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Zachary Aldwin Milkshake in the Boardroom
“What are you going to be when you grow up?” Is a common question that gives flashbacks to time spend among the crayons and paper of grade two classrooms. My personal jury is out on whether it is a valid question to ask a six-year-old; on one hand it stimulates the forethought in a child, on the other it can lock someone early into a profession that may not be a viable option in twenty years time.

That discussion can wait for later. It is a pretty good question to ask a business though.
Think about transport for a bit. Kombis are irregular but if you wait long enough for one to arrive you will get to your destination (pending breakdowns and running out of fuel).

Long distance buses operate on a timetabled system where no matter what time the bus arrives it will only leave at the scheduled time. You can own your own vehicle which gives you the liberty to leave at any time you want with the extra pain of getting your own fuel and maintenance plan in action. Or you could just walk. What are you offering as your business?

Too many businesses try to please everyone or appeal to everyone. When that happens you normally end up pleasing no one, everyone gets confused as to what they are offering, and you have way too many options for each person who walks through the door.

Pick one thing and stick with it. Make it work for you (if it does not work out you can always pick another thing). Focus your energy and drive into it.

If you can get to the point where you can get someone else to run it successfully on your behalf then fantastic, but Zimbabwe has way to many absentee business owners attempting to run multiple options while their management takes them to the cleaners while offering a substandard service. Picking a reliable manger or business partner is a whole book on its own.

Some questions that may help you decide what you want to be when you grow up.
Who are you going to serve? Low income, high income, middle income?
Will you be aiming for quick turnover or large inventory? Low margins or high margins?

When do you want to expand and scale up? Consider the Eiffel Tower in Paris; they only built one. There is only one Mona Lisa. Do you want to be exclusive or general?

Are you going to run your business traditionally with a full corporate structure or with a “make it up as you go” minimalist approach?
The clearer you are about what you want to be the clearer you can be about where you are going. You can determine vision and growth pattern and communicate them clearly to your staff.

There is no real right answer about how you decide to look.
It will depend entirely on what you feel is the correct plan for you. Apart from clearly moral issues and some solid principles that will make your life really easy you can decide to be whatever you want when your business grows up (offering an assassination service may get you plenty of murderous clients but it is not recommended as a career choice).

One last question just to throw the cat among the pigeons: Do you really ever grow up?

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