Essentials of Business Success

April 13, 2012 by 4 Comments

What does it take to make a business successful? How can someone who has never run a business before start, build, and run a successful business? This is a really good question, especially since most businesses still fail in the first five years.

I think that there are some essentials of business success that must be considered by every entrepreneur and new business start-up before they turn on the first light, make the first business contact, or open the door for the very first time.

1.    You must develop an entrepreneurial mindset. With this mindset, you will learn to embrace the concept of delayed gratification. You will have thought through the incredibly important question, “How long can I run this business before making a profit?” You will understand that starting a business requires a higher than normal financial risk tolerance.
2.    You must understand how money works. If you don’t really understand the difference between an asset and a liability your chances for success diminish drastically. Managing money correctly in the early stages of your business sets the standard for success in the long run.
3.    You must understand the basics of marketing your business. With all the options today both online and offline, you need to know what will bring you new customers, what will keep existing customers, and what will not! Too many new businesses collapse under the weight of a trial and error marketing plan.
4.    You must understand what it means to be a leader in your chosen field. Every industry is filled with people “just like everyone else.” What you must do to be successful is to set yourself apart as someone with a unique value as a thought leader in your industry.
5.    You must continue to grow as a person. Everyone enters the world of businesses with personal strengths and weaknesses. Working to improve your talents and skill set will allow you to continue to improve the quality of your business for your current clients as well as for new clients that will be added over time.

With an understanding of these essentials of business success, you will give yourself a more than fighting chance to be one of those companies who survive where others will fail.

What other essentials do you think are important for new business start-ups to know and understand?

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Networking and the Growth of Business

January 17, 2012 by Leave a Comment
Small Business Summit 2011 Pre Event Photo 22

Image by Grant Wickes via Flickr

I had an opportunity to sit with a couple young entrepreneurs this morning. In spending this time with them, I was reminded about the idea of networking and the growth of business. Without this time of networking I would not know about their business nor would I be able to refer them to my clients who might well need them.

While networking has always been a part of business success, it seems that in today’s business climate driven often by online marketing opportunities, that real networking has suffered. It’s easier to “shoot” someone an email or direct them to your Twitter account than to sit down for a cup of coffee. While these technologies have their place in every business, they should not and really cannot take the place of the face-to-face contact that is the essence of networking.

Networking is important because:

  • When I am looking into your face I can hear the sincerity of your words.
  • When I am looking into your face I can see the passion in your eyes.
  • When I am looking into your face I can tell your confidence that you display.
  • When I am looking into your face you can see the same things in me.

It is when we can gain the confidence in each other that only this kind of conversation brings, that we will readily refer each other and our businesses to our clients, family, and friends.

Every business should recognize the value of this kind of networking and realize how important it is to the growth of our businesses.

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Splashing Around in the Deep End!

December 13, 2011 by Leave a Comment

Are you just splashing around in the deep end?

 

English: A Private Swimming Pool

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One of the most interesting things that I have learned this year is that the majority of the entrepreneurs that I know who have started businesses in the past year or so did so without a real plan in place. They began with a dream (or were living in a nightmare), they jumped into the deep end of the pool and splashed around trying to both get noticed and to not drown at the same time!

 

While this makes for a lot of excitement, it rarely ends with a strong and successful business enterprise. For those considering a new start-up in 2012, a few thoughts about splashing around in the deep end!

 

  1. Get your “dry land” work done first. When a person begins to learn to swim, an instructor will give them some instruction and safety advice before they enter the water for the first time. In learning ahead of time about things to know/do once you get in the water, you are more prepared in the event of trouble than if you simply “jump in” head first.
  2. Start out in the shallow end of the pool. The benefit here is that in the event of a problem or that you panic for any reason all you have to do is put your feet on the bottom of the pool and stand up. There is always a greater chance of survival in the shallow end that splashing around in the deep water!
  3. Challenge yourself to move into the deep end of the pool when your confidence and skills warrant the risk! Be careful (but not too careful) because success in the deeper water requires that you take the next step. With every step into the deeper water their comes increased risk, but with growth in confidence and skills you will soon be swimming like a fish!

Learning the dangers of splashing around in the deep end will provide you with the ability to be survive the difficulties and be successful for the long term. While others are just splashing around making noise and hoping to survive, you will be enjoying all the opportunities that confidence and skill brings.

 

So, as you consider your business start-up you must decide three things: where you are now; where you need to be to gain both confidence and skills; and how long will it take to gain it so that your business will be both safe and successful in 2012!

 

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When time seems to slip away!

September 7, 2011 by 4 Comments
Screenshot of the blogging system WordPress.

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About a week ago I wrote my 100th blog post. I was very pleased with myself for having reached this milestone. However, since then I have not written a thing! I have fallen victim to the very struggles that I try to teach my clients to avoid. Time thieves that make consistent blogging efforts falter and even end with a thud!!!

