The Operational Black Hole

Yesterday I discussed the inability to stay focused as a stumbling block to success. A second stumbling block to success in building a business is getting sucked up in various diversions that eventually lead to the complete inability to execute on the core mission of your business – client acquisition activities.

The following is a real life scenario in a business from a prior life of mine:

I met Jerry (not his real name). He had had a very successful career in the financial services industry. He was affable, experienced in general business, educated, and well capitalized. He had been in senior management and had owned a retail business earlier in his career. He was excited about the franchise and pushed very hard to get the territory he wanted, and then jumped in with both feet. He spent a lot of time building up his location, getting the computers and software in place, installing all of the equipment and did an unparalleled job in building a Taj Mahal location – nice, but much more than was actually needed.

During the pre-opening process, a crucial element he failed to devote ample time to, was pre-opening marketing activities, even though he was encouraged all along the way to follow the pre-opening plan checklist which had a dozen pre-opening marketing activities on the list. The pre-opening marketing activities on the checklist he did get around to, he did in perfunctory manner, always leaping at the chance to jump back in and focus on operational issues – even if 90% of these operational issues could have been done before or after hours, on another day, or by his newly hired Lab Tech.

When Jerry finally did open for business, you could have used his location for a bowling alley and not hit a thing with bowling balls, since there was no business. I think you can see where this is going. Over the next year, Jerry did get out and generate business. He was actually very good at it, but he remained so "anally retentive" on operational issues, that he always leaped at the chance to get involved in operational details vs. training, instead of delegating routine and repetitive operational elements of the business to others. He never achieved his financial goals for his business, because he spent too much time in the Operational Black Hole. However, because he was always busy and enjoyed the business, he was one of the happiest franchisees in the system.

I have often asked myself the question: Was Jerry successful? I guess it depends on your definition of success. Was he fulfilled and did he enjoy working in his business? The answer was an unqualified YES. So I guess he was successful in that sense of the definition of success. However, if you define success as meeting and exceeding financial goals, I don’t think he would deny that he was not as successful as he could have been in this part of the business.

What is your definition of success? Will you be able to keep out of the Operational Black Hole to achieve your goals and achieve financial success? Time will tell.