To Tell The Truth Fasten your seatbelts: We're about to shatter some of the most common small-business myths.

Human nature compels us to seek answers to the questions dailylife poses. Where did we come from? Why does the sun rise? Who isrunning this show? We want to know the truth. But sometimes thetruth is too darned complicated. So we nudge it, massage it, diluteit and mold it into a simple, compact package we can grasp. Inother words, we create a myth.

Unfortunately, our society--not unlike many cultures that havepreceded us--has started to mistake these myths for truths. Ifwe've heard something repeatedly, it must be right, right? Oncea myth hits our societal grapevine, truth is doomed. In the handsof the gullible or the uninformed, the dangers increase: A myth canspur decisions, actions or devotions that end up actually causingreal-life damage.

Entrepreneurs, for better or worse, plow one of the most fertilefields for mythology. Whether it's through splashyinfomercials, overly enthusiastic pseudo-entrepreneurs or purehuman greed, certain untruths have been circulating for far toolong. We decided it's time to debunk a few of the big ones.

Myth #1

Get Rich Quick!

Reality: Perpetuated by everyone from sleazy, two-bitadvertisers to even the most blue-blooded business media, GRQ isthe mother of all small-business myths. As we've evolved, thismyth has often taken on more sophisticated forms, but theundercurrent is the same, as is the appeal. We'rePavlovian--GRQ is the bell that stirs the greedy juices within us.We practically slobber over stories of people who rose fromobscurity (where we live) to untold wealth (where "They"live). Team that aspiration with our lack of patience, and we havethat all-American desire to detour off the well-trodden road ofhard work and skip past Go, collecting our $200 to boot.

The problem with the GRQ myth is that, while amusing whenblatant, it's dangerous when veiled. Even those who havefigured out that Las Vegas is nothing more than a money pit canfall prey to whispered business leads, promises of shortcuts towealth or hints of stock market guarantees.

Don't confuse entrepreneurship with a slot machine. Life asan entrepreneur is not all about money, it's certainly not allabout getting rich, and rarely does success happen overnight.Unbeknownst to his admiring public, Stephen Gordon, founder of thelatest and hottest chain of home decor stores, opened his firstRestoration Hardware Inc. in 1980. Although he now oversees 41stores, which pull in annual sales of $100 million, Gordondeliberately kept his business small for many years. His early goalwas not growth; he didn't start his national expansion untilthe early '90s. Quick? Easy? Says Gordon, "All but theextreme deviations from the norm point to the fact that with greatideas, incredible dedication, long hours, many years and a modicumof talent, you might, in fact, `get rich.' "

Sometimes in business you become cash poor, wondering howyou're going to cover next week's paychecks. Sometimes yougo slowly, nervously twiddling your thumbs as clients make theirdecisions. It's about perseverance, patience and, yes, hardwork. If you consider these to be bad words, think about going towork for someone else--quick.

This is not a game, nor is it a race. Take a breath. Figure outwhat you really want to do. Roll the dice and go around the boardlike everyone else--just a little more strategically--collectingproperties, building houses, trading up for hotels, reveling inthose moments of Boardwalk glory.

Myth #2

If you build it, they will come.

Reality: Thanks, Kevin Costner. Your field of dreams hasbirthed an ideological nightmare for many entrepreneurs who havecome up with an idea and opened their doors, fully expectingcustomers to come flocking . . . justbecause.

Little do these entrepreneurs know that all the precious timethey've spent building their companies is just the beginning oftheir endeavors. Now comes the real work: planning, timing,strategizing and more.

Business writers already know this. Consider some of the booktitles on the shelves today: Visionary Selling, InnovationManagement, and The Leadership Engine.

"Entrepreneurship takes more than just spontaneousimprovisation," says Gene Kahn, founder and president ofCascadian Farm Inc., an organic food company based inSedro-Woolley, Washington. "I've improved as anentrepreneur over time by shifting the business away from acompletely improvisational culture to a planned culture. We'rea company that has been growing at approximately 50 percent peryear for quite some time, and we need controls in place to maintainour sanity and stay afloat."

Myth #3

You have to be born an entrepreneur.

Reality: Somehow, people have believed that certainhumans are born with something ingrained in their DNA that setsthem apart from the rest of the worker bees. This myth manifestsitself in such comments as "Oh, I wasn't born with thatentrepreneurial spirit," or "Well, sure, she'sa success in business--she's a natural."

