Time is Money: The Difference Between a Good Business and a Great One

Once your business is up, running, and consistently making money, it’s easy to feel like you’ve reached all the success you need. A smoothly operating, well-established company that continues to make a profit is every entrepreneur’s ultimate dream, after all. But, even if you’re fortunate and hard-working enough to build this level of success for yourself, it’s always better to keep on building. Why settle for a house when you can have a palace?

We’ve discussed the importance of planning for company longevity in the past, but it’s equally valuable to spend some time focusing on the benefits of continuing to grow your company with each and every step – not just somewhere much further down the road.

Learn to Like Change

Building a business is risky. Any move you make is a gamble of a sort – a gamble that your move will pay off and have positive results for your envisioned brand. Because of this, it’s easy to develop a certain level of comfortability once you’ve done the groundwork and these risks are no longer necessary for growth. But where would the world be if we all just sat back and stopped pushing forwards as soon as we obtained a comfortable level of success? Take these numbers, for example:

• James Dyson created 5126 failed prototypes of his now-world-famous vacuum cleaner before succeeding.
• Thomas Edison built 10’000 failed lightbulb prototypes before creating one of the greatest modern inventions in history (the lightbulb, in case that wasn’t obvious enough).
• Colonel Sanders faced rejection 1009 times for his renowned chicken recipe before establishing KFC as one of the most successful fast-food brands in the world.

If each of these innovators had given up before their true success, life as we know it today would be a little bit dirtier, a little bit darker, and it definitely wouldn’t be so finger-lickin’ good.

What we can learn from these individuals is that determination is the most valuable ingredient in the recipe for true greatness. It didn’t matter when they failed, and it didn’t matter when they began to scratch the surface of success. They kept on clawing away, and each one of them found themselves sitting atop an empire most of us can only dream of before the end. So, instead of dreaming… wake up and do.

The Error in Our Ways

The problem that so many somewhat-successful business builders run into is the clockwork approach – a term I have proudly coined for the purpose of this article (you see, I’m an innovator myself of sorts). This is where a company begins to run like clockwork, therefore it receives no more development because… well, why bother, right? Why change something that doesn’t need to be fixed? Here’s where the title of this article comes into play.

Time is money. The time you put into developing your company is the reason for the financial gain you achieve once the company is developed well enough. If, after a couple of years, your business plan has paid off and your bank account is looking better than ever before, imagine where you could be in five more years, or even ten. No matter how you look at it, simply doing nothing is a guaranteed way to prohibit growth. Instead of letting the time you still have ahead of you slip away, use it as wisely as you have done before and see your own empire form right before your eyes.

The Many Steps for Success

The options at your disposal for further growth and success (listed below are just a few) are options that you’ve more than likely utilized in the past for your initial growth and success – so there’s just nothing to stop you from utilizing them even further and reaping more of the benefits they gave you to begin with.

• Employee Development – Hiring smart should always be at the top of your list of priorities. If you have a desire to reach new audiences, you need to make sure you hire the strongest marketing team. If you want to generate more income above all else, then employing the best salespeople is the way to go. Whatever you do, make sure you never let your hiring game dwindle. Instead, lace your board with the best pieces available, move them in ways that will help their development, and watch yourself and your team win time and time again.
• Product Expansion – Your success may well have stemmed from a genius product idea that came to you at 3 AM one night, but there’s nothing to stop you from improving on it. The mobile phone was a world-changing invention but, if it wasn’t developed further, we would still be walking around holding big black electronic bricks to our ears instead of the glorious iPhones we’re all glued to nowadays. And who can blame us? That Doodle Jump is one hell of a game.
• Partnerships – There are almost 8 billion people in the world at this very moment. The chances are that at least one of them shares a similar vision to you. Instead of sticking with the lone wolf approach, it may be worth a look to see if there’s a pack for you out there – or at least a partner. Sometimes joining multiple businesses, or at least agreeing to some kind of partnership for a common goal, can be exactly the kind of fuel you need to really launch your success into orbit. And who says the sky’s the limit?

At the end of the day, this advice is all common knowledge for anyone who understands strong business practices, but sometimes it’s best to be reminded of the simple things instead of letting your fresh achievements grow stale. Ultimately, it’s wiser to remember those little steps you took to achieve success in the first place instead of sitting back and ending up feeling discombobulated by your lack of growth.