When it comes right down to it, business owners fall into two
camps: People who follow their passions, and clear-eyed folks who
look for great moneymaking opportunities. Each side says its
approach works best.
On one hand, following a market opportunity has glittering
allure: A great opportunity can make a lot of cash. On the other
hand, following your passion has romantic appeal: All day long,
you're around a product or service you love.
But what are the downsides? Are people who follow their passions
more likely to fail? There's no hard research to support that
claim. While the steady stream of bankrupt restaurants, bed and
breakfasts, and golf companies does seem to suggest that the
passionate approach is weak on results, reality is far more
complex.
Beating the Odds
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Miles Cook looked like a failure statistic waiting to happen: a
25-year-old guy who loved motorcycles and wanted his own motorcycle
dealership. At first glance, he seemed to be headed for disaster.
Even the banks thought so. "I was young, and a lot of banks
didn't even want to talk to me," says Cook, now 32. After
five banks declined his application, Cook read an
Entrepreneur article listing the top banks for small
businesses in each state. Sure enough, one of those banks agreed to
loan him the money for his startup. Now Cook's Rochester
Motorsports Inc. in Rochester, New Hampshire, does a brisk
business selling the most popular brands of Japanese motorcycles,
with nearly $10 million in annual sales.
"It all comes down to passion. Blind ambition is better
than 20/20 indifference," says Cook. "If you're
passionate about what you do, the sky is the limit."
Business consultant Karyn Greenstreet agrees. "You have to
fall in love with the product or service," she explains. Her
website, www.passionforbusiness.com, offers consulting and
coaching services for entrepreneurs.
However, by some reckonings, Cook was committing a big no-no by
being so emotionally involved with his product. "The problem
is, when you fall in love with a product or service, you tend to
focus on your product," says Terry Powell, CEO of The Entrepreneur's
Source, a Southbury, Connecticut, franchise consulting firm.
"You don't spend enough time managing, marketing and
promoting the business."
Passion and Opportunity
So why do folks like Cook succeed while scores of other
motorcycle-lovers lose their shirts? On closer examination, Cook,
who worked on his MBA but never finished, had the golden mean: just
the right mix of passion and business acumen.
Cook didn't just love his product; he followed four focused
steps to lay a good foundation. First, he worked his way through
college selling motorcycles at an independent shop and racked up
high sales figures. Second, he called Honda to ask if there were
any dealer opening points in the area--there were. Third, Cook did
his own market research by poring through census data and seeking
out county figures for affluent males aged 18 to 49. Fourth, he
scouted out a location himself, he says, by "just talking to
people at city hall, driving around and looking."
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