I’ve been endlessly amused the last few years as Insanitek grows. It seems like many people have the desire to grow beyond their capacities and use money they don’t have to make it happen. It’s unsustainable. Most companies burn in the red constantly racing against time and stresses to grow.

I’ve heard people advise me

• to borrow against one set of budgets to pay for a tool I don’t need (but might help)
• to take out a loan in order to buy machines that we need once in a while (instead of renting or outsourcing)
• to accept investments from someone who wants to own my company while we do all the work.

I’ve denied every single one of these pieces of advice. To me this process of saying no first is systematic. I’m not going to stress myself out to push for disingenuous, unsustainable growth. It’s not part of my mindset to rob Peter to pay Paul only to have to suffer under stress so I can gain financial freedom again.

And I’ll be damned if I will allow anyone to use our ideas and hard work for their profit just because of the allure of success. I’ll take goodwill donations from people who believe in what we’re doing for the love of science and society, but I won’t be bought out and used, only to see the mission of Insanitek altered for the sake of a bottom line.

This starts with a mindset of determination to do what it takes, but not to sell out:

It takes stamina, thoroughness, knowledge, and patience.  

Let’s take the ubiquitous example of marketing. To grow a company, especially science, you need to be able to market successfully. This means informing, entertaining, enticing, and educating people about what you do in order to be able to sell them something they can truly use and want. It’s not about tricking, it’s about serving.

And this takes money. Money you may not have.

Instead, of dumping large amounts of money into the spray and pray approach to advertising, you can learn about your market, the reasons why they may want your particular skill or product, and talk to them.

Notice, this takes an understanding of your market. Knowledge of them, what they need, what outcomes they desire, their dreams, their hopes, and their aspiration. You need to know your own market thoroughly and how it applies to what you offer. Then, you need to patiently talk to people repeating the same things over and over again for each level of needs. This takes stamina to keep it up as it takes to build.

And the money you’d put into marketing? The ads can target each one of those levels of service to let them know you exist and are reaching a hand out to them.

This can apply to any part of your business. Supplies, hiring, product development, research and analysis, etc. The key is to be smarter, more determined, and less impatient. Everything takes time.

The thing I’d like to leave you with is that brutal honesty matters.  

Be honest with yourself, your employees, your clients, and your family. Stop acting pretentious and aiming for those perfect IG fantasy pictures. Reality isn’t like that, and you’ll just lead yourself to being more delusional about success and more stressed out in times of failure.

Give us an honest comment. Tell me where you’re at right now and what you’re worried about.