What is Your Highest and Best Use
We’re borrowing a concept from the world of real estate investing. Only we don’t plan to give it back!
Before you invest in a property, you might conduct a feasibility study to determine its highest and best use – the use that creates the greatest profit.
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But sometimes feasibility studies get it wrong.
That’s the case for a property in our area. It sits at the corner of a state road and an interstate. However, it’s miles away from any sizable city. There were no improvements on this lot and all the land around it was vacant as well.
A feasibility study was conducted which determined that the highest and best use for this property was a gas station.
Makes sense, doesn’t it?
There was just one problem.
The entrepreneur who owned the property didn’t want to build a gas station. He wanted to start a restaurant.
And we’re not talking fast food here. We’re talking about a full-blown sit-down family steakhouse.
That’s a far cry from a gas station! Sounds rather risky, doesn’t it?
The entrepreneur did it anyway.
His sales volume the first year matched the projected sales for the gas station. But restaurants have a lot higher profit margins than gas stations!
So it turned out the experts were wrong. One entrepreneur was right.
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This concept applies to our lives as well.
Bigg success is life on your own terms. It’s about entrepreneuring your life – taking full control to design and build the life that perfectly fits you. Discovering your highest and best use is part of this process.
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Because I didn’t understand how this concept applied to our work – one of the five elements of bigg success – when I was in college, I got a bad grade on assignment.
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Just to fill in some of the details, George, this was from a professor who ultimately became one of your mentors. He was a very successful entrepreneur before he sold his business and started teaching.
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That’s right. The case was about a real estate broker. He had a highly successful office. He personally listed all the properties for his office. Then he turned his agents loose selling them.
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So where did you go wrong, George?
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I recommended that he train his agents to list properties. Then he could move on to other, more important things.
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So what did your professor say?
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My professor said, “Explain this to me.”
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That’s it?
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That’s it! So I went to talk to him. This was a summer school course, so it moved quickly. This was only the third day of class. So as it turns out, it was the start of our relationship because I really came to respect his opinion.
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So what did he say that impressed you so much?
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He asked me why I would suggest taking the owner away from his customers. My professor was bigg on customer service. He asked me why I would change the thing that was making this firm so profitable. Most importantly, he asked me why I thought the owner should stop doing what he did best.
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Whew … he hit you with all barrels!
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It really made me step up. I learned so much from him about business.
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We have a friend who bought a business. He is a great sales person. But he decided he should be the accountant for his business. There was just one problem – he’s not a great accountant.
Unfortunately, he realized it too late. Now he’s bankrupt.
Find your niche
Entrepreneuring your life means finding your niche. We often think of customer niches.
But it’s also crucial to discover your own niche – your highest and best use. Sometimes that means not listening to the experts. Sometimes it does mean listening to the experts.
What’s your highest and best use?
Direct link to The Bigg Success Show audio file:
http://media.libsyn.com/media/biggsuccess/00569-033010.mp3
(Image in today's post by alexkalina)
