Are You 3 Feet From Gold?

How close are you to being successful? Have you ever given up on a business pursuit because you were frustrated with the progress?

In our search for tools and techniques to help our clients be more profitable, we discovered an inspiring book by Sharon L. Lechter and Greg S. Reid. "Three Feet from Gold" has many valuable lessons for our business we are in the process of applying. Published with The Napoleon Hill Foundation, it is one of those books every business owner should read, especially those starting a new business or those struggling to survive in these difficult economic times.

Lechter and Reid write: "The most common cause of failure is quitting."

The premise for the book stems from Napoleon Hill's earlier book, "Think and Grow Rich," in which he relates the story of an uncle of R.U. Darby. He caught the "gold fever" during this country's gold rush days. The uncle moved west, consumed by the passion to grow rich. He dug and worked hard for weeks, finally discovering the shining ore.

Excited, he realized he would need machinery to bring the golden ore to the surface. Quietly burying his discovery, he hurried back home to Williamsburg, Maryland, and told his family about his find. They were infected by his enthusiasm, gathered the funds, purchased the mining equipment and had it shipped west.

When the first car of ore was mined and shipped to a smelter, the results proved they had discovered one of the richest mines in Colorado! A few more cars of ore would clear the debt and start the profits flowing. Down went the drills. Up went the hopes of Darby and his uncle until something happened. The vein of ore disappeared!

Despite their efforts, the run appeared to be over. Frustrated, they quit. They sold the equipment to a junk dealer for a few hundred dollars and took the train back home to Maryland.

The junk dealer called in a mining engineer to look at the site and do some calculating. The engineer advised the junk dealer that Darby and his uncle had failed because they were unfamiliar with "fault lines." His calculations showed that the gold could be found just three feet from where the Darby's had quit drilling!

The junk dealer reaped millions of dollars from the abandoned gold mine. He had realized he could do better with expert advice rather than being stubborn and giving up.

How close are you to realizing your dreams of gold?

Stop: Take Time To Think Things Through

One of the best pieces of advice I ever received came from the owner of the Internet services company where I was the vice president of marketing. We were all about speed. E-mails should be monitored and answered immediately. Our computers were constantly being upgraded to be faster and more powerful. T-1 pipelines were preferred over dial-up (I know, this dates me).

Frustration would set in when a glitch caused a delay in my productivity. Of course, one always thinks they can fix the problem themselves quickly, which was not always the case.

The advice when those situations arose: Stop a minute and take the time to think it through.

What's going on? Why? What are the options for solving the problem?

This mantra is now a major part of my philosophy in helping businesses with feasibility studies, business and strategic marketing plans, and implementation of their business strategies. Take the time to think things through.

In this era of instant gratification (IG), mistakes are made more frequently in the interest of speed. While the majority of these errors are not likely to be devastating, they can have extremely harmful consequences that could be avoided by slowing down a tad and taking some time to think. Is a misspelled word in an E-mail all that serious? Could a slight error in a financial projection derail a line of credit getting extended?

There's an old adage that applies here: If you don't have time to do it right the first time, when will you have time to do it over?

The point of this blog is to apply this mantra when you are starting a business or expanding an existing product line. Think it through. Then consider hiring an independent, third-party professional such as Fluidity to conduct a feasibility study. You'll discover if the idea has the potential to be profitable, where the break-even point is, and whether it's worth the investment to proceed.

Think about it. Is it better to spend a few thousand up front and discover the idea is best left as an idea, or discover it was too risky after you've invested hundreds of thousands?

Hmmm.