None of these thieves are more important than my blogging efforts, but they seemed more critical in the moment. It seemed that these other things made more sense to do than to write another post. So I did them. I would come back now and again to work on post number 101 and I just couldn’t make the words come out. So, I went another day with nothing. I even got a bit bored with trying to write. (Sound familiar?)

Today is day seven without a post and I started to think about when time slips away! It’s hard to get back on track. It’s hard to make the immediate needs of a day stand aside and let the long-term needs of my company take precedence. It’s hard to get back to focus.

If all of this sounds familiar to you, understand that you are not alone. Take time to exhale and then start again. Slower maybe, with less pressure than before, but get back to it. Your long-term success is more important than short-lived gains. And remember when time seems to slip away, it is time to slow down, pay attention, and let your dream take control.

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A Three-fold Bottom Line

June 7, 2011 by Leave a Comment
Lyndon B. Johnson

Image by Napalm filled tires via Flickr

Yesterday I wrote about the failure of the Great Society plan of President Lyndon Johnson. I stated yesterday that the failure of the Great Society was that it made people wards of the state rather than finding the way to unleash their personal skill set to free them from the bonds of their poverty. It was great for securing votes, but did little to make our society “great.”

Today I want to consider a three-fold bottom line that can free people to their best selves while bringing to the forefront the makings of a great society.

As a business owner, the bottom line is considered the “holy grail” of metrics. I agree, but the question is what do we place on that all important bottom line? I think that three things should be considered:

1. Cash – it takes money to accomplish most everything in this world and the financial success of a business must be considered in the development of a great society. If a business is not successful in this metric, it cannot survive to be successful in the others.

2. Community – it takes a sense of community for businesses to take their place in the creation of a great society. When business sees profit as the only real metric, they will be tempted to do things detrimental to community to make the profits flow. Having a keen sense of obligation to the community in which your business creates profit is essential.

3. Creativity – it only makes sense that successful businesses would look for opportunities to create opportunities to train successive generations of entrepreneurs in the values of success and the principles necessary to accomplish it. By creating these opportunities for the next generation, business owners can inspire innovative thinking, they can allow new entrepreneurs to “get their feet wet”, and they can train a new generation of business owners who understand all three metrics of business success.

When, as business owners, we understand the three-fold bottom line we will know a kind of success that money alone can never bring. What experiences have you had with these three success metrics?

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The Great Society

June 6, 2011 by Leave a Comment
Secretary of State Dean Rusk, President Lyndon...

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In the 1960′s, then President Lyndon Johnson created a set of social programs that he dubbed “The Great Society.” Nearly 50 years later, the results of those social programs are dubious at best. You see the reason for failure in programs like those proposed by President Johnson is that they made people more dependent on government and less innovative and entrepreneurial. People became (and in many cases stayed) wards of the state rather than developing their own skills to meet their needs in life and society.

I have a vision of the great society just as President Johnson did. My vision differs though. Primarily because my vision unleashes the creativity, compassion, and love for community in every person. My vision builds the esteem of the citizenry by allowing them to try AND fail, to learn from their mistakes and then to try again. My vision is shaped by the words of Dr. Martin Luther King as he spoke about being know by the content of one’s character rather than the color of your skin.

The great society can indeed come to fruition in our world when we look at the struggles we face as challenges to be better people, to live better lives, and to help others reach their greatest potential. It will require us to develop a “three-fold” bottom line (stay tuned for the definition in a later post) for our businesses rather than just the current “get all you can, can all you get, and sit on the lid” approach.

Do you want to help create the great society envisioned by people around the world for thousands of years? What do you think it will take? How can we start today?

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Real Customer Care

May 18, 2011 by 2 Comments
Reading glasses

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I had a bad experience yesterday. I was planting some trees at church. I took off my glasses and set them on the ground (I know, not too smart). Needless too say they soon ended up in several pieces and very badly bent. After finishing what I was doing I headed off to the store (Lens Crafters) where I had purchased the glasses about 18 months ago.

When I walked in I didn’t know whether or not my glasses could be salvaged or not. The gentleman who took them from me didn’t either. However, after about twenty minutes of work, twisting, bending and reshaping, I walked out of the store with my glasses intact and no money lost from my wallet! All the while I was treated as if my glasses (and their restoration) was the most important task that the salesperson had on his plate.

Where do you suppose that I am going to buy my next pair of glasses from, and if possible who do you think I will request as my salesperson? You guessed it, the guy who straightened out my old glasses while maintaining my integrity and not laughing at me for stepping on them in the first place.

In this short span of time this salesperson expressed created an atmosphere of trust that not only made me appreciate him and his company, but also to tell his story by writing this post today. I what he did I saw three key ingredients that someone building a business that counts should understand and put to practice in developing real customer care:

1. Building an atmosphere of trust is essential to great customer service. People become loyal customers to companies that they grow to trust. While Lens Crafters is not the cheapest store for eye glasses, it is MY store because of how they treated my personal crisis!

