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What You Got

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In honor of all those bootstrappers out there which I can proudly attest to be a member, it’s important to remind ourselves of the old Axiom.

Work With What You Got!

This, of course, can mean different things to different people but in the context of running your own business, it’s paramount to success. When you first start out in business you have to use everything you’ve got.

All your money, all your connections all your friends and family members, as well as, covet every bit of elbow grease you can get from any and everyone. You use up all your emotion, all your intelligence and everything in your surrounding area to help you grow your business.

I can remember when Amazon first started out and Jeff Bezos was extolled because he used doors as desktops supported by stacks of phone books for legs. Richard Branson used phone booths as mini pop up warehouses to keep his record supply close by as he was hawking his music to passers-by.

Immense possibilities are all around you. Simply by getting creative with what you have in your surrounding area and looking at how you can utilize, connect and combine these resources, you will ultimately uncover useful hacks and efficiencies.

Once you start down this exciting path you might discover how little investment capital you have to raise… if any. Many of the most successful businesses grew by simply re-investing their own profits back into their enterprises.

These are very satisfying businesses to build, nurture and run as they have a different day to day focus. They may not be press hounds but this makes it easy to grow under the radar stress-free and a helluva lot more fun for everyone involved including the founder/s.

You can create your own growth targets, your own benchmarks, your own competition, and don’t need to answer to anyone but your customers, your staff and yourself. This is sustainable in the long run and a healthy way to operate on a day-to-day basis.

Your focus points will be:

  • Improve it – How do we make this thing better for our customers, clients and our people including ourselves?
  • How can we consistently grow using our own creativity and resources?
  • Are there other sources of revenue we can tap into that doesn’t involve taking on more debt, issuing shares or giving up control?
  • What does success look like and what does this mean to us both individually and as a group?

While everyone is worried about gaining unicorn status and rapid growth we can rest assured that there is no substitute for self-sufficiency.

Give me intelligent growth and consistent creativity any day!


Dominic Kotarski

Dominic Kotarski is an author, coach, sales trainer and Founder of Sales Success Academy. He's personally inspired, coached, trained and managed thousands of salespeople and business owners in 11 different countries. You can find him in Vancouver, Canada where he lives, works, runs, ski's and spends most of his free time with his family.

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