He knows the founding principles behind a great business

This past week we several adventures while on a trip to Winnipeg. (Note to self: Not all adventures are fun at the time - but always funny later!) We left on Sunday morning with the Coaching Coach and headed to Winnipeg to deliver a Small Business Seminar for Grand and Toy. After driving several hours we approached a small town in Saskatchewan (Assiniboia) that had a camping symbol by the highway. We decided to stop for the night. We followed the signs to the campground only to find it locked up - not yet open for the season. I sighed as I envisioned another night at the side of the road in 'no man's land' with the charming sound of trucks rumbling by all night long. This part of our adventure still has me shaking my head in wonder!. I can hardly believe what happened next! We pulled into the arena lot to decide what we were going to do - travel on, or find somewhere we could park for the night. It was then that I heard a car honking at us. Out jumped a middle aged man who ran up to us and began talking very quickly. His accent made it very difficult to understand him, but he continued to repeat himself until the weary travelers caught on to wht he was saying. It seemed he had followed us all through town trying to catch us. He knew that the campground was closed - and offered us his parking lot with hydro to park in. Wow, what a nice guy - I could not believe our luck! We followed him to the 'Starlite Motel' and plugged in under a flashing sign and several hundred Christmas lights pointing the way to his motel. I chuckled as I thought of him seeing us drive by and jumping into his car to follow us! And then I congratulated him. This man knows how to survive a recession. If the business did not come to him - he was going to go out and get it. (As a side note - the owner of the Starlite Motel spent 15 minutes telling us about all his renovation plans.) Yes I still went to sleep to the tune of trucks hitting the rumble strip at the stop sign about 600 meters away - but I saw the lesson in all of this. This business owner was so excited about his business he could hardly wait to tell others about it. He did not care if it was not perfect at the moment - all he could see is what it looked like when he was done. And he was not going to wait until it was peerfect to start bringing customers in. Why then would he chase an RV half way across town to invite them to plug in and park in his motel parking lot? You see - he had just purchased the land behind his motel and was starting to clear it to become an RV park. He was thinking ahead. Vision. Determination. Enthusiasm. These are the foundation blocks of a great business. Wahid Alnadi is the owner of the Starlite Motel - and soon to be the proud owner of an RV park behind the hotel. He also let us know, in broken English, that his website was #1 on Google. I will be marking this one down in 'future places to visit'. ( http://www.starlitemotel.ca )