Okay, I’ll admit this is a totally “if a tree falls in the woods” train of thought here but it got me thinking about the stages of development I went through with my first few businesses (the first being a hired-gun composer and the second being the publisher of an entertainment publication).

Growth. That’s what I was after. It’s been a few years since I’ve thought about my lessons learned. Recently, though, I watched an interview with SearchMe developer (founder?) Ray DeAdams (hope I got that name right?). The SearchMe project is essentially a new company in the search engine sector. It must be exciting because it’s a competitive, if not lucrative, business to be in. It got me thinking about the stages of some of my own businesses and the things I’ve done differently now.

At any rate, the interview noted a few concepts that I fell victim to when I began my business ventures and oddly enough, the pitfalls were brought on by growth and success.

(Here’s where that whole “tree in the woods” bit comes into play).

What I mean is that often an individual, or group, starts off with an idea (not the same thing as a plan) for a business. They have an idea of, perhaps, what they’d like to do as part of the work or how the business should look in some idyllic future setting. The truth is, we often only make immediate plans and specific steps for the beginning and then take a “see what happens” attitude to fill in the blanks from there.

The problem being, “see what happens” leaves the door open for changes that we may not have truly wanted to make if we would have had a clearer vision of the business earlier on.

What frequently happens is that early efforts, if all goes well, meet with success. Great! Whatever you did to start with is meeting some definition of success and it encourages you to do what? …do more of the same?

Ah, that’s the rub. It’s great when success happens but don’t confuse “successfully meeting goals” with simply “being successful.” The former means you’ve had a plan and successfully met markers along the way toward your dream business. The latter being that you let success arbitrarily define your next step, then the next one, and the steps after that. When that happens you may find yourself in a position I am familiar with – a business that is doing well but doesn’t bear a resemblance to what you envisioned those many weeks, months, or years ago.

How does this happen? It’s usually because we allow the success to dictate the next step rather than let predetermined markers (goals) tell us whether or not we’re on the right course. You see, it’s easy to let incoming dollar signs give us the illusion we’re doing well but, as startling as it may sound, it’s possible to be unhappy in a successful business down the road. Even scarier is to think that we could end up not owning a business but rather we could end up owning a job – and it’s the worst job imaginable and believe me – if you want to get out of it there’s nobody out there that wants to buy a job.

I’ve found myself in the position of letting success in terms of making money dictate the next thing I did or repeating the formula I thought was working. In the end I didn’t have a business I had a job that I had to work in day after day. I originally had visions of owning a business I could work on – rather than a job I had to work in.

So, enough of driving the point home. Just consider that, as you develop, you’ll want to think further ahead and set tangible goals. Even if the dollars start rolling in ask yourself if they represent meeting goals you agreed you wanted to meet, or not? It’s one thing to accelerate down the highway at full speed – it’s another thing to navigate and steer the car in the direction you want in order to reach the destination you desired.