My father was grateful to donate his vital organs to people in need. It can be a perfect match. My father wanted to donate his life sustaining organs to someone who wants to have their life restored from this gift. But, it turns out that the donated organ must be a perfect match for the receiving patient or it will not work.

Planting your community business vision is like receiving a transplanted vital organ.

The same is true when we as small business owners plant our own vision outside of what our community wants or needs. It’s not a match and it will not take. Rich, a new Portland client and former Boston architect, confirmed this vision when discussing his unique business idea with me. Rich knows, his business might not be a match in Boston, but in Portland it can be great.

The problem of not having a business vision born from your community…

The problem for us as small business owners is when we take our outside vision in our head and try to implant into a community that doesn’t want or need our business idea.

Can you name one example in your local community? Of course you can, it’s easy. But for the purpose of our conversation think of the example that comes to mind for you first.

I’ll share some guidance and then you share yours with us.

Here are some guidance points for you to connect your business vision with your desired community wants and needs and preventing you from failing in business just like a failed medical organ transplant fails when it’s not the perfect match.

Today, I was reading Ben Arment discussing his book on church planting in communities. Whether you’re planting a church or business in your online or local community, the lessons learned are the same.

1. Plant out of the overflow of it. You don’t have to move far away from home to design your business; just find what’s flowing in your town and be a part of it. I mentioned our new client Rich the architect. His business partner, Jason the chef, knows the Portland food scene. Their business idea of being the Harley Davidson of food cart and mobile kitchen design is made possible by the vibrant and progressively mobile Portland food scene.
   
2. Live, work, + play in your community. I really know Portland and the state of Oregon. I’m not originally from here, but in the five years we’ve lived here, we’ve invested our family, business + play for a lifetime. We are members of our community and are in a position to ask of our community because we give to our community. I like how Stuart Hodges of Yorktown, Virginia puts it in Ben Arment’s interview for his upcoming book,

I share in this recent interview conversation [audio] how I got my butt handed to me by not having the right community vision in building a business in Boston.

What can you as a start-up entrepreneur or small business owner share with us in successfully planting your community business to perfectly match the needs and wants of your community? Offline or Online.