Starting a new business can be a frightening prospect, something Bill McBean, former owner of a local GM dealership and former Yorkton resident knows well. That's why he has written the book The Facts of Business Life: What Every Successful Business Owner Knows that You Don't, in an effort to help business owners in every stage of their career understand patterns and what they have to know to be successful.
The book covers two concepts, the first being seven facts of business life which have been consistent among successful businesses that McBean has been a part of or observed, and the second concept being the life cycle of a business. He says that he's the first one to identify how an owner operates a business from the initial concept stage to when they would be looking to finish.
The cycle has five steps, he says, two in preparation, finding opportunities, how to build the company. The third is survival to success, the fourth being remaining successful and the fifth being when it's time to exit.
"The levels take you from the first time you're thinking about opening a business and taking hold of an opportunity and working through until it's time to exit," McBean says.
The early stages of the cycle are the most important, since businesses tend to fail in their early years. McBean says that it's because one of those initial steps wasn't handled correctly.
"Seventy per cent of businesses fail, and they're going to fail in the early years. It's a combination of a couple things. One, the person didn't find the opportunity correctly. Two, if they did, they didn't know how to operate and set up the DNA of the company... It doesn't matter how good of a business owner you are, if you don't get that opportunity right, you're never going to get it right, if it's wrong, it's wrong."
Given that the book covers the entire life cycle, it also covers moving on, something McBean admits can be difficult because of the emotions involved. He says the best plan is to set up a succession strategy before you have to, and control the process.
"Very few business owners talk about exiting. It's an emotional decision above anything else, and the point of the book is that emotion shouldn't be a part of it. The business has been successful because the owner has been able to make decisions based on facts, and the exit should be based on fact and have a process. I truly didn't want to leave Yorkton, but the only way to get to Texas was to sell the Yorkton dealership, and I thought it was black and white until I had to start to actually do that."
He says that part of the reason for writing the book is that he remembers what it was like when he was young and had to learn everything on the fly, and how frightening it was to be in charge but inexperienced.
"Just being uncertain of the future and scared was probably the biggest thing. The second thing was my learning curve in Yorkton was really strong. Because I had never owned a business before, I was never sure of how the decisions I made in one thing would affect other things I didn't realize. I was a rookie and I made rookie mistakes... I really learned business when I was in Yorkton," McBean says.
He admits that he still remembers the first day as a business owner in the city, and the feeling of panic he had before the dealership opened for the first time.
"A couple hours before we opened, I can vividly remember sitting behind my desk and going 'what have we done?'"
He says that's a feeling which keeps happening, as you have to try new things to grow the business and the path is not always clear, but making those decisions is how one gains experience and knows how to adapt.
McBean says that the people of Yorkton have been a vital part of his life, and he thanks all of his friends, employees and customers from the area for all of the support and friendship over the years. He notes that the acknowledgements section of the book is filled with local names who have been very dear to him from his time in the city.
