If you’re like most men and women who start their own business, you’ve worked for other people first. And you discover very early on that there’s rarely a place for your emotion and passion in someone else’s business.
With the exception of truly special companies like Google.
If you go down the honour roll of successful businesses started by entrepreneurs, the stories are very similar.
Take Chet Holmes.
Chet is one of the world’s finest salesmen. Extraordinaire, to be truthful.
There’s nothing about sales that Chet doesn’t love to do and do it well. He’s a master at cold calling. He’s a master at giving a customer a multitude of good reasons why they should do business with his company. He’s a master of charm as well as being a master of policies and procedures.
He started out selling furniture at the age of 19. University wasn’t part of his future. He was raring to get to work and make money.
The furniture store had a bonus for any sales person who made $20,000 in sales in any month. A target rarely met. Chet made $18,000 in sales his first week.
His thoroughly researched and polished sales skills made fortunes for other companies in the Fortune 500.
And he left every one of these companies because they didn’t want any part of the one element that made him a star.
The emotion and passion within him that created the burning desire to be super successful.
Today he’s a super star in business and owns several sales and marketing companies, none of which are small businesses. He’s revered around the world as a can do practitioner who turbo charges your business with his insights and systems based policies and procedures.
Jay Abraham is another highly charged individual who’s considered to be the master of marketing for small, medium and large businesses. He’s driven by his emotions and passion to be the best. By his unshakable belief that everyone can do well in business if you just look at what you’re doing and ask yourself where the opportunity and the passion is.
Just listening to Jay speak conjures up a visual image of zillions of jumping beans inside a small container, beating at the sides to get out. His energy is palpable.
Jay’s earned wealth for himself and others by showing people how to, first, unlock the passion necessary to succeed in business.
Closer to home, there are more examples of successful businesses built on a base of emotion and passion.
Do you know Sarina Russo?
She’s a failed legal secretary. One of the worst in the world, having been fired from all her jobs because she couldn’t type and wouldn’t take instructions from other people.
Not only did she feel she was smart enough to run all the companies who employed her, she thought she was smarter than everyone who employed her.
That raw emotion of self belief has built a $70 million empire that began when she started a typing school in Queensland in 1979.
She also failed high school. Redid year 12 three times. And is now a graduate of Harvard Business School.
Today, she hosts fundraisers for both the liberal and labour governments (you can’t be too careful) and icons like Bill Clinton. And rubs shoulders with business moguls like James Packer when invited to sit on boards of directors such as Challenger.
She’s emotionally charged, quirky, has no inhibitions and conquers all within her aura with her passionate embrace of life and business.
Gabby and her sister Sheridan Simpson are the Clean Queens. A business with a distinct difference.
They’re forensic cleaners and they clean up after dead bodies. Murders, suicides, overdoses, lonely people dead for days before someone finds them.
Their cleaning tasks are, by necessity, devoid of emotion, but not a sense of humour.
On their cleaning van, next to the Clean Queens signage, is Gabby's avatar. It’s a spunky, sexy woman with red hair in a perky pony tail, ruby red lips, big hoop earrings and wearing a gold crown atop her head; while thrusting out her large breasts that accentuate a tiny waist; shown off to perfection by her crisp white uniform.
Very eye catching.
Gabby loves what she does and is passionate about her work. She wishes she’d discovered this years earlier. For her, it’s the ideal job. There’s no set routine, no 9-5 regime, no one tells her what to do and every job is different.
But it’s not for everybody. On her website, Clean Queens, Gabby lays out their criteria for employment.
Read this.
“Should you be interested in a position at Clean Queens, we would like you to consider a few of the following points before you apply.
• If you want to be a Homicide Detective - join the Police Force.
• If CSI on TV grabs you - join Forensics.
• If you want to handle dead bodies – contact the Funeral Association.
• You should have at least 4 years experience in commercial and domestic cleaning.
• This is not a 9 to 5 job. It is on call 24/7, 365 days a year.
• This is hard work, in unusual, restricted areas, in uncomfortable PPE. The odours can be with you for days afterwards.
• If you have watched all the latest documentaries on Crime Scene Cleaning, this is not a Get Rich Quick Job.
• Dealing with family members, elderly, people suffering mental health issues, disability, drug and alcohol abuse, they are all very sensitive clients.”
This is not a glamour job! Yet despite all the filth and contamination in her job, she loves what she does because “it is gratifying on completion of a job when you’ve been able to help someone in real need.”
Self belief, determination, passion, a burning desire to succeed, the satisfaction you get from helping others in need, are all emotions.
Can you envisage running your small business without them?
As a Guerrilla From The Bush, I know that love of what you do, your passion and emotions turbo charge a burning desire to be the best. They’re all part of the mix that takes you to places you never dreamed of.
What are you passionate about? What’s your burning desire that will take you onwards and upwards?
I’d love you to post your comments and let’s see if we can help each other. Better yet, let’s have as many people as possible pitch in and share their experiences.
Take care,
CAROL
Carol Jones
Director
Interface Pty Ltd
The Fitz Like A Glove™ Ironing Board Cover, Roadworks Apron, Log Lugger, Travel Bug Shoe Bag, Mr Chin’s Laundry Bag and Sweet Shoo are all simple solutions for difficult problems. And every one is a joy to use.
We’ve developed markets for these 6 products without national or international retail distribution. To see what we’ve achieved, click on our website at www.interfaceaustralia.com.
Read the story of how our business began on The Ironing Board Cover Lady. No sales hype. Just a down home story about how we started our business on the dining room table of our rural property, driving on ‘L’ Plates, without an instructor.
A comment about LinkedIn. If you’re not a member of LinkedIn, when you click View Full Profile, you’ll be asked to join. It’s free and the option is yours. There are benefits to joining. Once you’re a member, you can key in the name of any person you do business with. If they’ve taken the trouble to complete a Profile, you’ll be able to assess their background, their capabilities and the calibre of person they are. You might be, as I am, often pleasantly surprised. So go have a look.
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