Keys to Building a Successful Business - Article Business is - TopicsExpress

Keys to Building a Successful Business - Article Business is not for the feint hearted. Being successful business is not easy. So to have a successful business you need to be courageous, savvy and be prepared to put in some hard work for some long periods of time. This is common knowledge, although sadly not always common practice. Even these days, in the age of knowledge and information, people are still going into business under the illusion that they can make quick easy money and live the life of an Entrepreneur right off the bat. This is not how it works! As Brendon Burchard so aptly puts it “Success begins with a good idea, followed by hard work”. If this is the formula to owning a successful business then it makes sense that one should know ones business. Knowing ones business is critical to your success. GROWTH If you are going to be successful you should be making intelligent and strategic decisions that ensure your businesses long term survivability and growth. If you are going to consistently make those decisions you need to base your thinking on correct assumptions. 5 main areas of your business you should know intricately and can use to base your decisions on are these. 1. VISION To have a business that is sustainable and enjoys consistent growth you must have a vision for your business. A vision simply sets out where you see your business in the future. A good starting point for a vision is to imagine your business in 5 years from today and write down where it will be, what it will stand for, whether it will be local, national, regional, international, global etc. It gives you something to aim for in the long term and helps guide your decision making along the way. “If your business isn’t growing it IS dying” Your vision, if understood and prepared properly will help to keep your business on the growth track and keep you away from the terminal effects of the “Comfort Zone”. Your vision is not and should not be limited to only 5 years into the future; it should go to the end, e.g. 20, 50 or even 100 plus years from now. Here is an example of a Hair Salon Vision Statement “To have multiple salons country wide that change the way people think about a haircut through great service, friendly staff, a relaxing atmosphere and the best prices and value”. 2. MISSION Your mission sets out how you are going to achieve your vision. This is where a bit more detail is required and a bit more thinking of the “HOW” should be considered. Your mission is “YOUR MISSION IN LIFE”. It is an extension of the vision and explains in a bit more detail what your company is all about and how it is going to be operated. 3. VALUES What are your core values? What do you stand for as a company? What is your company culture? All these questions should be addressed here. Some may be covered in your vision or mission statements but here is where you detail and explain why. Your company’s Vision, Mission, Values, Product and Market information provide information for 3rd parties and the general public, however, they are primarily for you, the business owner. By following these steps and completing each one, you will learn more about your business. Your values must be what your company is eventually remembered by. E.g. Honesty, integrity, timeliness, friendliness, fun, professional, superior quality, reasonable prices, politeness, funky, loud, innovative. All of these words become part of the everyday language of your company and staff and influence the way in which you behave and act. Each word should be expanded upon and explained in more depth to bring more meaning to it. For example.... Honesty – To always tell the truth even if it means I might get into trouble. 4. PRODUCT Business people are often under the illusion that they know their product or service inside out. After reading this you will be able to answer for yourself whether or not you know enough. The rule these days is that you should know at least 100 reasons why someone should buy your product from you. This forces you to go beyond the common features and benefits that anyone can now get off the internet at a click of a button. It forces you to think deeper and come up with unique qualities relevant to your market and conditions. It helps you identify what is good and also what is bad about your product. When you have come up with and listed down 100 reasons why people should buy your product, you will have a decent understanding of your product, not before. 5. MARKET Before you can sell anything, there must be a market for it. Before you go into business it is critical that you understand the market and whether it is ready for your product or service and how much potential money you can make from it. Too many start ups fail to do this and end up failing because they are in the wrong market at the wrong time or they have misread market conditions. To understand your market you need to focus on the following areas: - Customers – How many potential customers are there for your product or service? To get an accurate estimate of this, you must define who your customers will be and the answer is never as simple as it first appears and how we would love it to be. Not everyone will be interested in your product, so you need to define who exactly. This means understanding how much money they earn, where they live, where they shop, what they do for fun, where they buy similar stuff, what newspapers they read, what social networks they prefer, what age, colour and creed. You need to know this if you are going to market to them effectively. If you are going to build a successful business you must have the market. - Market – What is the size of the market? For example, if you are in the hair salon business, how big is the market? How many people pay for a haircut in your area (country/city/town/village/shopping centre) and what is their average spend and how often do they come back. Once you work this out (and bear in mind that you are estimating so do not waste time trying to get the exact figure) decide what share of the total you are going to work towards achieving for your company. The market size might be $1 million per anum and you decide that over the next 5 years you are going to secure 20% of that market. This will then require a strategy on how you are going to achieve that. - Competitors – At Sabre we do not like to think of competitors as the enemy but rather as possible partners. We encourage creative thinking rather than the narrow minded, antiquated idea of competitive thinking. Having cleared that up, you must know who else is out there and what they are doing and how. When it comes to your competitors, there are a few basic rules that should be followed: Know your competition, never bad mouth them, and promote them. This is a short summary of areas that need attention and that will help you get to “Know your business” a bit better. Even if you have already done this exercise before, it is a good idea to revisit these areas and keep it up to date and relevant. Knowing your business is critical to its success. When getting to know your business, think deeply about it and look into the future. This article briefly discusses what is covered in one of the Modules in the “Building a Successful Business” Workshop that is starting in May 2014. For more details contact us on Email sabre@sabrebusinessworld Or call us on +263 772 354 840 Article by Brendan Palmer Sabre Business World Trainer |Author | Speaker | Consultant | Coach