Built to Last or Built to Rest?
How to switch off your phone so clients can't reach you for their pending projects
âIâm building a multi-million naira business but none of my children are going to inherit itâ was what she said when she was asked the 10 keys to building a successful enterprise.
In my mind I was like âthis woman is crazy, what will her children eat?â
She went on to say that the business wasnât about her or her family, but a legacy she wanted to leave behind, also that it was never about putting food on the table.
Weâll talk about her craziness soon, but in the meantime let me ask you a question. Are you building to last or building to rest?
Let me explain the difference
1 - You have clarity of vision, you are a dreamer and you plan to run a world-class business. Therefore, you make every decision with the big picture in mind. You have personal core values and these values spill over into your business values. You donât pay too much attention to profit and your principles are timeless.
2 - You are hungry, you left your job because you knew you could do better than your boss, you donât mind taking on 6-8 projects all at once because, hey, thatâs a lot of pay. You get burnt out and you start to avoid your clients, you donât take their calls anymore but you are always chasing ânew leadsâ
The first person is building to last while the other person is building to rest.
The crazy woman
Letâs go back to the woman who is leaving no inheritance for her children.
I attended an event earlier this week and she was one of the speakers that came to disrupt our minds. She left corporate in 2002 to build a multimillion naira event planning business and now she was retired and she left it in the hands of someone who wasnât necessarily her relative.
Many people thought she was crazy, they probably wondered in their hearts âwhat kind of mother is this?â The truth is, she is a great woman. She is a woman who sees the big picture, one who realizes that leaving her business for her children does not guarantee their success, but seeding it to someone else she knows is capable to running it well will benefit both the children and the nation.
When you are building to rest, you are working so hard to make money to live the lifestyle you want. You are working for instant gratification, you take on projects for the money, you exchange your time for money, you donât have a proper business, you donât plan to build a lasting business.
Thereâs a future that is coming whether we like it or not, if all you think about is getting regular credit alerts then you cannot be a part of that future. Your business will disappear, your company will fade. Donât believe me? Ask many Nigerian business owners, especially those in the 60s-80s. They do not exist anymore.
Letâs talk a little about me
I used to learn how to code and a few years ago, I decided that I was done learning HTML and CSS and I wanted to really build something. I wanted to build a business around my skill and around a need. I opted for digital marketing. I started to take courses on it and read a lot of topics on it online.
The next thing I did was to build my website and create a blog. Then I started to position myself as an expert on social media, I was talking about using digital marketing to get your business to another level, to build a business and a personal brand on social media, all the while, doing a lot of trials and errors.
Then one day, a friend who was a programmer came to me and asked how far I had gone in learning how to code. I told him I wasnât actively learning anymore and I was just focused on building my brand and creating content online.
He then uttered a statement that almost made me want to crawl under the bed and cry forever. He said âwhy are you wasting your time on things that donât matter?â He was trying to tell me that I didnât need to build a brand because I wasnât popular and instead, I should focus on learning how to code and start making money.
It made me want to crawl under the bed and cry because I thought I had found my assignment. I thought I was on the right track, I was always eager to share what I did with people. So for a dear friend to say that to me, I felt shattered. I have since gotten over it and Iâm back and confidently showing up as a value provider online.
You see, itâs not that I didnât want to make money, itâs not that I wanted to just be a value provider who is broke. No. But I have learnt something in my short years on earth, and it is that, money flows in the direction of value. I had a skill that I knew people needed and I was eager to help them achieve their goals and most importantly, I wanted to build to last.
Itâs a game of standards
I have a photographer friend who is extremely great at his craft. If he took a picture of you, you would never use any other photographer in the world again. But the problem is he would take on as many projects as he could, get payment and then fail to deliver at the right time.
He would decline clientsâ calls and switch off his phone so that they wouldnât be able to reach him for their pending projects.
To him, getting paid was important, he needed to pay bills, he needed to eat. So he never turned down any opportunity. He didnât have a team, a studio, a business, he didnât have a brand identity, he was just doing it to get paid and pay bills.
He was building to rest.
You see, a lot of people knew him for that and they started to give him odd, shoddy and fast jobs. They never really called him for real jobs because they knew his standards were low. They know he is money driven and that he would jump into another project and leave theirs within the twinkle of an eye.
I have been in rooms where people have talked about getting a pro photographer to document their businesses or their projects and I couldnât even mention his name because I knew he would mess things up and I had my name to protect.
Right before my eyes, his name came up in a conversation but the people passed him up on the opportunity because they knew he wouldnât deliver.
He was simply building to rest.
In conclusion
Your business - your assignment, your skill, your talent - is Godâs business and He cares about what you do in it. He wants you to put Him in charge of everything, but how can you when all you think of is building to pay your bills and have money in your bank account?
People who are building to last know a shoddy and cheap person or thing when they see it. They can spot you from miles away and would never have anything to do with you. So you want to work with the big names, but you are only building to rest? You want to be financially stable but youâre only building to rest?
Come on, you are smarter than that.