Obstacles to Success

Obstacles to Success

Rodney Koop
Contributing Writer
The New Flat Rate

Being a contractor for the past 30 years I have had every single complication you can think of in business.  I have spent thousands on advertising to not receive one call from my ad.  I have lost many customers to that bigger and better new shiny company that offers the best service agreements in town.  Or, the worst, having zero cash flow and wondering how in the world I was going to make payroll on Friday.  It’s a wonder at times how businesses succeed with all the hurdles that must be leapt over while wearing a pair of cement shoes.  Michael Jordan said, “I’ve missed more than 9,000 shots in my career.  I’ve lost almost 300 games.  26 times I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed.  I’ve failed over, and over, and over again in my life and that is why I succeed.” Can you imagine losing 26 NBA games because you missed one shot?  Most of us would have walked off the court after the first loss and forfeited our career.  Forfeited our success.  Success has never come out of never failing.  Failure is a characteristic far too rejected by businesses that want to take it to the next level.  Success comes straight out of our ability to fail and keep failing.

Success is not always obtained by simply hitting a goldmine.  Because, how many people are in your field that are after the same goldmine? How many companies are you competing with on a daily basis? That might be a good number to know.  The key to creating success and retaining it for years to come is learning to identify the obstacles that keep success at bay and failure from stopping your plan.  Unless we have a moment of dissection, we will never improve.  I’m sure that after those 26 losses, Michael Jordan replayed those missed shots over and over and over again to see what exactly he could have done differently.  Obstacles have the opportunity to be used as forced reflection.

Let’s talk about obstacles and what those look like in business.  We know that there are at least two kinds of obstacles, internal and external.  Things you can control and things you can’t.  As contractors, we know external all too well.  The economy, our competition or the weather.  These are things that we have no full control over.  This doesn’t mean we are unable to influence them though.  These are not things that we must fall full victim too.  We have the ability to foster creativity and position ourselves to bounce back if we are sideswiped by these external Mack trucks.

How exactly do you compete with the weather though?  By offering things that your customers need, rain or shine.  How do you compete with the economy?  How about offering multiple solutions with multiple price points.  Financial statuses fluctuate, and you must be able to offer basic to premium fixes so you’re not blocking out half of your market.  How do you compete with your direct competition?  Find ways to give your customers better service, better solutions and more attention and then, use those strategies to get more customers that want what you’re giving out.

Now let’s take a trip inward and focus on the things you have full control over.  Things that you are not victimized by like, debt, competency and marketability.  It’s the internal obstacles that plague the contractor more than any other.  How many times have you found yourself in a deficit in regards to one of the previous?

My main internal problem in business was spending all the company cash flow.  Which is why during feast or famine I really felt the famine.  Being an owner and contractor, I knew I would eventually get the cash back.  Getting past the cycle of feast or famine was never something I thought about.  Getting to a place of true longevity was not my goal.  I thought about today…and maybe on special occasions thought through the weekend.

When did my company begin to flourish?  When did my internal obstacles actually turn into my entrance fee into success? Well, it was when I began putting the future in my today.  Leaving a legacy was something that started circulating through my brain.  All those years of hard work building a skill, a business and a brand meant nothing if I couldn’t see it lasting into the future and positively effecting the people I employed and the people I loved the most. This was the first obstacle I overcame, and it was the biggest.  It set in motion what would now be a legacy I own, and a legacy that has affected multiple generations of people throughout my life.  Putting the future into my today was the key that unlocked years of bad habits, years of struggle and years of wondering if I was ever going to know what it felt like to be a true success.  Throwing my hands up all those years and wondering why I could never get over the wall was the wrong gesture.  I needed to take my big pointer finger, turn it towards myself and decide I was going to do exactly what I wanted, and that was succeed.   Michael Jordan did that same thing.  He couldn’t blame those missed shots on his teammates…because once the ball was in his hands it was his story.  It’s the same for you.  Your company is always in your hands.  Tomorrows obstacles and successes are up to your todays decisions and choices.  Either take the shots or quit the team…there’s no other way to play the game.