Love it or hate it, in the movie "Joe Dirt" featuring David Spade, there’s a key scene that teaches us what every entrepreneur should know. Joe Dirt approaches a guy with a fireworks stand and finds out he’s failing with his firework business.
Joe Dirt asks where all the “good stuff” is. He rattles off pretty much every kind of firework known to man and realizes the guy isn’t selling any of it. The guy replies that he doesn’t have any of those because, in his words, “Snakes and sparklers are the only ones I like”.
Joe Dirt then says, “Well that might be your problem. It’s not what you like. It’s the consumer.”
Yes, for the record, I just explained a vital entrepreneurial lesson from a movie featuring a redneck with a mullet!
However, if more would-be business owners applied this piece of humble wisdom, we would have less business failures in the world.
Let me just repeat what Joe Dirt says:
"It’s not what you like. It’s the consumer"
I know MJ touches on this in TMF , but there's a lot of people out there selling the idea of “get paid to be you” or “follow your passion and the money will follow” or a million other versions of the same thing. It’s ridiculous!
You can start a business following your passion IF there's a clear market for it - like, real people who are willing to give you real money for it.
In my own case, I started an online marketing agency almost 7 years ago. I didn't do it because I'm passionate about online marketing. I did it because I already had some experience with it and most importantly, there was a HUGE market for it.
There still is.
I scaled my business, reduced my involvement, and now I have more time to do things that I'm passionate about.
Wouldn't it be great if all would-be business owners could start off knowing this one thing?
Solve a problem, get paid. Rinse and repeat. Scale to freedom.
**
In case you're curious, here's a link to the short clip I'm referencing above:
Joe Dirt asks where all the “good stuff” is. He rattles off pretty much every kind of firework known to man and realizes the guy isn’t selling any of it. The guy replies that he doesn’t have any of those because, in his words, “Snakes and sparklers are the only ones I like”.
Joe Dirt then says, “Well that might be your problem. It’s not what you like. It’s the consumer.”
Yes, for the record, I just explained a vital entrepreneurial lesson from a movie featuring a redneck with a mullet!
However, if more would-be business owners applied this piece of humble wisdom, we would have less business failures in the world.
Let me just repeat what Joe Dirt says:
"It’s not what you like. It’s the consumer"
I know MJ touches on this in TMF , but there's a lot of people out there selling the idea of “get paid to be you” or “follow your passion and the money will follow” or a million other versions of the same thing. It’s ridiculous!
You can start a business following your passion IF there's a clear market for it - like, real people who are willing to give you real money for it.
In my own case, I started an online marketing agency almost 7 years ago. I didn't do it because I'm passionate about online marketing. I did it because I already had some experience with it and most importantly, there was a HUGE market for it.
There still is.
I scaled my business, reduced my involvement, and now I have more time to do things that I'm passionate about.
Wouldn't it be great if all would-be business owners could start off knowing this one thing?
Solve a problem, get paid. Rinse and repeat. Scale to freedom.
**
In case you're curious, here's a link to the short clip I'm referencing above:
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