Herman School of Business
What's your Project Payback?
You want to start a new project. It may be a new business, taking over an existing business, or some idea you have that you know you should pursue. You are excited about the project. It can’t miss. You are about to invest a huge amount of effort, perhaps a huge amount of money, and give more attention to this project than something else you could be doing.
But what’s the project payback?
What are you seeking to achieve and how will you measure your success? So many people launch a venture without ever understanding the essential element of what they will get back from their pursuit. Do you want to make money…and is that the only goal you hope to achieve? That’s an easy one to calculate…just take the money you are putting in and watch how much you take out and understand that if you take more out you may be ahead. I say you may be ahead because you could have done something else with the money and made even more.
So many ventures are not profitable and therefore you should have other objectives in mind. Do you want your venture to help others? If your goal is to make the world better for others it might not be so easy to gage. How do you know the world is better off and how long will it take you to see your results. This is a tough one and you may have to go down the road a long way…and spend a lot of money, effort and time before you know if what you did was worthwhile.
Are you trying to become famous? Some people like the call of standing out from the rest of the herd. They want to be noticed, no matter the cost. Many famous people “sell their soul” to be better known, regardless of the money reward, whether it helps others, or anything else other than the fact that THEY are better known for having done something. Perhaps they ate the most hot dogs in a contest, ran the fastest in a race, ran naked across the stage at the Oscars, or went crazy and committed a disaster somewhere to become better known.
How do I measure the project payback? I do the same thing for every venture I have ever been associated with. While my objective may be to make money, as my ventures are of a business nature, the guiding measure for success is rather simple. Do I like doing what I am doing every day? Am I happy to get up in the morning and go through the daily grind of the project? And, if my goal is to make money and we haven’t done that yet, is there anything else I can do to turn that part around? Some people will say you will feel good if you are making money no matter what you are doing. Wrong. I made money as the Innkeeper at the Abacrombie, but wasn’t happy getting up every day and spending the hours it took to make that money.
For eighteen months I have been a writer who also wants to be a teacher by speaking before groups around the country. Thousands of copies of my two books are circulated now all over the globe. There have been hundreds of live radio interviews where I was able to impart my “Hermanism” philosophy. Twenty-two pages of material comes up on a Google search, so certainly I am better known now than when I started. There have been some speeches given and more are planned. As yet, this has not been a money making venture. But I love getting up in the morning and putting my thoughts together here on my blog, and conducting interviews to share my thoughts on radio and TV airwaves. And there are still more things I can do to turn this into a money making endeavor. So, as a businessman I know I must strive to get this venture “in the black” and out of the red. But, more importantly, so long as I enjoy doing it the project payback is sufficient to keep me going.
What is your project payback?
- Posted: 6 March 2008
- Comments: 0
- Category: Running a business
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