Build Your Own Field of Dreams

The other night I couldn’t sleep (a result of too much on the mind), so I aimlessly flipped through the channels until I came across one of my favorite movies, “Field of Dreams.” The premise, in case you’ve never seen it, is that an Iowa farmer receives messages from “the beyond” to “build it and they will come.” He proceeds to plow over perfectly good fields of corn (a cash crop) and erects a baseball field, complete with lights and stands for visitors. His wife thinks he’s crazy, his family thinks he’s crazy and his community thinks he’s crazy. But then other people start seeing the ball players who have come to play at Ray’s Field of Dreams – ballplayers from the past long since dead. And his wife and young daughter start to believe. He is sent more messages from beyond and Ray sets out on several adventures, picking up a famous writer and then a doctor who once played with Shoeless Joe Jackson.

Many ascribe the “Build It and They Will Come” philosophy to how not to build a business. There is a valid point there. Many businesses have failed because the owner did not find out if his or her product or idea is a viable one.

But in the movie, the voice beckons, Ease His Pain. And isn’t that exactly what we try to do in our businesses. We are trying to ease someone’s pain.

But easing just one person’s pain will not get you very far in business. Hopefully there are others with the same pain that need the same service.

And in the movie, that premise plays out at the end. Ray’s pain of having separated from his father at an early age is healed. At the dramatic conclusion, we then see a column of headlights as far as the eye can see down that rural Iowa farm road. These are others with the same or similar pains, coming to be healed.

Now I know it’s just a movie, but the similarities are there. We find someone with a problem. We solve it. We test to see if there are others with the same or similar problem. We find them. We tell them about how we can solve their problems. Only then will they begin to come.

You can build your own field of dreams. But don’t expect your business to flourish just because you’ve begun a new enterprise. There is a lot of work involved in getting those people to know you are there and to believe in you enough to buy from you.