By Morf Morford
Tacoma Daily Index

Businesses come in all shapes and sizes – with different business models, styles, philosophies and intentions. Besides turning a profit, every single one of these businesses serves the same purpose – to provide a good or service as only they can.

Small local businesses in particular thrive – or fail – based on the response they get from the local, sometimes immediate, neighbors and community.

The cliche about running a  small business is that you do it all. The challenge of a small business is that the owner in fact DOES it all.

How it gets done, or even if it gets done at all, is what defines the day – if not lifespan – of an independently run business.

Paul Hawken is probably the first business writer who got my serious attention.

Here is what he says about the primary aspect – for better or worse – of owning and operating your own business…

The self-owned and -operated business is the freest life in the world.  – Paul Hawken

Besides selling a good or service, every business, especially a locally owned, independent business, almost every business solves a problem.

How that problem is defined or addressed, defines and manifests the purpose of the business.

Getting a team to work together toward a common purpose is a challenge – but can also be far more rewarding than almost anything else.

Getting people to WANT to work together, to have each person on the team have a high degree of engagement with the company, its product and its larger purpose is an ideal too rarely reached – but it is something like a miracle when it does.

Consider again, Paul Hawken….

Good management is the art of making problems so interesting and their solutions so constructive that everyone wants to get to work and deal with them.  – Paul Hawken

Those who staff a successful locally owned business learn very quickly that their eyes must be on much more than the bottom line.

Their families, their reputation and yes, the product or service they offer are known and recognized in the community.

A chain store or franchise can close or move with minimal impact on their brand or reputation. A local business lives or dies based on the response of the community.

As Paul Hawken puts it….

Local companies don’t have to internalize their costs, and few actually do, but they tend to more often because the owners live there and they have to show their face in town, and their kids play with other kids.  – Paul Hawken

Those rare businesses to meet these standards are a delight to support, patronize or work for.

Every neighborhood should welcome them.

No community needs more strip malls packed with anonymous look-alike chain stores.

Put your business plan into action!