Dr. Rick Franza, Professor of Management at the Hull College of Business, discusses a different, timely business topic each Monday in this column. This week, he gives advice on how entrepreneurs and small business owners can determine success. The interview has been edited for clarity and impact.
ABD: The definition of success is often an elusive term when it comes to operating a small business. How can an entrepreneur or business owner define success?
Rick: The first step is viability – have you created an ongoing concern? Until you reach viability, you’re living off debt or off of other people. People define success in various ways, once they reach viability.
ABD: We often think of money when we think of success. What are some other ways people define success?
Rick: It’s in the eye of the beholder. Everyone goes into business to make some money, but not everyone is in it just to grow their own wealth. For some, success is meeting a need locally. Some see it as giving back to the community by hiring local people and increasing the tax base. Others want to create a legacy for the family, something to pass on. Some want to get the family together by all working together. And then, there are people who are lifestyle entrepreneurs who do it in order to maintain a certain lifestyle and don’t want to go back to working for someone else.
ABD: In order to have success, you have to have a means of measuring your progress, or you won’t know when you’ve arrived, right?
Rick: As the saying goes, you’re always making good time if you don’t know where you’re going. Like anything else, you must have goals to attain. That could be finances, number of customers, number of employees, and growth in revenue. I can’t say you have to have these certain goals, but you must have goals. It’s difficult to be motivated if you don’t have goals.
ABD: If someone is starting a business, or has already been in business, what are the steps to determining how you’ll define success?
Rick: The first question you’ll need to ask is, what will make the business viable? Have a goal for what you want to get out of the business financially.
Then, it’s similar to what most people consider when taking a job. What is most important to you – growing the business? More leisure time? Being your own boss? It’s sitting down and reflecting, why did I start this business? That can be hard for an existing business, because running a business is so consuming and there’s even less time for reflection. A lot of it is related to how you spend your time and how much control you want to have.
ABD: What if your measure of success doesn’t match conventional wisdom, or is contrary to what friends and family think it should be?
Rick: That’s always a challenge – who sets your goals for you? It should be yourself and your family. If you’re always chasing what other people tell you that you should, you probably will never be successful.
ABD: Do you ever really attain success or is it an ongoing pursuit?
Rick: The cop-out answer is it’s both – but I think that’s also the right answer. Only you can determine what your measure of success is and when you reach it. But if you want to keep being successful, you don’t reach an end point, unless you retire or sell the business.
