The Seeds of Business Success
If you do not change today, you will get tomorrow, much more of the same that you got yesterday. The future for most people is usually a reflection of what they got in the past, albeit in another form.
In the last blog post we dealt with the fatal diseases contracted by Businesses. Let us move to the positive in this post and look at what we need to concentrate on to ensure the success of your business.
- Survival
Survival is the most basic instinct. It encompasses every fundamental aspect we need to follow to stay alive. All businesses have cycles … can your cash reserves see you through the storms that are bound to come?
Why is it then that we assume that the Business will be here tomorrow … and for eternity? Statistics reflect that 9 out of 10 businesses fail within the first 10 years of their lives. Do you really believe that these statistics apply to others and not to you?
If you do not focus on surviving day-to-day, month-to-month and year-to-year, you probably will become a statistic. The primary survival instinct is to ensure that we achieve those ‘break-even’ sales levels each day, month, and year. Achieving a break-even position in business is in fact a win!
Are there other measures you can aim at for survival? Plenty! You know your business, so identify those key aspects that determine whether your business will be around tomorrow and make sure you meet each objective one by one.
- Simplicity
Keep it simple!
It is the simple things in life that give us the most joy. It is the simple things that work … so keep it simple.
What has happened in the I.T. Industry? It has been tainted with a reputation of non-delivery. This has happened because most products are so complicated that the average user will never be able to master all features contained in the products, let alone understand them!
Look at the most successful inventions. The vast majority (those that reach the market) are so unbelievably simple that we all say, ‘but why didn’t I think of that’.
Likewise, in your business! Keep the business model simple. Keep the marketing simple. Keep the measures simple. Keep your systems and procedures simple.
You are not in business to show other people how clever you are … you are in business for two reasons only:
- To get and keep customers
- To make money
- Customers/Clients
The purpose of ANY business is to get, and keep, customers/clients. It is these people who allow you to make money (and this is the object of any business)!
Why is it then that we spend so much time trying to figure out ways of gearing up sales (sales programmes; advertising campaigns; marketing campaigns … and so on) and so little time on making it our business to understand the precise needs of our existing clients/customers and whether or not we are really satisfying their needs!
The client/customer is the reason for your existence. Serve them better than anyone else, put them at the head of your business and give them the recognition they deserve. Do this and you will find it an effort to fail in business!
- Products
We get bombarded with products daily, that in our own businesses we spend far too much time searching for ways to add more and more features to our own products. We overlook the benefits our products deliver to our market.
A product only exists because it satisfies a need! Can you create a need? Of course you can, but it is going to cost you an absolute fortune in the process.
Identify the benefits your product has to offer. If there are none, change your product, or adapt it. Everyone wants to experience a sense of well being when they spend their money. They want some return on their investment, whether this be psychological, financial, physical, or emotional. Find that benefit and make sure your product delivers time, after time, after time!
- Being Different
Today we are spoilt for choice. Life is lived at an unrealistically fast pace and it is only the unusual that catches our attention. If you are going to insist on doing what everyone else does, you will get what everyone else gets!
There is far too much mediocrity today. Is it not ironic that you must be that little bit better than everyone else to be noticed?
Go on … dare to be different and see what happens!
- The Right Measures
Comes the time … comes the man! Business life is dynamic. There are no generic solutions to every problem, simply because we are all different.
Instinctively we know the answers to any given challenge, but we push this instinctive solution to the background and force the rational solution. Wrong move! Do not rationalise … follow your instinct!
Whatever the situation, make sure that you come up with the right measures. They may be contrary to the accepted norm and they may be radical, or seemingly insignificant, but institute them. Take the action! If it is the wrong action you will have learned but at least you acted!
- The Non-negotiables
The moral fibre of business seems to be unravelling. So, what is so new about the wheel turning? There is nothing new under the sun … it all just occupies a different position in the wash machine at a different moment in time.
However, there are certain fundamentals that never change. These are:
- Standards
- Quality
- Service
- Value
… in your business there may be more. Do not compromise on these as they form the personality of your business. Identify them, hold on to them and enforce them continuously!
Remember that internal misjudgements are six times more likely to cause business failure than external factors. The message is clear … keep objective help close at hand at all times, and if you do not have it, get it without delay.
QUOTATION:
The best way to predict the future … is to create it
Unknown
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