I’ve had this blog for several years. I’ve not always been the most consistent blogger. I know bloggers who write every single day. I’m impressed by this, but it’s a daunting challenge. As a small-business owner, I’m already moving in a million direction juggling business challenges not to mention family obligations and community interests.
Ultimately, I suppose this blog is a new business venture. It seems a bit crass, but for it to be worthwhile it needs to be different and add value to an audience. That’s a challenge, especially considering how many web site are out there. I’m not naturally inclined to write often. It’ll be a challenge, so I need to make it relevant to and interesting for me.
I’ve been thinking about this recently though. I’m excited that I’ve got two articles this week. I’d like to focus on:
- Exploring business: I am an entrepreneur. I’ve been at this for about 13 years now, so perhaps it’s more accurate to say I’m a small business owner trying to lead my company to the next level. This is an opportunity to explore thoughts on strategy and certainly the questions I have moving forward. Even though, I have an MBA from a great school, there is still much that I just don’t know about leading a business. As we grow, the challenges are familiar, but different.
- Family man: I really love being a husband and a father. My boys bring me great joy, even when they are a bit whiney. The stakes have increased exponentially. It’s just not an option not to succeed. My wife and my kids need my contribution to the family to pay for the home, daily needs and wants, college, retirement, and so much more.
- Faith: I’m a business man, but also a Christian businessman. I earned a Master of Divinity degree at Princeton Theological Seminary. This is an important part of who I am and helps explain why I’ve spent so much time in the world of elder care. I’ve observed a couple things: the first is that there are many individuals who try to live out their faith in the work place. The second is that I’ve seen many who try to explore what it means to marry faith and career, but are challenged to think deeply about it. Sometimes the language is there to inform the effort, but often the theological understanding is not present.
- Serendipity: At Skylark, we are in the process of opening our 3rd center. It’s exciting. According to my plans, I was probably a year or two away from doing this. The opportunity came because one of our vendors had some space that had previously been used as an adult day center, and they approached us. The opportunity arose from the business relationship. I’m finding that as we get better, I’m becoming a resource for my industry, which also includes some fantastic business opportunities. I hope that this blog will lead to more serendipitous relationships and who knows what. I’m not sure what will happen, but more happens if I’m out there.
- Establish Expertise: I’ve developed expertise in two main areas: the business of elder care specifically in adult day, home care, and understanding how to care for seniors in their home and community and in small and middle market business.
This blog is an opportunity to share what I’ve learned. It’s an opportunity to develop new tools that help make business easier. I want to develop my toolbox and to improve what I’m doing. I should explore issues and challenges and come up with better ways of handling challenges. I want to refine the processes in my businesses, especially as I look to become more profitable. From time to time, I think a great business opportunity would be to develop a chief operating officer service for small businesses. In essence, how does a company move from revenues of $500,000 to $1,000,000 up to revenues of $2-4 million. That’s an awkward stage to be in. I don’t know if it would be a good business opportunity. But, it’s my challenge. The challenges we have require the resources of a larger company. I don’t have those resources yet, so we need to be creative. The challenge is get from here to there.
Right now, this is where the blog is heading: Exploring business, faith, and family while finding the serendipitous in the midst of building expertise.
Let me know what you think? Any thoughts on this writing journey?
Ned Morgens 