Starting a New Business? The End is Most Important
I thought about the incredible accomplishments he achieved after 22 years in the United States Air Force and his subsequent years as an employee. Then as the field office manager of the Federal Aviation Administration in southern California. I thought about his being a husband, father, and the financial backbone of our family. I thought about his contributions in civic society and his quiet and often reserved personality. He was never the life of the party; however, if you ever needed something and Matthew committed to doing it, you can rest 100 percent assured that it would be done, quietly and without any expectation of something in return. Throughout his life my dad made a net positive impact on his family and in his career. He left a legacy our living members are responsible for nurturing. His life and what he left behind are a testament to a poignant truth: how he ended was remarkably impactful and far more important than how he started. I apply this insight now in my own business and I have taken to heart the following three illuminations.
I have witnessed as a real estate professional over the last decade examples of investment property owners who have bought a property, milked every last dollar of income out of it, then want to approach the sale of their property as if it were a value-added proposition when they haven’t made the requisite investment into the infrastructure to warrant the asking price they are often insistent on requiring for the years that they have owned the property. This is when my responsibility to be honest and frank withmy client kicks in. It’s my job to explain that market forces will not support their rationale simply because the new owner will likely need to invest a lot of money in addition to buying the property in order for the property to operate at his highest and best use. Whether you’re working on a three-month, three year, or three-decade timetable, it’s always wise to leave a business situation in as stable a position as possible and—wherever possible—better than where you started. My dad started with a simple home in a simple neighbourhood and finished with a financial portfolio built on the simple precept of time on a task over time. He kept making those simple decisions that compounded over time.