Hints and tricks of going into business and staying there for a long time

The ability to start from scratch, buy a franchise, or being brought into a company business all rely on one talent: the ability to fix problems.

Certainly, no matter how much more you learn about certain skills, the need to make things work properly while managing people never goes away. And worse, many necessary skills that would help, are not of any interest to other people.

If any of you don't understand, here's the perfect example. I'm separating my profit centers in several companies. Since the late 1990's the LLC starting dominating the legal structure aspect of businesses. This is very good as the LLC wonderfully flexible to make the structure a great deal clearer and more effective than the standard corporate structure. Unfortunately, the people with the useful understanding and knowledge are very busy and have no time to explain the issues you are considering and have no time to really understand your structural ideas.

So here I am reading book after book on LLC's. No one else in my organization can be inspired to read the same literature. So here I am learning new stuff with a bunch of people who have no interest in helping me fix (improve) the corporate structure to move the company into the future. Do I know enough how to implement the fix? Have I set up an organization that won't lose a moment converting to the new structure and growth?

Moral: you need to fix things before they break: that's what makes you an entrepreneur.

The next thing you need is a pair of eagle eyes; Nothing is too small not to notice. In fact, you'll need to bother your employees when you notice something out of place. You'll feel it destroys the rhythm.

Moral: don't let someone tell you you are wrong when you know you should be right.

If projects and tasks are to be completed, you are the  one responsible.

Moral: learn how to be in charge when you have no power at all. It sounds funny when you can pull rank, but no one likes to work for that kind of person.

Many skills are required. If you are an engineer that can design stuff you are way ahead of your competition that lacks internal design skills.

Moral: build things the way you want. You probably know best. If you are confused, better hire someone and pay them lots of money and ownership. 

Learn many languages. You will need to speak English clearly and with good grammar as a start. Add in the contact languages: banker, insurance, accounting, investment, people management, computer and technospeak, marketing doubletalk, art department babble, governmentese, and other useless means of knowing what all these people mean when they speak.

We'll cover all these nonsense things that make for a real business structure. I am not a deconstructionist. I'm not examining any business to repeat the obvious, but rather seeing how these businesses fit into my theories and what tools and other means are necessary for implementation.

For those who understand how to implement this book, I hope you can spend more time at the beach or on the golf course. Owning and running a business shouldn't be your only reward. People without other interests can create problems just to solve them, just like investors that are only interested in the money.

Keep in mind all these things happen at the same time. The proper structure properly maintained is the only way to sanity and health. Try to imagine your business like a hundred film movies endlessly wiggling and running around in space, sometimes overlapping, sometimes intersecting, and other times making no sense at all.

If all was that simple I wouldn't be writing this stuff. In fact, no one would have to write a book which would destroy a large publishing market. Since I would rather not see all the nice people lose their jobs, I present them another challenging book to sell. What's better, people rarely read these books so only a few have to be of any quality. Could content really sell a book?

So if you read this book, that's great. If you don't read this book, I'm grateful you thought enough to purchase and place on your shelf.