Excerpts - Business Survival

Excerpt from Newport Beach Workshop #13 and l6

[brackets for clarification]
(audience participation in parenthesis)

The question is asked:

(How come people fail in business?)

They go in under-capitalized and don't keep books. How'd that work Dale? Dale and I are experts on going into businesses that don't work. And another thing, is have at least two people try to run it. That's one of the better ones. Don't have any head. Have two people trying to run it and they're in competition with each other--each one trying to prove who's in charge.

Another thing is to hope that people will come and buy what you have without letting them know you're there. There's more ways to fail than there is to succeed. But the statement is that three out of four businesses fail in the first two years.

(That's a very high mortality.)

Infant businesses hardly make it. First place they're usually under financed. And another thing they didn't know if there was a market for what they were going into business for. They had an idea and fell in love with the idea.

So if I were going to give the prime one, I'd would say it's falling in love with an idea. It's a wonderful thing to have an idea; but ideas should all be treated with great suspicion. Go
check them out very diligently to see that they're valid. That way you would save an awful lot of the mortality in business.

People have a wild idea of something which they immediately fall in love with, and they just can't give it up. I've watched people struggle with it for 18 to 20 years. As long as they could get a little more financing, and then a little more financing, and on and on it goes. They say, "It's gonna go soon, it's ready to take off". But they never "checked it out" to see if there is a market for such a thing. And if there is a market, is it already being supplied?

So they have an idea and immediately go with it.

(That's an interesting analogy. That's why they call them "brain children" because people treat them like they were children.)

They defend them. They will spend anything "they can get" on them. They're called "brain children". I think this is a major source of failure because an awful lot of the "brain children" wouldn't be started if these ideas were really checked out thoroughly to see if they were valid instead of just romantic.

(It can possibly be an area of confusion for people in the "Work" who want to start a business. They find difficulty deciding where that point is to just drop the idea or whether they should continue turning it over to the Power of the Universe.

(Right now things are going fine; but there were a lot of difficulties in our project. There would be a tendency to think "Well, if I really make up my mind, the thing will go.)

We like to make it a little more realistic and give it a certain length of time. It's like going to Las Vegas--you got $85. You're willing to spend that; but when it's gone--quit. Don't start digging around in the rent money trying to get even.

The point is, is the idea--or shall we say "brain child"--sick to begin with?

(I like building houses.)

Well, that's a good business because there's a market for good homes. They're all over the place. That you can check out and see. There's a market for them, and you like to build them. You build nice ones so you keep on building them.

But if you suddenly got a wild idea to build dirigibles, you might better do a little marketing survey first before you start sinking all your money into building dirigibles; because I haven't seen too many of them flying around lately, ok? I've seen the Goodyear blimp, and that's about it--and it's not a dirigible. But I know a guy fell in love with the idea of building a dirigible over in Arizona. He started on the way with it; and about the time he got one frame about to please him, a big storm came and tore it up. Then he went back at it again and that time something else happened that tore it up. So he still doesn't have his dirigible; but I think if he got it done, he'd find a hard time getting someone to buy it.

So it's one thing to build houses. We can see there's a market for those. It's another thing to build dirigibles.

I know a guy who got a big wild idea he would build a car-plane. He made an airplane that you could drive like a car and the wings rode on the side of it; and when you got to the airport you could put the wings on and fly away. He made a few of them at great expense to himself and some other people who invested in it. He thought the idea was wonderful, and they've never been able to sell one in 12 years.

(Does it fly)

Yeah, it'll fly and it'll drive. But it's the weirdest thing you've ever seen in all your days; and it neither flies very good nor drives on the road very well.

I also know some people who made a little car-boat that would putt right across the bay. They sold four of them--but they spent several million making those four. They had to sell them for $6,000 a piece, and they all sunk after a short length of time. They got rust in the doors and so forth. They were in salt water and they rusted. They had two little propellers sticking out the back, and wheels on the ground. They looked kinda funny, but they would do what they said they would do. A friend of mine got one and he started across the bay and before he got over to the other side, he capsized. So it was a good thing he knew how to swim. But it was quite a widget.

