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Lesson #4: Know Your Opportunities - and Your Limits

Article Overview: Entrepreneurship begins with a dream, and it means having the courage to follow through on that dream. But the danger that lurks for ambitious entrepreneurs is in not knowing how far to take that dream, and when it is time to call it quits.

Lesson #4: Know Your Opportunities - and Your Limits

Entrepreneurship begins with a dream, and it means having the courage to follow through on that dream. But the danger that lurks for ambitious entrepreneurs is in not knowing how far to take that dream, and when it is time to call it quits.

Hines' dream was a simple one: "to introduce travelers to the refinements of good living, while seeing America." But with the success of his first book, numerous opportunities began to present themselves to the relatively inexperienced Hines. What set him apart from the rest was his ability to seek out the great opportunities, and leave the rest behind.

In 1951, Hines' wife pleaded with him to hire her half-brother, Bob Wright. Finally agreeing to hire him on a short-term basis, Hines started to think about where Wright's talents could best be used. It was a pivotal time for the company, with Hines' books flying off the shelves, and seemingly endless opportunities in front of them.

Hines settled on placing Wright in charge of managing the relationship between Hines and the restaurants he recommended to readers. This meant, Hines decided, creating and renting signs that would read "Recommended by Duncan Hines," which restaurants could hang in their windows.

After realizing that many restaurants had taken it upon themselves to create hand-made signs for their own window displays, promoting the fact that they had been featured in one of Duncan Hines' directories, Hines jumped on the opportunity to capitalize on that by producing recognizable and distinct signs of his own. Now, a restaurant that was featured in his directories was not good enough; it had to have the sign produced by Hines himself in their windows if passersby were going to stop in.

In the end, the move proved a wise one for Hines, who quickly began to make more money from renting those signs than he did from his books. In fact, Wright estimates that most of Hines' money came from his sign rental business. Over 1,500 establishments took advantage of Hines' new signs, translating into an annual profit of roughly $38,000 a year. Compared to the average American income in 1951 of $3,000, Hines was making a significant amount of money.

But not every idea that Hines came up with was a winner. Before WWII, Hines had run a modest country ham business. By 1951, Hines would only take special orders for special friends, but the business itself was essentially nonexistent. In the summer of 1951, however, Hines began to think about reviving his ham business and placing Wright in charge of operations. It would have been a major distraction from the company that was focused on providing restaurant reviews, and in the end, Hines decided against the idea.

Indeed, selling hams was just one of the many ideas that Hines dreamt up but shot down before they got off the ground. He might not have had much experience as an entrepreneur, but Hines knew which opportunities had to be grabbed, and which had to be left alone.

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Article Tags: ambitious entrepreneurs, bob wright, brother bob, courage, duncan hines, endless opportunities, half brother, money, pivotal time, relationship, rental business, restaurants, shelves, signs, talents, term basis, travelers, window displays, wise one



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