The best business to own is one that you can envision growing hand in hand with your ability to satisfy the needs of the people that you care most about. These people that you should care most about are your customers.
So the best business to own is the one that will make your customers happier day by day. If your business cannot do that, you’d best not be in business at all.
It may sound noble to be in business for your financial independence and the well-being of those that you love. But if that is the main reason why you’re in business, then you will fail.
It might take time to witness this failure or it might happen very quickly. But fail you shall, because a business exists for only one purpose.
That purpose is to meet the demands of your customer. In that sense, the customer is the business and nothing else.
Now, lest you start to believe that what I’ve said above is just some trite observation, let me briefly give it to you straight in a different way.
When You Think Your Best Business to Own is a Machine
If you could incrementally cycle large amounts of money through your operation and give back very high profits with every turn, then you could argue that you have a great business running. It may be said that this is the best business to own. But…
If you’re losing tons of customers with every cycle and spending even more money trying to recover them, then you have a failed operation. It’s only a matter of time before the failure becomes evident.
The best business to own, therefore, is one that produces great cash flow and great returns and retained, satisfied customers.
Can you envision this?
Such businesses are not easy to picture, because customer preservation is like farming. We’ve lost touch with farming. Farming is a time-sensitive process. It is seasonal. If you fail to keep these seasons in mind and do what is appropriate in each of them, you can starve.
Likewise, you must approach your customer at the right time like you do a seed. You plant a seed. You tender it while it grows, keeping it from too much sun, too little water, parasites and disease. But you let it grow by itself, until you can transplant it.
Then, you take a gamble. You move it out of the greenhouse and into top soil. Here you risk losing some of those tender shoots to insects, birds and rodents.
But you keep cultivating, giving nourishment, removing weeds, fencing against invaders until the plants are strong enough to yield fruit, which takes effort on your part to harvest. Do you see the vision of work and reward? Can you see that customers take time to grow, nurture and benefit from?
A Business Picture That Speaks Loud and Clear
To expect results, you need a time horizon longer than a day. But to bring those results about, you need to work every day from sun up to sun down and never lose your grip on the vision.
Therefore, the best business to own is one that you can envision just like a farmer envisions sowing and reaping. Don’t try to cut corners here. You won’t succeed otherwise.
Because your perspective on time is of such crucial importance to identifying the best business to own, take a look at this very entertaining yet highly insightful explanation from the Royal Society of Arts about the Secret Powers of Time.
Then identify your time perspective and ask yourself, “What do I have to change about the way that I see Time, if I ever want to become a successful business owner?”