On being small and having much to learn...

      At a local livestock auction I watched 14-16 wethers (castrated) full grown, beautiful, healthy purebred Nubian goats being sold. Only the slaughterhouse buyers bid on them. One farmer said "Yeah they are pretty but what could I do with them? If I put them on the nicest pasture I have they wouldn't put on any more weight, they are not gonna grow anymore - they aren't any good to me."

       This pearl of wisdom can be applied to our products, our staff, our businesses, and ourselves. Why should we spend money on things that wont grow or improve and be worth more later on; Why would one hire a person who couldn't or wouldn't be trained in the way you want to do business; why would a business limit its growth by only catering to certain customers or pursuing certain goals (for instance a dog groomer who would only groom collies); finally- when we stop learning and growing , emotionally, spiritually, and functionally we quickly lose our sense of self worth and with it our marketability. The only constant in business or in education is change and there is always a new things to discover or old things to be relearned by a new generation.

    An old dog must learn new tricks.

       A small business can grow in any direction -think a man with a truck. He buys a mower and all at once he is a landscaper . Winter comes, he buys a snowblower.  Gets a client that needs a picnic shelter. He builds it for him. He hauls the lumber and tools on his truck. He  then tears down a old shed and hauls the used lumber and sells it,. He hauls aluminum cans to the recyclers.  The man with the truck is versatile and open-minded and successful.

Now examine the same man who has a truck but he doesn't want to get it dirty hauling a mower in it- it would mess up his truck. He doesn't want to get out in the cold and run a snowblower -his nice clothes would get all wet and ruined. He doesn't know how to build a picnic shelter - that's complicated all those boards and nails and stuff. He isn't hauling old naily boards in his nice truck (let someone else tear down that shed) and forget the sticky old cans. He misses payments on his truck and loses it.