Following this same line of un-reasoning, many believethere's one certain path that leads to entrepreneurship. Butsmall business isn't like Fortune 500 life--you don't getyour undergraduate degree, then your MBA, then methodically climbthe rungs from assistant to executive. The path to entrepreneurshiptypically takes many detours, many turns. Sometimes the mostsuccessful entrepreneurs are the most unlikely ones.

When Kahn founded Cascadian Farm 26 years ago, he could havebeen voted most unlikely to succeed. An English literature graduatestudent with a fancy for Chaucer, Kahn decided to get "back tothe land" and moved to the rural North Cascade area ofWashington. Becoming an entrepreneur "was the furthest thingfrom my mind," he says. "In fact, I had an absoluteanti-business bias. I moved to isolate myself from aspects ofAmerican society--certainly from business, which I perceived to bea large part of the problem with American society."

Learning to survive as a farmer, however, soon became fairlyboring, says Kahn. "Now that I was burning kerosene lamps andmaking my own soap, what else was I going to do? I needed to bechallenged," he says. "The notion of interdependence, ofworking to change the agriculture, became far more interesting tome. My desire for isolation gave way to an interest in working onsocial and political issues. I began to market products."

For Kahn, entrepreneurship was a means to an end. Althoughhe's obviously not your typical entrepreneur, he scoffs at theidea that there is any typical entrepreneur. "There are asmany different types of entrepreneurs in business today as thereare people," Kahn says. "You can't make ageneralization like everyone's a Donald Trump or everyone'sa Gandhi. Today, you've got everything in between."

Born an entrepreneur? "It's a silly notion," saysKahn. "I can't imagine anyone believing entrepreneurshipis somehow genetic. It's something you consciously choose. Youdon't fall into it like you fall in love. You make a lifestylechoice, and that's what I did. [Entrepreneurship] was the bestway I found to achieve my goals."

Myth #4

"I'll have all this freetime . . ."

Reality: Could it be that people still believeentrepreneurs lead lives of leisure? Could the unrealistic ideals(It's fun! It's freedom!) still be breeding in the minds ofdisgruntled corporate workers? A Generation Xer was recently quotedin Time magazine as saying, "Having your own businessmeans not worrying about what some head guy in Dallas thinks. Nomatter how much money you make for them, you are still just an x.And you can be x-ed off. With my own business, I could come in at 7a.m. and leave at noon to play golf."

That quote makes a real entrepreneur do one of two things: laughhysterically or cringe. "My schedule has been and remainsextremely full and busy," says Gordon. "My realityincludes 10-hour workdays and usually at least one weekend day. AsCEO, my days revolve around all facets of the business, fromarchitectural review and real estate site selection decisions tooperational issues--visual presentation decisions along with amajor emphasis on merchandise and product direction."Whew!

There is some truth, says Gordon, to the "morefreedom" aspect of the myth. "Running a business does, infact, mean having more freedom," he says. "But thisincludes the freedom to fail. Responsibility and control clearlyrest with one person: you. Therefore, with the freedom comes theburden. When starting a new venture, you may take a long weekendoff, go on vacations and exercise more control over your time, buta vacation is never really a vacation because the enterprise nevershuts down."

By attracting talented employees who manage the businesscompetently, Gordon is finally able to take a breather, if not anoontime break for the links. "My business life is no more orless hectic than when I started the store [18] years ago," hesays. "The one major positive impact is that when I go onvacation, I truly let the company proceed while I likewise proceedwith `vacating.' "

Myth #5

The government is against you.

Reality: Meet Jere Glover. And just try to hate him. Wedare you. He's a rare one in life--even rarer in thegovernment. Glover is a nice guy. Fortunately and indubitably,he's also on your side. The head of the SBA's Office ofAdvocacy does just what Webster's says an advocate should do:He pleads another's cause. "Usually, small-business ownerscome to us because they've heard we're the part of thegovernment that will help them," Glover says."They're often desperate--a rule or regulation or law isabout to adversely affect their business. We analyze it and try todo whatever we can to help."

Glover doesn't categorically deny the government can, attimes, be your arch enemy. But when the line is drawn, the Officeof Advocacy has proven its small-business blood is thicker thangovernment water. In fact, the office recently demonstrated itsability to play hardball, filing an amicus brief in a governmentproceeding. "We went to court on behalf of small businessagainst another federal agency," says Glover. "It'sthe first time the office has ever done that."

Although Glover is a government icon, he is no dispenser of redtape. He has slaved over numerous environmental rules andregulations to try to reduce the burden on small business. "Idon't think government officials are against smallbusiness. They just have other priorities or don't understandit," Glover says. "Our job is basically to help themunderstand the implications of what they're doing and how theyimpact small business." So go ahead--ask what your governmentcan do for you.

