“Francis, I would like to go into business and I need your advice. Should I quit my job and go full time into my food business or not?”
I would ask a lot more diagnostic questions and the answers I usually get would be, “Francis I have sold my products to my friends and my loved ones and all of them told me I have good stuff. I figured if they like the stuff I make then surely there must be a market for my work.”
This situation applies to food, clothes, services and all works of art.
Well, let’s think about it and address the issue by answering this question:
Who judges your artistic work? Who has the right to say whether what you are doing is right or wrong, cheap or valuable?
I have unpleasant news though. Friends and relatives are amateurs who will never be able to truly judge your work and determine whether they may turn out to be successes or not.
Family and friends love you. They are being polite so as not to hurt your feelings. Therefore, if you believe you have a winning product and it can earn you a fortune, you might be thinking wrong. It might just drag you backwards and leave you frustrated, or worse.
Let me tell you something strong and hard about the facts of business life.
There is nothing in this world that can tell you whether you are a success or a failure other than the market. Only the market has the right. However, it will never be polite. The market respects success. It will never lie.
It is emotionless and has no sense of gratitude. It can be short-lived in numerous cases as well. Only the market decides how high or low the value you can establish for yourself and how far your work can go.
Let me give you an example:
A little child draws a picture. The mother is delighted. The mother smiles and is so proud and tells her daughter, “That is so beautiful.” Then the child brings the painting to school. But then, the teacher gives it a low score. The daughter now gets confused. The mother says it is a beautiful work of art, then how come the teacher did not give her the highest score ever?”
The teacher represents the market. Her competence is higher than the mother. She sees all the other works and her judgment is devoid of feelings.
The teacher, therefore, is the market.
Teachers can be wrong, of course. Parents can also be wrong. Opinions are often wrong and their judgment may have you conclude that what you do and what you have to offer may either carry high value or the opposite.
But, unless you bring your work to the market place and allow the public to declare their judgment, then you will never know.
In my many years of entrepreneurial experience, this is what I have discovered. Markets are seldom wrong. You cannot bluff your way to being successful. The judgment of the market is brutally and painfully honest in deciding whether your work carries value or not.
For startup enterprises, it is good to get the opinions of friends and loved ones but, you should be firm with them and insist they tell you the truth. They will buy your products, because they love you and care about you, but their opinions are totally unreliable.
Sometimes, those who are envious of you would not give you the right judgment either and if their views matter to you a lot, then you will be discouraged.
You need to bring your products and your work into the market and find out if it has potential for great business or not. Do not allow amateurish evaluations to be the basis for making vital business decisions.
Be ready to get honest feedbacks. As famous author and speaker Ken Blanchard would say, “Feedback is the breakfast of champions.” And in a way, he is definitely right.
(Connect with Francis Kong in www.facebook.com/franciskong2. or listen to “Business Matters” Monday to Friday 8 a.m. And 6:30 p.m. over 98.7 dzFE-FM ‘The Master’s Touch’, the classical music station.)