No one goes into business without the motivation to succeed. For that matter no one goes into business if they are not interested in monetary gain.
Self-directed money making ideas have the greatest potential for profitability. The reason I say this is that if you are a franchisee or a reseller you will be forfeiting some of your profit to someone else and typically you will pay for the privilege of doing so.
If you are looking business development I’d like you to consider a term I like to use, “Sustained Repeatability”. In other words can you craft your business idea to allow you to create a quality-controlled product or service long-term?
For instance, if your business is based on capitalizing on your creativity there are separate considerations than for those who mass-produce a singular product in a factory. That’s not to say that the second is less creative than the first, but let’s consider a scenario to illustrate the difference.
Joe is a songwriter. He fashions a business that allows visitors to commission a unique song to be written for a family member or special event.
Initially Joe’s business does very well and the feedback is strong. People loved being able to have Joe write and produce an original song for them and Joe seemed only too happy to provide his creativity. In fact, he can’t believe people would actually pay him for something he enjoyes doing.
Fast forward a year and Joe has a different view on the subject. Joe feels as if he has lost his creative edge and sometimes it seems the songs he creates all sound the same.
Two things happened to Joe. First, he did not calculate the toll this business would have on his creativity. Secondly, Joe was learning that he was reaching an end of “Sustained Repeatability”.
In Joe’s case he may have been better served in developing his own music and selling the creative result through an Internet download. He might have considered the possibility of developing original music that could be customized to fit names for a unique, but easy to produce birthday present. If he thought to provide commissioned song writing the fee would need to be significant enough that this would likely not be his primary roll in business thus allowing his creativity to remain strong.
This is one of the most difficult problems business owners have to wrestle with – learning to temper their enthusiasm for a business idea with a realistic look at how to keep the train moving once they get it on track.
Business owners who find a way to mass-produce a product or work to enable the product to be delivered electronically (i.e. information, audio, video or software) will often discover the work associated with the business to be less taxing than a business based on a creative service or personal skill.
That doesn’t mean that I think one type of business is better than another. I do believe that if you have a business idea that is based on a creative skill you need to work to ensure that skill isn’t so used that your business folds due to personal discouragement.
There really is a difference between viewing your skill as a hobby and using that same skill set to develop a business.
No matter what business idea you have consistently work to ensure sustained repeatability.