Sublime

Pretend that the business you own—or want to own—is the prototype, or will be the prototype, for 5,000 more just like it. That your business is going to serve as the model for 5,000 more just like it. Not almost like it, but just like it. Perfect replicates. Clones. In other words, pretend that you are going to franchise your business. (Note: I sai

Because every founder of every great Business Format Franchise company, whether it is franchised or not, knows one thing to be true: if you haven’t orchestrated it, you don’t own it!

I believe it’s true that the difference between great people and everyone else is that great people create their lives actively, while everyone else is created by their lives, passively waiting to see where life takes them next.

The least we should be able to do is run a small business that works. For if we can’t do that, then what’s the value of our grand ideas?

Collins and Porras discussed in Built to Last.3 In fact, their twelve myth-shattering findings provide a good roadmap for any entrepreneur who is trying to build a business that can

the customer for whom the business is to be created.

Armed with that realization, he set about the task of creating a foolproof, predictable business. A systems-dependent business, not a people-dependent business. A business that could work without him. Unlike most small business owners before him—and since—Ray Kroc went to work on his business, not in it.