How big is your vision?

Reviewed By Ria Biley

Big Vision, Small Business, 4 Keys to Success without Growing Big, Jamie S. Walters, Berret-Koehler Publishers, Inc., San Francisco 2002, $17.95.

Think back to when you first decided to start your own business. What was your vision?

Did you dream of becoming the next Bill Gates? Creating a product or service that everyone in America could not live without? There are those who aspire to such greatness, and some do achieve it.

If you live in Maine, though, it’s more likely your entrepreneurial vision is slightly less ambitious. Perhaps you dreamed of running a rustic bed-and-breakfast; an art gallery where you might make a living off your paintings? Maybe all you ever wanted to do was create quilts all winter and sell them by the side of the road in the summer. Could be you simply deplore working for someone else and are just waiting for the right opportunity to come along and liberate you from your paycheck.

You’re not alone. Eighty percent of all businesses in the United States have fewer than five employees. If you’re reading this, chances are your business falls in this category. Big Vision, Small Business takes a unique approach to coaching your business toward success on many levels.

Portions of this book have been selected by SCORE to appear on its Web site (www.score.org) and Inc.com (the Internet venture from Inc. magazine) has made Ivy Sea a media content partner. The author, Jamie S. Walters (according to ivysea.com), is founder of Ivy Sea, Inc., “a San Francisco-based management consulting firm that helps foster inspired leadership, high business ethics and good communication in organizations big and small.”

According to Walters, Big Vision is “a primer for small-enterprise owners to create an ethical, visionary enterprise that is consistent with their values and lifestyle priorities.”
Whatever muse led you down the path to entrepreneurship, it’s probably a safe bet that taking a vow of poverty was not part of your business plan. Yet many self-employed people suffer from the same malady: sacrificing family and personal life to chase the dollar, too much work, too few rewards. Wasn’t working for yourself supposed to be financially rewarding? Has it ceased to be any fun? Have you lost your vision? Business counselors and personal coaches say that the most common lament they hear from clients is “I never expected it to be this hard.” It seems like everybody wants to own their own business. Obviously, not because it’s easy.

The lessons of Big Vision demonstrate that it doesn’t have to be so hard.

The book is designed as a handbook of sorts; you don’t have to read it like a novel. It’s divided into four sections (the “Keys”); you can choose to focus on those that apply to the issues that speak loudest to you and read in any order that works for you. It’s one of those books that you can open to any page and find an idea, an inspiration, a key to understanding or overcoming a difficult situation. It’s a great reference and one you would do well to lift off your bookshelf with regularity.

For starters, Key No.1 is entitled “There’s More Than One Way To Define Growth.” It includes a chapter called Transformative Small Business Journeys; the author even interviewed and featured several entrepreneurs from Maine in the book, among them Jim Amaral of Borealis Breads, one of the founders of Maine Businesses for Social Responsibility. The book is full of personal insights from real entrepreneurs that Walters interviewed, this feature alone adds a touch of “that could work for me” to any chapter you read.

Key 2, “To Live Large, You Have To Vision Big” outlines the 12 priorities of Big-Vision small businesses. How do you, as a business owner, want others to experience your enterprise? How does your organization affect your community or world at large? These priorities will help you gain perspective over your own goals and objectives.

Key 3, “Right Relationship is a Big-Vision Craft” includes “golden rules” for creating and maintaining right relationships with employees and customers. It even offers insight into ending relationships that are no longer mutually beneficial.

Key 4, “To Live from the Source, Replenish the Well” addresses money and risk, competition, success and failure, time and balance, and the need for meaning in the workplace through wisdom and mastery practices.

Big Vision is not exactly “Zen and the Art of Small Business,” but using “Do Well-Do Good-Stay Small” as its mantra, it is as much an inspirational book as it is a well-organized road map for a successful small business. Taking a more holistic approach to developing your business into a thriving engine that can not only drive your revenues, it provides solid principles for integrating your business life with personal fulfillment and satisfaction with your life as well.

In the words of Dr. Wayne Dyer, “Change the way you look at things, and the things you look at change.” If you’re tired of chasing money and feeling guilty about it, feeling like you have to justify trying to make a living doing what you love, this book will change your perspective; you’ll begin to look at doing business as “right livelihood” with practicality and clarity. The Web site for ivysea.com also provides a wealth of resources for the entrepreneur.

Big Vision, Small Business can be purchased at your local bookstore, or direct from the author at www.ivysea.com.