Business is Color Blind

Barack Obama made a speech and some say it was transcending and instructive. I read it and it brought me to tears although I can't vote for him because I don't agree with his approach to solving this nation's problems. He believes government and a host of expensive government-run and taxpayer-funded programs can solve all the ills of society. That's why I found it interesting in his speech that he acknowledges that the real solution lies in "taking full responsibility for our own lives - by demanding more from our fathers, and spending more time with our children...they must always believe they can write their own destiny."

We've had the privilege of getting to know two very successful business men who have transcended racial barriers and epitomize the meaning of creating their own destiny. Arnold Joseff and George Hill didn't need a lecture from any candidate to tell them how to treat, interact, hire or fire another precious human being that I believe was created by God. These two men have been buddies since childhood. They are the perfect example of how business people think in terms of talent, performance and service. If you are a business owner who has problems with people who are different from you, you are leaving money on the table. All of the rich owners we know are color blind and they enjoy a wealthy life that includes more than just a healthy bank account.

All You Need is Love

When Bruce and I arrived at church this Easter morning, the band was playing that great Beatles song, "All You Need is Love," and the pastor’s sermon echoed that sentiment. As Christians we consider Easter the most important day of the year and it is always a celebration of love. This made me think about so many of our friends who are business owners and who have "All You Need is Love" as the theme of their lives.

When Gary Walls was told that his kidney disease meant he could no longer teach and coach in a high school, he launched a company called, Trailblazer Foods. We met him as he was being recognized as small business person of the year from the state of Oregon and he changed us all completely. In the midst of battling an insidious disease, this exceptional man decided to start a business because he needed something to do while living through the difficult and terrifying treatment.

Time with Gary revealed that the foundation of his life was love. He loved walking in the fields to watch the berries ripen and loved turning them into delicious jams, jellies and syrups so that others could enjoy his beloved Oregon berries. However, more than anything he loved people and especially his family, customers and employees. He is in a better place now and we are still here to tell you that he built a multi-million dollar company while in great pain but with great love in his heart.

Put a Four-Leaf Clover in Your Pocket

Today is St. Patrick's Day but I was never allowed to celebrate it as a kid. My father was a strict Southern Baptist minister and he never extended graciousness to anything Catholic. When Michael Flanigan, an Irish Catholic kid who happened to be charming and the president of my high school student body, became my sweetheart, my father lowered the boom. "You can not even think of marrying a Catholic," he bellowed.

Of course I wasn't thinking of marrying Michael, but my anti-Catholic training as a young person also included discounting the concept of luck. I remember having a four-leaf clover and telling my father that I thought it might bring me luck. True to form he said, "There is no such thing as luck." To my father St. Patrick's Day, the Catholics and luck all went together and I was to keep them all at arm’s length. My father meant well but I now disagree with him on all three topics. I love and respect my Catholic friends, I am wearing green right now and I will surely have a beer today to celebrate the life of a great man. Then there's the concept of luck.

After listening to hundreds of business owners describe how they have turned ideas into millions of dollars I am a believer in luck. Over and over the amazing, hard-working, brilliant and delightful self-made millionaires I have met will concede that for all their plotting, planning and market research, their success includes a good measure of sheer luck. They look at others around them who have worked as hard and who are smart or smarter than they are but they just haven't hit as big. They know that even a tiny bit of luck along the way could have made a difference.

All my life I’ve heard that "Luck is preparation meeting opportunity,” but as these successful business owners attest, I am now convinced that luck - grace or mercy - play a part in how our business works or doesn't work. Here's just one of the many owners who told me that he was lucky. He said he was lucky to come from India to this country to study; he was lucky his parents matched him with a beautiful woman who became his wife; and, he was lucky to land the world's largest customer. Meet Shiv Krishnan the founder of Indus. He's one lucky guy.

To succeed in business you need to have the right product, the right people, the right processes and it's always good to put a four-leaf clover in your pocket.

Riches Without Greed

Today's headlines continue pounding us about conservation. While the New York Times reports on Southern Baptists strengthening its convention position on the subject, The Telegraph reports that the Vatican wants us to recycle or find ourselves on the way to hell. The same article goes on to say that we'll go to hell if we are greedy.

Well, I'm not buying it. I have already written that small business owners are the original, old-fashioned environmentalists. We have been doing all of this so long we used to call ourselves conservationists. My husband writes and prints on both sides of every sheet of paper. We are conservationists because we know deep in our hearts it is good for the earth and good for our pocketbook. Another way to say that is most of us small business owners are cheap. We have to hold the line on waste and costs because as one of the fathers of the great American experiment, Benjamin Franklin said, "a penny saved is a penny earned."

Or, a mug reused is better than a paper cup tossed in the trash. It is so funny to me to hear the 20 somethings advocate shunning plastic and paper as dinnerware because when I was growing up we didn't have plastic and paper. I have never wanted to waste anything just so I wouldn't have to wash it.

I am confident that all small business owners will go to heaven because we try not to waste anything. However, according to the Telegraph, the Monsignor Gianfranco Girotti head of the Apostolic Penitentiar at the Vatican said, "genetic modification, carrying out experiments on humans, polluting the environment, causing social injustice, causing poverty, becoming obscenely wealthy and taking drugs were all mortal sins."

I want to know who gets to define "obscenely wealthy?" I say that if you are creating value for customers and employees and along the way you happen to land in the top income tax bracket, you are not going to hell.

The business owners we know are like the founder of Ziba Design. They are generous not greedy. They are more concerned about the success of their employees than they are themselves. They are striving, trying, risking and pushing to help everyone in their world have a better life tomorrow than they have today. I am Baptist and I have great respect for the Vatican. However, I believe that every honest owner deserves to be obscenely wealthy. Why? Because most of them turn around and give out of their generous hearts to those in need.

Ride the Ups and Downs with Multiple Revenue Streams

When I started my first business in 1979 a tax attorney told me to never let one customer get more than 10% of my time. Another way to say this is, the more customers you have the better! To protect yourself over the long haul, develop multiple revenue streams.

Donna Baase , founder of Cowgirl Enterprises, had a vision about skincare products that come from botanicals -- herbs, flowers, roots, etc. In the dry air of Colorado, especially in this mile high city, she knows women need and want skin moisturizers that really work.

Though she started her business on her kitchen table, blending twelve oils from plants and roots (Cowgirl Cream), she quickly learned to outsource key parts of her business and to focus on her unique strengths. She was also very smart not to depend upon what she thought would be her best distribution channel. She expanded from natural product stores, to spas to boutiques.

Develop multiple revenue streams to protect yourself from market ups and downs.

Pets Prove to be Solid Gold

Sissy Harrington McGill, the founder of Solid Gold Health Products for pets, is a character. As she took us through her food processing plant she tasted things along the way. She told us she eats everything she puts into her food products for pets and her own dog is also an official taster. This way she can evaluate the entire process if you get my drift.

It seems as if people are crazy over their pets and will pay most any price for them to be healthy and happy. This is the conclusion Sissy arrived at as she developed some of the very first pet foods made from quality ingredients and with concern for salt, sugar and fat content.

Product development is difficult but all of the success stories we have done here tell us that your efforts must begin with a problem that people want to solve. Sissy's dogs were not living long enough so she set out to invent foods that would lengthen the lives of pets. What problem do your current customers wrestle with today? Should you be the one to solve it?