If that’s true, I think I’m well on my way. Anyone who’s ever started a business will empathize. Entrepreneurs, after all, have to keep their eyes on a goal that’s far out on the horizon. They have to hold a strategic vision for where their company will end up. My goal is to be able to create a real-estate operation for distressed properties and ultimately be able to franchise it. This requires establishing easily replicable systems and processes.
I’m finding that Fitzgerald’s opposing idea is a bit more prosaic. That’s a requirement of being an entrepreneur that doesn’t get shared as often - the need to maintain a highly tactical view at the same time they hold the strategic view. This involves a lot of administrative work, discipline, and patience. It’s not glamorous.
For instance, now that the for-sale signs for our real-estate project have been posted, the phones are ringing with inquiries. That’s a good problem to have, motivating us to hire an administrative assistant (my daughter Amy, as it happens). But she needed a space in the office, and a desk, and working electrical outlets. We didn’t want to spend money on a second Internet connection, so now we have cords and cables running across the office.
Some of the calls are coming from service people we’ve hired on the ground in various cities, relating to cutting grass and looking for used plywood to board up windows because new plywood is too expensive. Talk about prosaic.
Having Amy here is great, but her job also requires some knowledge of real estate issues. Anyone who’s been in this position knows the conflict that comes from knowing that you could probably do something faster yourself, while also understanding that if you’re going to build your business, you have to train and trust other people.
To help myself with this, I’m reading John C. Maxwell’s The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership: Follow Them and People Will Follow You. Maxwell cites Ray Kroc’s “law of the lid.” Kroc, who took a couple of McDonald’s hamburger stands and built an empire, said that your business will never get bigger than you can conceive of it. I’m finding it’s hard to hold that big vision in my head when I’m tripping over the cords and arguing about plywood prices.
But I’m working on it.
