“Success is never an overnight proposition,” says Vernon. “You must commit to long-term goals and tackle problems head-on.”
The downside to success is that few rarely recognize the hard work that has been put into it in order to make it happen. Vernon reached the top but only after years of hard work along the way. She didn’t dream of millions of dollars or of being the CEO of a multinational company. Instead, she created a realistic timeline, combined her long-term goals with short-term objectives and approached her business on a practical level.
When Vernon was first starting out, she didn’t just jump into the business and try her luck. She had conducted careful market research and identified where she thought there was a potential for profit. She studied her business prospects and her sources of financing, developed best and worst case scenarios and tried to develop a pragmatic business plan for the fist few years.
“Until you have acquired experience, keep your business framework relatively simple,” she advises. “Begin on a small scale so you can successfully introduce your product or service, target your market, and keep costs to a minimum. Concentrate on what you can realistically accomplish without being distracted by areas you lack experience in.”
Vernon studied her competition in order to make sure she was offering customers something unique and would fill a special niche. “I would advise those starting out to carefully research your niche and know your competition and the marketplace before you start a small business,” Vernon says. She also adopted a conservative spending rule, only spending money that she already had and on things that were crucial. “There are bound to be inevitable cash crunches, and if you don’t have adequate reserves, or your business is insufficiently established to borrow money from a bank or lending agency, it may fail,” she says.
Step by step, Vernon built up her company from being a home kitchen operation to a leader in the industry. “If you're an entrepreneur, you keep adding,” she says. “First, it was handbags and belts. Then I added household goods, which didn't do too well at first. So I went back to handbags and belts. That was a good way to grow the business.” At the time, Vernon didn’t have the types of financial projections that the company does now and she had no idea how fast it would take off. But, she took her time and slowly watched it grow.
While working hard was always Vernon’s bottom line, she knew that she had to be prepared and be realistic in her business plan if she was going to succeed. “By nature, entrepreneurs are optimists, but it can be dangerous to have an unrealistic view of your company and competitors,” she says. “Step back and take a close look at your business with complete honesty and objectivity…Set your goals and priorities by preparing a long-range business plan. Careful planning is the key to success.”
Lesson #5: Keep It Simple To Start
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“The most sophisticated people I know – inside they are all children,” said Henson. 
