Chain Reaction
Open a store . . . open a store . . .and so on . . . and so on . . . and so on . . .
Fortunately for most people, a big family usually doesn't
materialize overnight the way it did not so long ago for the
McCaugheys of Iowa who one day had just one child--and the next had
seven more. Big families generally develop over a period of years,
with each new addition joining the bunch after the older ones are
well on their feet and somewhat self-sufficient.
While it's never easy to juggle the needs of several
children all at once, most parents eventually figure out how to
manage. Some even find advantages to having a larger brood:
Siblings can be each other's playmates, role models and even
baby-sitters, lightening their parents' load.
For the entrepreneur hoping to expand one or two locations into
a chain, there may be no better model to study than that of the
large family. Indeed, entrepreneurs who have successfully gone
through the process, as well as expert observers, all agree that
growing a company into a chain is strikingly similar to raising a
large family.
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The key similarity between the two is this: "The more of
them you have-- children or stores--the less attention you have for
each one, so you have to empower them more and trust them
more," says Earnest Edward Lacey, regional director of the
Tennessee Small Business Development Center at the University of
Memphis. "They won't all turn out to have the same
personality, but if you raise them right, they'll each do you
proud in their own way."
Dennis Rodkin is a business writer in Chicago.
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