wife held me back from pulling the trigger until we eventually found an inexpensive, prime location. It sort of just happened. I didn’t push it or have to make it work out. We didn’t have to negotiate through the legalese of some hard-nosed landlord’s lawyer-written lease that was trying to take advantage of young entrepreneurs.
The storefront just fell in our laps, and we knew it was the right one. This choice, the decision of where to locate our business, has been one of the main keys to our success. If the truth be told, that one decision may have been the determining factor on whether we’d be in business today. When you’re choosing locations, always remember that there are more opportunities out there. There is no perfect location. There are some great locations, and there are many horrendous ones. Be patient. Don’t jump the gun. Find the right place for your business to thrive.
Most people say the biggest fear many of us face in life is speaking in public. I don’t think that’s true. The biggest fear people face is missing our on an opportunity. A few years back I started to dabble in investment property. I had some extra cash that I didn’t know what to do with. We were already doing the 401(k) thing, we’d opened an IRA, and at my wife’s insistence, we’d started funding our kids’ education account. These investment tools are all well and good, but I was looking for something more … exciting.
Now, let’s be honest: The market was downright crappy during the Great Recession. Real estate had bottomed out, and interest rates were so cheap that getting a loan was pretty much borrowing free money. I looked at hundreds of properties, and I’d say nearly 50% of them I was willing to buy. I put lowball offers down on lots of them, but many of them came back unaccepted and we moved on. Guess what? That’s totally fine. Don’t get married to any one deal.
I know – I sound like a grandma talking to her granddaughter about dating. But trust me: There are always more good ones where that came from. There’s always another opportunity to take advantage of. And don’t worry. The right one will appear, as long as you stick to your principles and keep your eyes open for the truly great deals to come along.
Even if Linda and I go out of business because of some future freakish market-ending scenario, we’ll know that we gave it our best shot and that there’ll be more ideas to have plenty of fun with coming up after this one.
A self-made entrepreneur, Rick Duree launched four successful businesses and had four kids by the time he was 30. A professor of entrepreneurship, inspirational speaker and community builder, he founded the Duree Center for Entrepreneurship, where he actively mentors young creators ramping up their startups. He is also the author of “The Entrepreneur’s Bible: 52 Proverbs of Profit.”
Submitted 8 years 301 days ago