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Seven Greatest Ideas for Taking the Plunge

put it, 'OK, maybe we are growing a bit too fast for the theorists, but I don't
want to have to dig my own swimming pool.'
Often charming, sometimes simply frightening, these people know exactlywhat
they want and will work hard and do whatever is necessary to make that hap-
pen. Don't, incidentally, get in their way if you are a 'quiet life' person.
Their strengths include their enthusiasm and their ability to understand in-
stantly the waythey should take their business forward - the aiming point is
easy to identify. The successful ones discover new insights in how to manage a
business for owner's profit, and everyone can learn from them.
Fame. Other people want to build a business to make a name for themselves.
They will happily appear in their own advertisements and punt themselves as
gurus to the broadcasters and press at any opportunity. They desire a high
profile, an OBE at least and eventually seats on government agencies that pay
very little or nothing but give them cocktail party access to the great and the
good. They too will work hard and do what is necessary to fulfil their dream.
Their strengths include their unquenchable self-belief and single-mindedness.
Add to that the amount of free publicity they can generate to advance their
businesses and you can see the connection between their ambition and their
companies' success. If they have a weakness, it can be suspicion and fear of
other talented people in the business, whom they think might eclipse their
reputation as being, in fact ''the person in the one-person business.' I knew one
who declared that he wanted inscribed on the tombstone above his grave the
epitaph 'He was the founder of Esprit' (Esprit being the name of his com-
pany). I forbore from telling him that his attitude to his senior people that he
had messed up on the way, was likely to make them search that grave out so
that they could dance on it.
Lifestyle. Some people tire of the rat race and want to get out to build a more
suitable lifestyle. As we have said, that ambition will change dramatically how
they run their businesses. Their personal lives are completely mixed in with
their business lives, and decision-making on the latter will always start from