Money Follows Imagination
Imagination Doesn't Follow Money
That’s one of my favorite sayings, and I think it’s from the book, Growing a Business by Paul Hawkins. I have seen this abused over and over with myself and other businesses in the past.
Basically when you start out in business, you don’t have a lot of money, so you need to use your imagination to get the business open. This involves the location, how you set the business up, how you furnished and equipped it, etc.
After all that hard work your business grows, and your profits grow even faster. Why? Because you didn’t spend too much in the first place, hence, low over head.
So guess what happens? When it’s time to expand you find what you think is an even better location, but you need to hire an architect, engineer and maybe even professionals to design the inside. You buy all new turn-key brewing equipment, new furnishings, expensive designer lighting, etc. Naturally you go over budget but then it opens and looks fabulous: the brewery of your dreams that you couldn’t afford in the first place.
The problem is the space might be a bit too big, the rent too high, and the bank note hard to swallow. Two years later, burnt out, you look at your profit and loss statements and realize that the first place made so much more money that the current one. On top of that, you had time in the old place to actually be involved in the brewery, which was more fun than constantly putting out fires in your bigger new place.
As in everything, I can follow up with the question - Ask me how I know? I’ve done it many times. Once a business is successful you start accessorizing in ways you think are more attractive, but in reality, those things you spend your hard earned money on don’t help your bottom line at all.
I have used the picture above because it say’s so much to me. It is the epitome of imagination over money. This cafe couldn’t afford fancy lights, so they made up their own.
This Labor Day, think about how you spend your labor on your brewery. Think about this picture and what can you do to enhance your imagination to save money. I don’t espouse Frankenbrew because I think it’s cool. I think it fits nicely into imagination over money and can help you with that first brewery. Following those ideas you should do great, and hopefully you won’t forget those lessons when you do your second brewery.
Happy Labor Day!