2. Treating customers/clients with integrity will always work to your benefit. They way customers/clients feel while in your business and after they leave is critical to their willingness to both buy again and give you referrals. Treating each customer as if THEY will make or break your business is very important to your long-term success.

3. It takes a quiet confidence in your ability to build such trust. While I sat and watched, this salesperson went to his drawer of tools over and over finding just the right tool to bend and twist my glasses back into shape and even when things looked bad, he didn’t quit. In the end his skills won out and I am wearing those, no longer damaged, glasses as I type this morning.

The old adage in business is that it is cheaper to keep an existing customer than it is to develop a new one. (Something the media companies should learn …. but that’s another article all together!) So, with that thought in mind you and I need to learn the principles of real customer care!

What do you think? What kinds of unique things do you do to let your customers know you care?

 

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The Essentials of Business Success

May 13, 2011 by 2 Comments

I hope you have all been enjoying the series “Building a Business that Counts.” I have enjoyed reading and commenting on your comments so far and hope that the rest of this series can be blessing to you.

Today, I want to get down to brass tacks. I want to share with you what I think are the essentials of business success. Those basic things that every entrepreneur and small business needs to understand in order to make their definition of success come to pass.

In his best selling book The E-Myth Revisited (Amazon affiliate link) Michael Gerber speaks about the “fatal assumption” in business. He says that the fatal assumption is, “if you understand the technical work of a business, you understand the business that does that technical work.” In other words, you may be an awesome carpenter, but that does not mean that you understand how to run a successful and profitable carpentry business.

In order to make your business grow and thrive, you need to understand the essentials of business success. I think that these essentials fall into five categories:

1. The entrepreneurial mindset. This mindset allows the business owner to always be open to evaluate the potential success of every opportunity placed before their business. It is the creative side of the business where risk and rewards are calculated.

2. Business financial education. While budgeting, profit margins, pricing, overhead, fixed expenses and the like might well be a foreign language to most entrepreneurs and small business owners, understanding how they work in your business is essential to long-term business success. Don’t loose sight of the money. Nothing else in your definition of success will come true if you don’t keep the money under control!

3. Basic marketing education. Peter Drucker once said, “Business has only two functions – marketing and innovation.” Both require a creative mind and the willingness to take risks. Unless your business has a marketing plan and the will to engage the market, chances of success are minimal.

4. Leadership education. Even the most “solo” of solo-entrepreneurs needs to have leadership skills. Learning how to direct your clients/customers into making a decision is absolutely necessary in developing a successful business. If and when employees come into the picture, these skills need to be sharpened regularly to keep the company moving smoothly and in the right direction at all times.

5 Personal growth education. This is probably one of the least considered of the essentials of business success. Most business owners don’t see either the value of personal growth training nor to they make ample time for it in their business. Yet, if you study the lives of some of the greatest business owners in history, they found such education as essential for themselves and their businesses.

Understanding and putting to practice these essentials does not guarantee business success, but they do make the probability of that success greater. To discard them makes failure your primary option.

What do you think about this list? Are there other essentials that you would include?

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Defining Success “A Follow-up”

May 12, 2011 by 4 Comments


The power of the internet never ceases to amaze me. I was reading this morning some articles on issues that I enjoy and came across one on BNet about companies that are enjoying success by being socially responsible. (point three in yesterday’s post) So, as a follow-up to yesterday’ article (Defining Success) I wanted to invite you to read the post at BNet and then come back at let us know what you think!

Talk again soon ….

 

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Slow times will come …

April 19, 2011 by 2 Comments

Everything in life is cyclical. There are times when things move quickly and times when things do not! Busy times are always more exciting and keep the adrenaline flowing, but the slow times also have great benefit. So, don’t let these times discourage you because in business, as in all of life, slow times will come.

The question that needs to be asked and answered is, “What do I do when the slow times come?”

1. Take time to breathe. In other words, when the slow times come, use them to relax and recuperate. Everything that has life needs down time. Make the slow time valuable to you by using it to bring down the stress, getting more rest, and letting life slow down to a natural pace.

2. Take time to evaluate. In the slow times, you have more time to evaluate business/life in a way that the busy times don’t allow. Take advantage of this extra time to think, plan, and tweak your existing strategy for greater future successes.

3. Take time to explore. Peter Drucker said that all business is about marketing and innovation. The slow times that will surly come are perfect times to explore opportunities to make your business unique in your market. Look for ways to make changes that provide more information, new products and services, and more value for both current and potential new customers. This time of exploration will make your business stronger in the long run.

Every business owner knows that slow times will come. The difference between successful businesses and those that just survive is what business owners do during the slow times!

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