I remember building the counter section in my little apartment garage with my Dad. The red pin-stripe running below the counter top was my special touch. Nailed the brand colours!
I had put all my savings (and a ton of hours) into setting up the little retail shoe store, and was almost finished…
I only could front up for about 10 models of shoes in my first order (including both men’s and womens – and you need a full size run of each model), so, I had to get stock I knew would sell.
Basically, it was a game of “flipping” these shoes into more revenue to buy a few more shoes… Seven days a week. Slowly we built until I could stock the racing flats, which is what I loved.
The “buy in,” and the “commitment” at the time were both off the charts for me (probably because I was shit scared)
But this isn’t always so. The buy-in isn’t always tied to the commitment…
(like the time I got the degustation meal at the local Lebanese restaurant and had to leave with 5 take-away containers still full of food)
When you start something, buy-in always feels like commitment. The two always feel linked. But, here’s the difference.. the buy-in is usually financial, at the front end.
It’s when we say “hell yeah” we’re into this.
It’s when the starter gun goes off.
The commitment though keeps rolling. It’s like kilometre 36 in the marathon.
When you open a retail store, or a law firm (or any bricks and mortar business), two things happen:
First, you have to “buy in” at a pretty decent level – even your bond on the lease is pretty committed. There’s pressure.
The other thing that happens is your identity is on the hook. You’re a “gym owner,” or a “café owner…” People see this. It’s a new identity for you. You’re exposed.
These usually mean you’re pretty committed. The two are linked, and you’re set.
But now…
With so many online businesses and low start-up costs now, the two are often un-linked.
Buy-in is low (no “risk” to the identity), and commitment can be low (“it didn’t cost much, so who cares, I’ll stick with what I’m doing”), or
Buy-in is high (you do a huge expensive course), and commitment is low (you can hide behind the screen, “nobody really knows…”)
At the end of the day, the commitment is what counts.
Regardless of the buy-in, the “two feet in” commitment thing is what matters.
This year alone there were several small business owners that I got to see go “all in” on their commitment.
They had “bought in” already, but were still stepping in to owning the vision. I’ve been there too. Once they committed, their businesses grew. Pretty quickly.
“Commitment” is hard. So it’s only natural that as a culture we’ve developed more ways not to commit (we like to avoid hard things).
More courses, more podcasts to listen to, more self-help books, more ways of learning, cheaper start-up costs, support groups… educational buy-ins often stall commitment.
But all these little buy-in’s aren’t going to solve the problem of commitment over the long game.
Both buy-in and commitment are needed. They can be linked.
But you can’t depend on it.
Your vision, success and the market doesn’t care about your buy-in, they care about your commitment. That’s where the practice is.
