Keep Your Dream

I have a friend named Monty Roberts who owns a horse ranch in San Ysidro. He has let me use his house to put on fund-raising events to raise money for youth at risk programs.

The last time I was there he introduced me by saying:

“I want to tell you why I let Jack use my house for this cause. It all goes back to a story about a young man who was the son of an itinerant horse trainer who would go from stable to stable, race track to race track, farm to farm and ranch to ranch, training horses. As a result, the boy’s high school career was continually interrupted. When he was a senior, he was asked to write a paper about what he wanted to be and do when he grew up.”

“That night he wrote a seven-page paper describing his goal of someday owning a horse ranch. He wrote about his dream in great detail and he even drew a diagram of a 200-acre ranch, showing the location of all the buildings, the stables and the track. Then he drew a detailed floor plan for a 4,000-square-foot house that would sit on a 200-acre dream ranch.”

“He put a great deal of his heart into the project and the next day he handed it in to his teacher. Two days later he received his paper back. On the front page was a large red F with a note that read, `See me after class.'”

“The boy with the dream went to see the teacher after class and asked, `Why did I receive an F?'”

“The teacher said, `This is an unrealistic dream for a young boy like you. You have no money. You come from an itinerant family. You have no resources. Owning a horse ranch requires a lot of money. You have to buy the land. You have to pay for the original breeding stock and later you’ll have to pay large stud fees. There’s no way you could ever do it.’ Then the teacher added, `If you will rewrite this paper with a more realistic goal, I will reconsider your grade.'”

“The boy went home and thought about it long and hard. He asked his father what he should do. His father said, "Look, son, you have to make up your own mind on this. However, I think it is a very important decision for you." Finally, after sitting with it for a week, the boy turned in the same paper, making no changes at all.

He stated, "You can keep the F and I’ll keep my dream.”

Monty then turned to the assembled group and said, “I tell you this story because you are sitting in my 4,000-square-foot house in the middle of my 200-acre horse ranch. I still have that school paper framed over the fireplace.”

He added, “The best part of the story is that two summers ago that same schoolteacher brought 30 kids to camp out on my ranch for a week. When the teacher was leaving, she said, ‘Look, Monty, I can tell you this now. When I was your teacher, I was something of a dream stealer. During those years I stole a lot of kids’ dreams. Fortunately you had enough gumption not to give up on yours.'”

Don’t let anyone steal your dreams. Follow your heart, no matter what!

Today, experts Agree that more companies face an unstable business environment. Improvements in information processing and
telecommunications have made significant changes in most businesses. In addition to this, improvements in transport and the growth
of foreign economies (specifically in Europe and Asia) have created a global market and surpassed certain businesses. In addition,
as consumers are vulnerable to more options, loyalty has become less important as it once was; a slightly better deal or a
temporary lack of stock can easily lead to the loss of customers. Competitors also can change quickly, with new ones emerging out
of nowhere (frequently this means the other side of the world ). With the uncertainty of the worldwide market, it's vital that you
make tactical planning component of your overall company plan.

Proactive Versus Reactive Management. A couple of decades back, you could establish and maintain a business by reacting to and
meeting changes in preferences, costs and prices. This reactive type of direction was frequently enough to help keep the business
going. However, today changes occur fast and come from a number of directions. From the time a reactive manager can make the
necessary alterations, they may lose many customers -- maybe for good.

Proactive Planning is the expectation of future events. Decisions are based on forecasts of future conditions of the environment
instead of responses to various crises as they happen. Proactive planning within an unstable, technology-driven business
environment is critical to continuing success in almost any endeavor. Rather than reacting to this situation as it changes,
proactive planning requires you to analyze environmental forces and earn resource-allocation decisions. Using this method you will
take your business where it needs to be in the next month, decade and year. Barry Worth, a consultant specializing in small
business management, puts it this way: Now's entrepreneur must be a business architect. Anything built in the present business
environment must have a step-by-step blueprint or strategy about the best way best to reach success. The blueprint for today's
business owner is a company plan.

The Want For a Strategic Plan. Planning has an important role in any business enterprise. It can make the difference between the
success or failure of your business. You should plan carefully before investing your time and, particularly, your cash in any
business enterprise. The demand for a strategy is best exemplified by the following situation -"A Tale of Two Businesses."

Two franchises (A and B) were started by people who had worked in management in much bigger businesses. While Franchise A provided
a product and Franchise B per service, the outcome of the franchise systems had been sold exclusively in the USA before the
present owners became involved. The output of both was easily available in several other developed nations as well. The franchises
opened about precisely the exact same time and franchisee had a strong market presence, nor do they present. Now Franchise B is
broke. By contrast, Franchise A is promoting products in the Midwestern United States and in Europe.

What was the Deciding difference from the two franchises' success? You probably expect it to be the you had developed a tactical
plan and the other had not; howeverit isn't this easy. Several factors can influence the result of a business venture. There were
lots of similarities between the businesses, but there were also many differences.

Most notably, Franchise A marketed a product and Franchise B per service (although this does not clearly limit choices ). The
other difference was that Franchise A had a carefully thought-out plan. The investors understood as they looked for a franchise
partner they wanted to find a product that could satisfy global markets and a franchiser who'd support that kind of sales
campaign. These investors were established in the Midwest, but negotiated for exclusive rights to export the franchiser's product.
After they had acquired the franchise, as soon as they started to launch their company domestically, they also started to contact
government experts in the U.S. Department of Commerce and educators and local managers with international experience.

Clear plans Were developed outlining how they'd position, promote and distribute the product and which overseas markets will be
targeted . Even as they were building sales in a single European market, they were attending trade shows and planning entry
strategies in others.

By comparison, The second investor (Franchise B) started his business strictly because he wished to leave a former employer.
Obviously many small businesses get started this way; however, in this event no investigation of marketing alternatives was done.
The business has been located in an area which, as it was, contained virtually no customers for the type of support being
supplied. If this error was realized, it was too late to proceed --the investor only didn't have the cash or the desire to risk
starting again.

Other examples Further demonstrate the need for strategic planning and for creating a clear business plan. The owner of a business
that appeared to be doing quite well in two locations was going to open in a third. The writers have been called in to develop a
benefits plan and discovered cash flow conditions that could be found only after operations had started in the new location. After
assessing the situation, an expansion and financial plan was designed for the audio locations only. In another case, the authors
decided that a business had bought more equipment than was needed to do the present workload.

After careful Evaluation, plans to make additional purchases were put on hold, along with the equipment available was used
effectively to meet immediate needs.

A Enterprise Enterprise is to complicated to assume that failure to come up with a solid organization Plan is going to be the
reason behind issues Nevertheless, this failure often counts One of the factors contributing to business difficulties. As Worth
has stated, "Being a company entrepreneur now takes constant vigilance to be able to Be in a position to take advantage of new
opportunities and the access to new Technology and information as they become." The first step in Doing this is to have a plan.

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