Business Success: Smart, Good, Hard Work, or just Luck?

[clovis]

Something I have wondered for years...is success in business a result of being very good at what you do, being smart about the business, lots and lots of hard work, or just plain luck????

I have thought long and hard about this subject.

Sometimes it seems that the most successful people in business generally have some (or alot) of luck along the way.

Let me explain: I have a friend that is probably exemplifies one of the best rags to riches stories that I have ever seen. He represented a manufacturing company that made large equipment. 'Joe' saw a wonderful opportunity in selling to a major industry in the US. So, Joe put together a plan to make a new business venture work well and be profitable.

The plan was great, but he lacked a "vendor approval number" that would allow him to do business with a massive industry leader. The VAN's are like owning a printing press for making cash, or the equivilent of owning a major sports franchise. Without the VAN, no business could be conducted with that company, and getting them to issue a new VAN is nearly impossible to achieve.

Out of sheer luck, Joe bumped into a guy at a bar that actually had a VAN, but also a terribly ran business without cash flow and no orders. Joe struck a deal and eventually bought out the new partner for pennies on the dollar.

I don't want to take anything away from Joe. That guy is sharp as a tack, incredibly smart, is confident, a risk taker, and has moxie. If you listed all the attributes of a successful business person, Joe probably has 95% of them.

But the luck???? If Joe would have opted not to go to the closest bar for lunch, or been seated at a table instead of the bar, Joe would probably still be selling equipment to paper companies, instead of making several million dollars in profit each year...and the guy isn't even 37 yet.

Another story: I know a woman that happened to buy some farm ground outside of Indianapolis. She did not buy it as an investment, but as a future building site for a home and a farm, out in the country where two narrow rural roads intersected. One farm field was mediocre, and the other was small and poor. Most would have considered it unbuilable due to drainage issues. Then, a few years later, out of the blue, developers started calling. Target bought one parcel, and Meijer bought another parcel. The last info I heard was that one acre out lots were selling for $1 million each.

Again, the luck??? Two farm fields that had been zoned residential/farm, is now one of the hotest areas in the Indianapolis suburban market, with no end of growth in sight. Her hope when buying the land had been that the farm ground rental money would be enough to cover the property taxes each year!

So what is it about being successful in business? Smarts? Hard work? Risk taking? Being the best in the field? Or luck?

What do you think, and why?

Clove

[Alice In TX/MO]

I think it's a combination of all those factors, plus karma.

The willingness to step outside the box.

The ability to see the niche.

The willingness to turn your life into your work. There is no 8 - 5 for self employed people!

The ability to re-direct dollars. My mom sat in the dark in her underwear in the hot Austin summers because she didn't want to pay high utility bills. Because of her penny pinching, she had the money to travel to Machu Pichu and float the Amazon.

Organization cannot be stressed enough. You can have a wonderful business idea, but if you can't nail your fanny to a chair to deal with the mail and the bank accounts and the planning, you will not be successful in the long term.

Karma - Prayer - serendipity. I have a thing I call "putting it out to the Universe." Talk, pray, and think about what you need to have happen. Doors will open, and you'll run into 'that guy at the bar' when you need to.

[ldc]

I think Clovis hit upon the answer in the telling of the 2 stories; timing!!! ldc

[MoonRiver]

I started a computer training company (bootstrapped) about 15 years ago. One of my customers kept asking me to do consulting for them. I did 1 project but explained that I needed to devote my time to building the training business.

The customer said they couldn't find any good networking people and they would pay good money if I knew a couple. So I called a couple of friends and both were interested. Next thing I knew, I have both of them working on a contract basis for the company. One worked for over a year and the other for about 3 years. They did such a good job the company asked if I could supply more people. All together, I had 7 people contracted there. I did nothing but bill and collect the money. Every penny I made went into building the training business.

I doubt if I could have successfully built my company without this extra income. I was able to quickly grow the training side and my business was named one of the 25 fastest growing companies in the area in its 1st year of eligibility. All this with no debt.

I've owned several businesses and luck is an important part of business. But you also need to know what you are doing, treat customers right, have good business sense, and work as many hours as it takes. Then when that lucky break happens, you are ready to take advantage of it.

One way I found to increase opportunities for luck is to make sure everyone you know, knows about your business. Just share your excitement with them. I can't count how many calls I got that started with "I was talking with Tom (or Bill or Nancy or ...) and he said I should give you a call. I've got this project coming up and I wondered if you would be interested?"

[MariaAZ]

Originally Posted by clovis

He represented a manufacturing company that made large equipment. 'Joe' saw a wonderful opportunity in selling to a major industry in the US. So, Joe put together a plan to make a new business venture work well and be profitable.

I'm going to chime in with my opinion that Joe's success had a lot less to do with luck than with a sharp eye for business and opportunity. He sounds like a good entrepreneur who understands that opportunity can knock anywhere, even in a bar. My guess is, Joe knows how to sell his ideas and was doing it on a regular basis until he found what he needed. I'd wager to say that if he hadn't run into the guy in the bar, he would have ultimately found another opportunity elsewhere.

I've known business people who just seem to have a golden touch, the ability to sniff out a good business opportunity. After getting to know them better, I've learned most actually work very hard at it; they knock on a lot of doors and get a lot of rejection before they hit a winner. There's a saying to the effect of, successful people fail a lot because they try alot. They are in the right place at the right time because they are constantly putting themselves in places.

[Razorback21]

Finding opportunities is only part of the equation. Passion and Perservance makes for a good entrapenaur. As far as luck goes, my Dad had the best saying for that. "Don't be one of those who wait for the future. Go out and mold your own future."

[okiemom]

being a bit ruthless also helps.