JANE CHIN, PH.D. ∞

If I could distill the business life “lessons learned” in a post, I would sum up my past few years’ experience as follows:

Character – Trust – Courage.

Character. Before you even bother with a business plan, before you think about the financials, ask yourself if you have the character to be in business. For me, character is synonymous with integrity. I have read elsewhere that integrity is “doing the right thing when no one is watching.” In business, I would sum up character as “doing the right thing even when it means you make less money than you’re tempted to make.”

Some business owners are so engrossed in meeting their bottom-line and making money at all costs, that they would recommend a more comprehensive “package” than the client needs (“upselling” or “cross-selling”) or peripheral services that have a higher profit margin (service agreements) that are usually unnecessary. This is not about undercharging or undervaluing your services. This is about your character stemming the scarcity mentality (that can translate to greed) of wanting to sell more than the client needs.

Another aspect of character is knowing who you are. If you are any good at what you do, you will incur criticism and sometimes spite from other people. They will dislike you for being as successful as you are. They will marginalize your value on anonymous message boards, and write defamatory remarks about you while hiding behind their anonymous identities. You ultimately know your own character, and that may be your only ally to help you sleep at night.

Trust. One of my teachers said the difference between confidence and trust is that you gain confidence by doing something you have already done before. On the other hand, when you are doing something for the first time, or when you are venturing into unchartered territory, Trust sees you through.

I can tell you that most of what I’ve done in the past few years of starting my own business are things I have never done before, and in some cases, are things no one in the my field has tried before. I can’t go by someone else’s experience to guide me into unchartered territory. I can only trust that I have the resources to handle whatever comes my way.

Entrepreneurs by nature rely more on Trust than on Confidence, by virtue of their venturing into new territories. One of the reasons why I admire entrepreneurs is that they are willing to risk, and in the process, show others what may be possible.

Courage. There are many faces of courage that show up in the course of starting and operating a business. One of the most courageous things I think any enterprising individual can ever do is to quit while she is ahead.

A good comedy improv director – and any skilled comedy improv performer – can detect when a scene has reached its peak. Once this peak has passed, it figuratively “jumps the shark” and it’s all down hill from there. Think about some of the TV shows that you used to like, up till episode 100. That show should have closed out maybe 75 episodes ago. Because the business owners like to milk as much as they could, they drag the show on and on, until most of the audience stop caring.

I personally feel the same way about business. When I went out on my own to create a business, I had a vision of what I wanted to accomplish. My vision was my “business plan”. I was able to accomplish most of what I wanted to accomplish. Early on, I also told myself that when I begin to see that I am no longer contributing (or willing to contribute) to the field, I will leave it. I hold myself accountable to this yardstick, even if it means leaving hundreds of thousands of dollars on the table. There are other mountains to climb, especially the peaks that call most strongly to my life purpose and passion.

What about you? What are some of your business lessons learned?

Originally published: May 2, 2007 @ 16:30