No matter how enthusiastic or energetic or committed you are, there’s one problem that every entrepreneur faces. That is, you are only human. You can’t be in two places at once, and you can’t work indefinitely without stopping. That’s why you need scalability. That means that you don’t have to actually be there to make money. If your business relies on your own personal skills, then there’s a limit to how much money you can make. It means that you will only ever have a small business. But if your NZ business coach can help you build a business that can be scaled up, you are on a winner.
If your business provides a product or service that other people can be trained to buy, then you have scalability. Then you can expand. Then, instead of making a living, you can have a business with millions. If your business depends solely on you, the more successful you get, the busier you get and the more stressed you get and the less you can give your business.
Online businesses with scalability can often grow without any significant increase in operating costs. For example if you produce a piece of software, once the software is created the cost is the same to sell one or 50,000 units – marginal cost is very close to zero. That is very different from producing custom software that you personally need to oversee or hire people to oversee because that can create a lot of operational issues.
So, the important thing is that you have potential for scalability even if you can’t use it immediately.
Oliver Brendon is an entrepreneur who had his eye on scalability from the beginning. At the age of 14 he began working at Thomas Cook, the travel agency, which gave him a lifelong interest in the travel industry. He got the idea for his own business in 1997, when he was working as a holiday rep Florida. His job was to sell tickets to the big Florida theme parks such as Disney World, Universal Studios, and Sea world on commission.
People usually arrived at these places by plane and had not bought the theme park tickets in advance. Brendan saw an opportunity to sell these tickets in advance to people rather than waiting until they arrived at the theme parks. These tickets are fairly expensive at the parks, so buying them in advance would be attractive to prospective customers.
Brendon had two rules for this new business: he would not sell through travel agents and he wouldn’t sell tickets for anything that got full such as a hotel. That way, he could sell wherever he was, at home or in the car, because there was unlimited availability. In other words, it could be scaled up to almost unlimited size.
His business was instantly successful. He sold $4 million worth of tickets in the first year all by himself. In the second year, with two assistants, he sold 16 million, and in the third year with five assistants he sold $38 million.
He now sells tickets to various attractions throughout the world. The site currently offers 650 events and activities, so that there really is no limit to it.
A true risk-taker, Brendon’s advice is,” Don’t listen too hard two what other people say. If I had, I’d still be in Florida writing reports about why I need to order some rulers. You have to go with your gut instinct.”
