The Multiplier Effect… and how it affects your business
By Nina Kaufman, Esq.Author and entrepreneur Michael Gerber was quoted as saying, “Businesses fail not because their dream is too big, but because their dream is too small and too realistic to sustain the life they want.”
Simply put, the measure of your success (financial and otherwise) is in direct proportion to how big your vision is. It’s the Multiplier Effect at work.
If your vision for the work you do is all about you—you performing the service or creating the product, you handling sales, you taking care of bookkeeping… all so that you can earn some money—you’re working at a factor of 1. You.
But that’s not where business growth lies. Business multiplies when you impact more people, when you transform more lives. Are your vision and mission big enough to encompass more? When you sketch out your business growth for 2013, do you plot it based on your current capacity? The number and qualifications of the people you now have on staff? Do you hamper your vision with present reality? Or are you thinking in multiples of what you could achieve?
TIP: Envision a mission that’s impossible for you to achieve on your own. Ask yourself:
- How does our company (and/or its products or services) make the world a better place? Look at Toys ‘R’ Us: “To put joy in kids’ hearts and a smile on parents’ faces” (what’s better than that?)
- Is the mission quantifiable? See Facebook: “To give people the power to share and make the world more open and connected” (no limits there!)
- Does the vision have a multi-generational future—that is, can it outlast you, the founder? Nike’s mission: “To bring inspiration and innovation to every athlete in the world” (that can go on forever)
- Is there risk involved? Check out Amazon.com: “Our vision is to be earth’s most customer centric company; to build a place where people can come to find and discover anything they might want to buy online” (anyone playing shrinking violet there?)
For more, read Dan Sullivan’s article in SUCCESS Magazine, “Modern Marketing: Why go 2x when you can go 10x?”
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