Year: 2010

Why on earth should anyone buy into your idea?

Providing answer to this question is where your greatest nightmare as an entrepreneur begins. Your idea is great; it has the potential to change the world, but how come no one except you is willing to stick their neck out for it? How come all people ever do when you pitch your idea is listen, nod their heads and do nothing else? Because you are not convincing. Let me be very quick to draw a line here; there is big difference between sounding convincing and actually being convincing. Sounding convincing is a matter of presentation, being convincing is a matter of credibility.

After the gates are closed on Black Friday, how many hours will you spend stuck at your cash wrap reconciling…

No one business can appeal to everybody. So your best response is to define your brand and consistently communicate your own Unique Selling Proposition (USP). The emergence of competitions clearly separates the men from the boys. It is the businesses that don’t clearly stand for something that often get eaten up by competitions. If your business doesn’t stand for something, it will fall for anything. To remain competitive, you’ve got to be distinctive. There’s got to be something about your business that will make the customers have a second thought about going to the new competitions. What would they miss if they stopped coming to patronize you?

Take it or leave it, the entrance of new competitions will either make you or break you; these are the only two options available to you. Panicking will break you as it almost did to us but focusing will make you as we later found out. You see when competitions show up in your line of business it’s more like a raging storm that can sweep you off your feet if you are not standing firm. It is not the time for you to panic and start making frantic moves born out of fear rather than strategic planning.

Whether you like it or not, the world of business is a very highly competitive one. Business is a game and it takes a lot to eventually emerge as a winner. Winning however does require you find a way to remain in business irrespective of competition. Perhaps one of the most critical factor in determining who wins or lose in the game of business is knowing what not to do in the face of intense competition.

Vision; an idea to die for is the ONE thing that separates leaders from all other people. Your effectiveness as a leader is determined by how well you are able to lead others towards the fulfillment of a vision. Without a vision you cannot unify the collective efforts of the right people. People like to know what they are working towards. The right people don’t just gather around or follow leaders who are only ‘good people’ (character); they want to gather around and follow leaders who are passionate about ‘doing good’ (vision).

Although character is related to personality, it is not the same thing. Personality is primarily inborn traits, while character consists of learned behaviour. Personality is what comes with you from birth; character is what you build all through your life. Therefore, as a CEO in playing your leadership role, character development must be an ongoing process and this lifetime journey revolves around two key things that you must constantly focus on and always strive to improve. What are they?

Why is character required for effective leadership?

Because every organization takes on the personality of its leaders. Your people are fractional bits and pieces of who you are as their leader. Who you are as a person reflects on the entire organization. So if you happen to be a wrong person as a result of a flawed character, then the whole organization is in jeopardy. You cannot expect to lead the right kind of people that an organization needs to be effective when you are not the right person yourself. It takes only the RIGHT kind of leader to lead the RIGHT kind of people necessary to achieve the RIGHT kind of results an effective organization desires.

The leadership role of every CEO. Making an organization effective –capable of doing the RIGHT things – is the work of a CEO as a leader. But for an organization to be truly effective, everyone within the organization, including you the CEO as the leader must be effective –capable of doing the RIGHT things. You are not exempted from the equation just because you are occupying the highest position. In fact, and this is the most critical factor about your leadership role as a CEO, until you the leader is effective, don’t expect anyone else to be effective. In other words, you must first become the right kind of leader (effective) before gathering the right kind of people (team) and putting each in the right seat (position) all working collectively in the right direction (vision, goal or objective) for the benefit of the entire organization. You are the missing piece of the puzzle. Without an effective leader, no organization can be effective.

The 3 Essential Roles Of Successful CEOs. The role of a CEO is a 3-dimensional one involving three major responsibilities. So just as everybody else in your company, you as the boss also have certain key roles in which you have to function. Below is an overview of your work description as a CEO. The whole idea of being your own boss is about to go sour if you are not prepared to do the work that comes with the title.