Business Blogs
What's it all about?
Before the recent recession we were all encouraged to think that starting a business is about creating wealth. Sustainability, climate change and depleting the Earth's natural resources all seemed less important.
Starting a business in a time of recession, when it is more difficult to create wealth, encourages us to take a more Holistic approach to enterprise. It just is not possible to make lots of money when there is less money about.
In fact it has always been the case that most small businesses are started to make a difference rather than to make a profit. Profit is essential for sustaining both the enterprise and the entrepreneur, but it is rarely in my experience the biggest motivator.
Most people start a business because they want to change something. Perhaps they think they can provide a better gardening service, make more useful artificial limbs or simply use their expertise in ways that will be more widely valued.
Wealth openly results from successfully doing something you are passionate about better than others.
Networking
Most start-up businesses find their customers through networking. There are several good reasons for this. For one thing networking happens spontaneously; if you are out and about talking about your business you will find customers.
But networking is also important because it is:
• Instantaneous - you know if people are interested or not
• Responsive - you can measure its effectiveness
• Affordable - attending events and meeting people is a lot cheaper than advertising
But networking is also addictive. Once you have become confident that meeting and engaging new people it is possible to forget why you are networking in the first place.
Running your own business can be very lonely and networking events can provide comforting social contact. Look around you next time you go networking and see who use their for business and who just for the party?
Are you strong enough to say no?
In many ways what defines your confidence and focus as an entrepreneur is your ability to say no. You set up your business to do something very specific yet frustratingly people often ask you to do something different.
Too often, the new entrepreneur chooses to accept the bird in the hand rather than continue pursuing those in the bush. This delivers both activity and turnover, as well if you are lucky as profit. But it also can take you off course.
Letting your customers define your business can of course introduce you to a new ideas and opportunities. But it can also make you a ‘busy fool’. You become so busy doing the work that comes your way, that the more lucrative, sustainable work you set out to do never gets done.
Behind many successful entrepreneurs you will find an unsuccessful reality.
You know how frustrating it is to be working really hard and making slow but steady progress, only to be overtaken by someone achieving twice as much using half the effort. But reality is often very different from the perception you have gained.
It is very easy to appear successful. Even today it is easy to borrow money to lease nice cars and rent impressive offices. Add expensive advertising, designer clothing and a confident smile and even the biggest failure can look like a success story.
Only with experience you come to realise that the most successful entrepreneurs are often those with the lowest profile. They care little about what others are doing, choosing instead to focus on building their own enterprise.
Don't be distracted by what looks like success in others; concentrate instead on one achieving success yourself.
Less is more
The other day I witnessed yet another example of a potentially successful event and ruined by technology. The speaker was determined to share a number of video clips and PowerPoint slides, yet her laptop seemed challenged and unable to open all files.
The audience were not really there for a technology demonstration. Instead they were all people who had shown interest in the initiative the speaker was describing. They wanted to be motivated, excited and led.
Perhaps cheekily I used a gap in proceedings, whilst the speaker wrestled with her laptop, to lead a discussion on our collective attitude to the initiative. I rather hijacked the event but by then the speaker had lost interest.
The best speakers you ever hear of those without notes, slides or props. It is the message that is important not the way in which it is conveyed. Think about your business idea. Are you focusing on the message or are you being distracted by her how you are going to communicate?
Why is a business like a tree?
All new businesses start as the seed of an idea. The entrepreneur nurtures and shelters the idea as it grows. Like a sapling a young business is vulnerable. He can snap in the wind, be chewed by predators or simply die in a drought because its roots are not well established.
Later the business matures. Now it is tall, strong and well established. It can resist much of what the world throws at it. It produces new ideas that can be spun out as new ventures.
Finally it grows old and tired. New enterprises have grown around it and now cast shadows over its leaves. Its root system has become damaged over time and disease has taken a hold over its core. Eventually it is toppled by a storm.
Your challenge as an entrepreneur is to continually renew, refresh and a re-establish your enterprise so that as one activity dies others emerge.
Listen to what is not being said
As you develop your enterprise skills you will realise that what people choose not to say can be more significant than what they actually say. In other words when someone says ‘I don't want one of those’, what they might mean is that they would like something different.
Too many people hearing the word no assume that this means there is nothing they can do for the other person. One simple question; ‘so what would you like then?’ can convert the negative into the positive.
Remember that successful business is about meeting customer's needs, within the context of what you set out to do. You have to balance what they want with what your instinct and experience says they need.
Unless you listen to what is not being said as well as what is being said you will miss many opportunities.