Excerpt from Newport Beach Workshop #9-10

(Do you know Mr. Smith?)

Well, I won't do business with him any more. I couldn't even get started, so I'll disagree with him, ok. Agreements are very necessary to work with, ok. If you can't agree with somebody, it's not a very good place to be working.

(What about having agape for somebody who is doing something which, in all appearance, is detrimental to you position?)

Well, I understand that that person is doing what they're doing with what light they have.

(So when you sue them, take them to court and have them thrown them in jail, and then you suddenly realize that they did what they feel is right proper and justified......)

I just let them know I don't want to do business with them. I don't feel going to court is anything--only expensive. Attorney's make money off of that, and I don't happen to be an attorney, so I don't want to go. But if I was an attorney, I'd recommend we take them to court, right quick. But not being an attorney, I'd just as soon let it alone.

The point is that when I can't agree with a person, or they don't agree with whatever I'm doing. I don't feel that's the person to be working with, ok? Simple. Now it may have been detrimental to my position, but it'd be more detrimental if I went further with it. So the quicker I split the thing off, the better it'll be.

[Someplace in the teaching material my teacher mentioned that two businesses can be side by side; but be very different. The first business thinks only about making a big profit and getting larger and better while the second business sees itself as making a contribution to the community. The second business may not get bigger and better; but the owners have enough to live on each day and keep the business going. Their purpose is very different and, to me, not driven by greed as we have seen so frequently in today's times. So though they are side by side, they are very different. I would prefer to do business with the second one. I'm not impressed with big business and expensive things and it has sure made my life less complicated. If I should find where the story was, I will transcribe it and put it on the web page…..Marsha]

Finally, the search is ended. Thanks to Dorothy Billingsly who found the ideas from Tape 32

Say one has a business, and that business provides a service or a product that other people everywhere roundabout want. One is making a contribution. But if one is using that same business for a place to accumulate security--then it is an entirely different thing. It is always the inner meaning of a thing that counts--not the outward form in either place. For instance, there are two men, running a business side by side. One man is seeing that his business is making a contribution to the community. To him flows enough money that he has what he needs. He may not get rich; but he has food, clothing, shelter, probably transportation, and he is making a contribution to the community of beings thereabouts. The man next door has a similar store and provides something that people want; but he sees it as a means to accumulate wealth, so that he can be like the man with the barn; that he can store up sufficient--that he can say to his soul, "soul, take thy ease. You have things stored up for many years." These two businesses, on the outward appearance, are about two in the same type of business, run approximately in the same neighborhood. But the inner states of these two men are as different as noonday and midnight. One is building, at least to some degree, a spiritual body. The other is totally unaware of the spiritual body, is totally intent upon serving mammon. He is not thinking of serving the people or making a contribution. He is serving security - to accumulate. And those businesses are very very different in everything about them. But the main thing we are interested in is the inner state of the men who operate the business.

So it is not that one throws away things, disposes of it, and gives it to alms. Sometimes one gives more by operating a given business than one would by selling the business and giving to the poor families around the area. Sometimes he contributes more by setting up a place where people can work and provide a service for the community-this is making a contribution more than he would than if he gave everybody a few dollars. Suppose we consider, a man had $100,000,--we'll take a round number--and there were 100 families in the area that he knew about that were in the needy way. They have less than sufficient clothing, less than adequate nutrition, and possibly less than adequate housing. He decided to give his $100,000 away. He takes $1,000 and gives it to each of the needy families, and nobody knows it but him. So he's done something very worthwhile, one might say. But very shortly the $1,000 will be gone and while the families have had some relief from their discomforts, they are still unable to provide for themselves and shortly will be back in the same needy way.

Suppose he took the $100,000 and invested it in tools so that he could put 100 men to work. He would still have the $100,000 in the form of tools; and he could hire the l00 men. He would be making a much greater contribution, possibly, than he did when he was "helpful," and gave them all $1,000. So when it says dispose of something or sell it, it means to cease to identify with it--cease to see it as important; and to see it now as a tool--to see it as something to work with that does not belong to me--it is a means and a way of making a contribution. So one can dispose of everything one owns and still use some tools and possibly make a very decided contribution.