Curiosity Didn't Kill The Cat, It Built Great Companies and Our Country!
One of the most underrated talents one can have is curiosity. But you'll never find universities teaching a course in curiosity; yet it has created some of the largest corporations in the world and some of the great people in history.
In fact, as a child, we're discouraged to be curious, often being labeled as ADD or troublemakers. Our teachers didn't know what to do with curious people. As a child I would take things apart, trying to figure out how they worked...and always having a screw or two left over when I reassembled it.
It was this curiosity that led me up the corporate ladder to become one of the Chief Financial Officers of the largest music company in the world without having that ivy league MBA degree that some many had in that business.
It was a group of men more than 225 years ago who were curious about what America could become without the King of England controlling them. They asked and pondered the questions "what would it be like to not be under the king's power" and "what would freedom look like."
I started SellingRestaurants because I was curious about how to change the way business was done in business brokerage, an industry with a less than sparkling reputation. I asked questions of how can I get buyers critical information they need to make intelligent decisions without the pressures of a sales person hounding their every move. I asked how can I use technology to reduce my dependency on advertising websites and help me control my messaging to buyers as well as sellers. How can I do it different and provide some of the best service in the business?
Eleven years later, I still find myself asking these questions. I'm always looking to do things better, and different.
And if you're thinking about the restaurant business, it would serve you well to be curious and never become complacent.
Today I was talking to a client of mine who sold his restaurant and bar about a year ago. He mentioned he once tried to attract a higher quality of crowd to his place, but it didn't work. His place was more of a club with live dance music.
I said, "Jeff, the curious mind would ask where do these people that live around here go? What do they want in terms of entertainment?" I said, "times have changed and you can't look at the world and think it's still 1985. Clubs as you knew then have died. People want to socialize. They want a place to go to meet other people and loud music prevents that. They want to sample food and not have to order full meals. They want healthy. They want fun. And they don't want to have to scream across a table to be heard."
Curiosity will often lead to change, sometimes disruptive change, like the revolutionary war or Google, Apple, Facebook, etc.
Stay Curious! Ask why. Seek answers. Develop solutions. And execute those solutions with passion. You won't regret a minute of it!
Mel Jones is one of the premier restaurant brokers in the nation having published hundreds of articles on buying and selling a restaurant and bar business, selling thousands of restaurants in CA., WA and AZ and building one of the most copied business models in the brokerage industry. Mel started SellingRestaurants in 2004 with the one simple concept, give the buyers the information they need to make intelligent buying decisions without being pestered by a broker or hiding information, prepare the business for market by researching key details that make or break deals and educate the buyer on the buying process to create an intelligent buyer. Prior to SellingRestaurants, Mel was a Chief Financial Officer for Universal Music Group, the largest music company in the world. There he participated in more than $11.5 billion of merger and acquisition transactions. He also work for top companies such as Nestle Foods, USA. He hold a Bachelors in Business Administration Finance as well as attened Law School at Gonzaga University. Give Mel a call at 480.274.7000 or e-mail him at [email protected] if you have any questions.