If you stick around your company, that kick you got out of being the key player -- the one who convinced suppliers, dubious bankers, and prospective employees that their faith in you could give rise to something mighty -- has to yield to other kinds of fulfillment. "There's this little twinge I get that says, Gee, I wish I were more important around here," admits W. Leon Pyle, chief executive of Sterling Homes, a $49-million home builder. How you respond to -- indeed, whether you even acknowledge -- that voice inside has a tremendous bearing on your future and your company's.
Nobody's suggesting that entrepreneurs generally fail to recognize their own shifting requirements. Given their strong personalities and what Berglas calls their "chronic need for new challenges," most entrepreneurs can't subsist for long on an adrenaline level that has dropped like a barometer before a typhoon. They find ways to restoke that tummy inferno they desperately need.
But talk with them, and you'll find that entrepreneurs who get beyond the start-up stage frantically try to recapture as many motivating aspects of that time as they can. Here are some of the most common strategies they employ:
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Find a New Mission
No goal is quite as all-consuming as survival. When climbing sales make that threat seem a safe distance away -- some entrepreneurs contend -- it's time to find a new focus.
Gary Cino, for instance, has found an energizing goal for himself: profitability. Cino, president and CEO of Step Ahead Investments, in West Sacramento, Calif., has opened 17 98-Cent Clearance Centers in the past five years. This year, with sales nearing $30 million, Cino has decreed there will be no new stores. Instead, he has embarked on a yearlong crusade to improve efficiency; for instance, he wants to boost each store's sales by 15%.
"It may not be as exhilarating as a grand-opening weekend, but when you see an idea you've implemented that proves beneficial, that has its rewards," says Cino. "After the company has obtained its maximum bottom-line potential, which is still unknown, then my attitude will be, Let's go for some more growth."
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Stoke up on Affirmation
There's nothing as invigorating as the ego boost that comes from having others -- some of them virtual strangers -- sign on when your company is just a dream. What they are saying when they agree to serve as customers, suppliers, employees, or distributors is that they believe in you. They may never express that as unambiguously again.
Unless, of course, you have at your disposal a group of confident and enthusiastic admirers who can assure you, in persuasive tones, that you are on the right track. Mike Ward has found a whole assortment of those mentors. Some of them are people whose voices and names you'd likely recognize -- Brian Tracy, for example, or Dennis Waitley. The audiotapes of these folks, and many others, have helped Ward sustain that feeling of being on top. "It's not as if I turn on the tape and I'm a new man," says Ward, who started his Pasadena, Calif., life-insurance agency, MLW Group, in 1981. "But if I feel negative, the tape can help me wash that out. Sometimes you feel you've tapped your horizons, but then you can visualize doing tremendous things beyond what you can do now." Though MLW Group's commissions now stand at $250,000, Ward's 10-year plan calls for an ambitious climb to $5 million.
To get there, Ward follows a tight regimen. The 47-year-old listens to tapes from 7 to 8 in the morning and, when he's not dictating, on his 15-minute drive to and from the office. If he has the time -- or an especially big day ahead -- he'll amend his mental workout with a motivational reading. Over the course of this year, Ward's ears will take in some 250 hours of tape, a $2,000 expense. "When I'm on vacation, I actually miss my tapes," he says. "I think I could live without them, but I'm not sure."
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Thrive on Crisis
"I can't get psyched about doing the P&L or figuring out the payroll," admits Keith Dunn of McGuffey's. "But it's a great feeling when everybody turns to me and says, 'OK, what do we do, boss?' "
Adding new restaurants to the seven existing McGuffey's units can "bring me alive," Dunn says. But between openings, he's had to rely on the only other predicament that gives him a rush of energy. "My eyes light up," Dunn says, "when I hear of a crisis."
Last fall, for instance, 118 people contracted salmonella poisoning at one of his restaurants. As unappetizing as that sounds, Dunn characterizes the event as "fun and challenging." There were TV and newspaper reporters everywhere; the victims had to be soothed; there was even a subsidiary controversy involving health-department procedures. "It was a classic case of 'Drop everything you are doing and dig into this,' " says Dunn.
So, too, was the news that a local restaurateur was going under. Would McGuffey's be interested in acquiring the site? "Everyone started scrambling," says Dunn, with obvious relish. "For 48 hours I played boss." When an assistant manager quits, Dunn rushes out to change that person's mind; when someone fails to show up for work, Dunn investigates; dealing with thefts, brawls, threatened litigation -- these "are what I am good at," he says.
What he's not good at is enduring the times between crises. He tends to oversleep, overeat, and drink too much. "I've got to find a way to snap out of it," vows Dunn, who anticipates revenues of $14 million this year. "There's always something to do. Ultimately, I guess, you just have to stop feeling sorry for yourself and do it."
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Create Commotion
Like Keith Dunn, Kathy Taggares, of K. T.'s Kitchens Inc., in Glendale, Calif., thrives on catastrophe. But rather than wait for crises to come along, she manufactures her own supply. "At the end of the day, if I don't go home totally exhausted, I don't feel good," explains Taggares, who expects her company to sell $20 million worth of salad dressing and pizza this year. "I have to hurt a little bit."
With $200,000 in cash and $800,000 in bank loans, she bought an $8-million salad-dressing factory from Marriott Corp. in June 1987; within a year, it was very profitable and hence exceedingly mundane. "It wasn't challenging enough for me," says Taggares, 38. "I want to be driven to the edge."