Myth #6

It gets easier.

Reality: Life with Restoration Hardware continues to getmore challenging, says Gordon. "Many people may be able tocraft an easier existence," he says. "I've yet tounderstand how they do it."

We've yet to understand how anyone could think that after afew years of "paying your dues," entrepreneurs get tosuddenly hit cruise control. The sentiment is as silly as runnersexpecting a marathon to get easier by the 24th mile.

Bruce FaBrizio recalls the day when the concept behind SunshineMakers Inc. started: He and his father saw a person die in achemical accident. In 1975, they started the business to develop asafer alternative to toxic cleaners. "We had this Don Quixotementality, that we were going to go out and fight the windmills ofenvironmental terrorism, that we were going to do whatever it tookto make a difference," says FaBrizio of Simple Green, thenontoxic cleaning formula that is now a household name. "Weworked around the clock from the minute we started the business.You begin scratching and clawing, and you have this vision that oneday you'll go through this door of vindication and the businesswill run smoothly on an 8-to-5 schedule."

FaBrizio's father died pursuing this vision; FaBrizio keepspushing. "Business, like life, seems to have these five-yearcycles. Every five years, you get jarred into trying to crawl overthe next wall that's more steep, more treacherous, moredifficult and more challenging than the last," he says."It's almost a preordained destiny that you're goingto run into this wall--that your very success will become yournemesis."

The way over these walls is also the toughest mental battle mostentrepreneurs will face: to delegate or not to delegate?"People who come on board and do projects in their area ofexpertise better than you can allow you to spread your wings andbecome a real competitor. As difficult as it is to [let go,] I findit's the only way of truly competing successfully at thislightning speed," says FaBrizio. "We have to work faster,smarter, longer. We almost have tag-team wrestling going on in ourbuilding--where you hand off the torch at 7 p.m. on Friday and thenext guy picks it up and works through the weekend--so we can havebetter, faster information than our competition on Mondaymorning."

As a result, work weeks at Huntington Harbour, California-basedSunshine Makers are more successful, though certainly not shorter."Life doesn't get easier--it gets more efficient, morecompetitive," FaBrizio says. "You have to enjoy thebattle. There's always going to be the heartache of the peoplewho can't go along--who don't have the strength, thecourage or the intestinal fortitude for the battle. Thatdoesn't make them bad people or me a bad person because I'mfanatical about my dream. This is just the life I'vechosen."

Myth #7

It's all about the bottom line.

Reality: Keeping the numbers at the bottom of yourspreadsheet nice and plump is "necessary, but notsufficient," says Kahn. "It's helpful becauseit's what drives the business forward. But it certainlycan't just be about the bottom line. You have to give meaningand purpose to the business and inspire employees aswell."

The beauty of entrepreneurship is that it's your prerogativeto tweak the bottom line a bit. "If we decide to educate kidsabout the environment and put 1 percent of our sales each year intoa not-for-profit foundation, a giant conglomeration would say `Youcould have spent that money in television and driven your brand upanother two points,' " says FaBrizio. "Wedon't have to answer to those analysts, that quarterlystatement. We only have to answer to ourselves."

How do FaBrizio's Don Quixote dreams mix with the cold, hardbottom line? "What I dreamt of 20 years ago--to clean up theworld--has grown exponentially," he says. "I now haveoffices in Auckland, New Zealand; Chicago; Honolulu; Paris; Sydney,Australia; and Zurich, Switzerland. At some point, there's alight that goes on that says `We're going to make adifference.' So the dream becomes reality, and then it'sall about how much of it you can actually handle. You decide whereyou want to get off, because there is absolutely no finishline."

It's not that these entrepreneurs don't think the bottomline is important. It's just that their bottom line is muchmore than a bunch of numbers on a spreadsheet, more than red orblack or zeros or points. It's about the environment andpeople's quality of life. Ultimately, it's about bringingtheir own brand of truth to the world. "After I'm gone, mydream will continue and the product will endure," saysFaBrizio. "The truthfulness of proving that we'redifferent from everything else on the shelf provides a wonderfulsense, a bittersweet victory that you could never put a priceon."

Contact Sources

Cascadian Farm Inc., (800) 624-4123, http://www.cfarm.com

Restoration Hardware Inc., cathrynr@restorationhardware.com

SBA Office of Advocacy, fax: (202) 205-6928, http://www.sba.gov/advo

Sunshine Makers Inc., (562) 795-6000, http://www.simplegreen.com