“The race of life is a marathon, not a sprint.” Tony Robbins
Somehow, I missed this memo and it feels like I have been sprinting since I was a teenager. Always rushing to go to sports games, 4-H events or speeding off to go see Anthony on the weekends back in our younger dating years.
Fast forward to 10 years ago and my sprinting changed to building a business. This business goes by the name of Farm Marketer and is the largest agriculture real estate website and a leading agriculture media company. I remembered when I started. So many things to do, so little time and only me to do them. When I first started it was me, my old clunky Toshiba laptop, the trusty office phone, and my rented office space. My goodness, how quickly time flies.
It didn’t take me long to dive right in and begin the sprint commonly known as entrepreneurship. At first, you start sprinting in a million directions until you hunker down, organize your priorities and figure out your priorities. The crazy thing is that when you are a business owner, you really are a jack of all trades. You are the website person, the graphic designer, the digital marketer, the IT troubleshooter, the marketer, the accountant, the strategist, the salesperson, and the CEO. Just a few hats to wear.
However, the most important thing a starting business needs to figure out and focus on is revenue. Assuming you have a great product and service established, you need to get selling. So many people believe the “build it and they will come” but I am sorry to tell you that is a load of hogwash. This isn’t a field of dreams here. I personally wonder how many companies fail to start or die quickly because they run out of money. I know 82% of businesses fail because of cash flow, however, I am saying maybe even a few steps back. How many business owners launch and then stare at their google analytics and wonder why the sales aren’t falling in the door? I hate to tell you. It usually just doesn’t work this way.
Throughout the entire 10 years of Farm Marketer, I have had to do lots and lots of sales calls. Rejection after rejection, I had to push through till I made my first sale, more rejections and then the next sale and so on. To say it’s been a sprint is 100% accurate. Not sure that I could have done it any other way. I did it. I built one of the leading agriculture media platforms in Canada. My shins are sore but I made it!
Now here I am today and nowhere do I feel like I can stop sprinting, however, I think it’s time to start the team relay sprint versus the single sprint. Hum. Just maybe. Let’s think about this. There is definitely merit to the quote and Tony said it so it cannot be wrong. Circumstances permitting I live a long and happy life. That means I have another 30 plus years of working. Hint, I don’t plan to retire young. So maybe, I need to pull it back to marathon speed, strong and steady, instead of sprint speed to make sure that I can finish the race ALIVE, happy and healthy. Hum. Just maybe. Definitely need to think on this.
Your Sprinting Friend,
Tracy
