So, Mr. Local Small Business owner: You’ve set your course… You’ve got goals. You’re running towards the future – not away from the past. You’ve got your passion and your eye is on the ball, so to speak.
Then, things don’t go just as you planned. Maybe you planned wrong. Or maybe the unpredictable happened at life or in your small business or somewhere else.
A good friend of mine was talking to me about this idea of “sticking with it” yesterday afternoon. One year ago, she and Andy met in a coffeeshop where she showed him her cards. A few months ago, after some initial success with her small business e-commerce site, she hit The Dip (as Seth Godin would call it). She said to me, “What if I had just quit then?” It was really hard for her, and there were some discouragements when things didn’t go just as she’d planned. Life got hard – and so did selling stuff.
For Grace Bateman, if she’d quit then – she would have missed the opportunity to tell literally dozens of media outlets about the women of Peru Paper. She’s turned into a regular media darling of sorts in the past little while. She would have missed out on getting Peru Paper cards into nearly two dozen retail outlets (and that number is growing literally everyday) all across the U.S. (since her first market in May – and yes, in a recession). She would have missed watching retail outlets sell her cards like wildfire – and placing regular reorders because the story and the product resonate with consumers. She would have missed the e-commerce sales and custom corporate work that has showered her of late. She would have missed the fun of trying to figure out yesterday afternoon why her web traffic took an abrupt spike midday for no reason that she expected – only to have the mystery solved when a newly minted fan e-mailed her and explained that a prominent blogger had written exclusively about her product in an e-mail to her subscribers. Most of all, she would have robbed 17 underprivileged women in Peru of the opportunity to take care of their children – and provide for them financially – all at the same time. She would have robbed us of the privilege of enjoying their handiwork and participating in a social good. And so much more. And that’s a lot to leave on the table just because times got hard. But her hard work is paying off now…that she stayed the course.
Mary and Joseph Christmas Card by Peru Paper
When times get tough, most of us can’t see the forest for the trees. We can’t see that the opportunity of our lives is just around the bend.
Please. Don’t quit.
Instead be innovative, hardworking, passionate and focused. Do what you set out to do – and don’t change course just because it gets hard. Stay the course. The rewards might blow your mind.
