The Golden Rule Of Business
You’ve probably heard about the golden rule of life; “do unto others as you would have them do u
nto you.”
Well, here’s the thing, the golden rule of business is no different;
do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”
Not only is this mindset towards business wrong, it is a losing strategy.
You see, there’s no way you are going to succeed in business if you keep ignoring the fact that business is not different from life, but rather an extension of life.
I cannot over emphasize this enough.
Many businesses fail because they ignore this universal truth. What they have failed to realize is that the same principles that govern life are the same principles that govern business.
The fact is, you cannot separate life from business or business from life. To succeed therefore, your task as an entrepreneur is to create a balance between the two.
This unusual article is about helping you achieve this balance. Read on …
The Golden Rule of Business: It’s never about you!
The secret to creating this balance lies in understanding that success both in life and in business is all about people. People are at the crux of all that we do here on earth. Everything we do, we do because of people.
The products/services you create and hope to sell is not meant for you, but for other people. I have never met a business owner who is in business just to create products/services useful for only him/herself.
The reason people patronize a particular business is because that business is offering something that is both unique and useful to them.
A business that cares about the well being of others ultimately becomes the most profitable. The moment you start putting your needs above that of others, your business begins a downward spin.
The golden path to profitability is putting people first!
Profitability is a function of meeting other people’s needs just as you would have wanted yours to be met.
This fact alone clearly indicates that business as an institution exist for the advancement of life here on earth.
You are in the happiness business
Your customers are people.
Your suppliers are people.
Your employees are people.
Your shareholders are people.
The government is people.
The society is people.
All that you need to succeed in business revolves around people, isn’t it obvious why there’s only one golden rule of business?
When people are the focus, happiness becomes the goal.
At the core of everything people do is the desire to derive some form of happiness.
Products/services are purchased because of their inherent capacity to make people happy.
Workers come to work because of the inherent capacity of the work to produce certain rewards; financial, mental or psychological that makes them happy.
In essence, your success in business and in life is tied to how you treat people.
The question then is this;
“How would you like to be treated if you were an intending customer of your business?”
“What kind of treatment would you desire if you were an employee working in your business?”
Always asking and answering these questions is all that the golden rule of business represents. The moment you start putting yourself in other people’s shoe, the golden rule is at work in your life and in your business.
Every other rule or principle of life and business derives their meaning from it.
Applying the Golden Rule of Business
Business must be undertaken not only as a commercial activity, but much more. It must be seen also as a spiritual, emotional, psychological and relational activity.
Business as it turns out is much more than just the bottom line –profit. To really succeed, you’ve got to look past the obvious –money, to the not so obvious –people.
You have to constantly remind yourself that everything you do in this life leaves an impact on others. This could either be positive or negative, the choice is yours to make.
Don’t see people as a means unto an end; rather see them as the end in themselves. Everything you do is because of them, helping them invariably means helping yourself.
In my company and the others I co-founded, we have a simple rule for dealing with people and that is;
Consider first what’s in it for the other person”
It’s an outside–in kind of thinking and it is a simple way of living and doing business by the golden rule.
Over to you
How has following the golden rule helped you to build a better business?
Do you think life and business are different sides of the same coin or totally different from one another?
How have you been putting others first in your business and life?
- Published in Entrepreneurship, Leadership, Start Up, Thought Bank
The Dark Side Of Entrepreneurship And How To Survive It
The thought of going into business or doing ‘your own thing’ as it is popularly called can be very appealing at first. This
is especially true for most people who want to make the switch from the limited world of employment to the unlimited world of business. But sooner or later, the untold harsh realities will begin to set in and the truth is; a lot of people are unfamiliar with these harsh realities.
For the majority of you who have gone into business nurturing only the juicy thoughts of being an entrepreneur, things are about to get very sour. I’m sorry, but there’s some really bad news I need to break to you; entrepreneurship as much as it’s celebrated also has a dark side. At least, I’ve been able to identify 8 of them.
I’m sure at the end of this, more will come up from your contributions and that of others in the comment section. Coming to terms with this dark side of entrepreneurship is what this unusual article is about.
8 Harsh Realities Of Being An Entrepreneur
(1) Entrepreneurs get paid last
(2) Entrepreneurs are objects of mockery
(3) Entrepreneurs don’t have definite working hours
(4) Entrepreneurs fail more often than they succeed
(5) Entrepreneurs don’t have specific job descriptions
(6) Entrepreneurs go broke for long before ever growing rich
(7) Entrepreneurs attract more enemies than friends
(8) Entrepreneurs make their living by giving
Entrepreneurs Get Paid Last
I usually enjoy seeing the reaction on people’s face every time I make that statement. It is one of the most effective ways of differentiating a true entrepreneur from a ‘wannabe’. Why? Because you can instantly perceive what their real motivation is for going into business. For those with a get-rich-quick mentality, their level of disappointment is usually obvious. But for those who really want to change the world through the power of their idea, they often appear indifferent.
Nobody wants to be the last when it comes to the issue of money, but unfortunately for entrepreneurs, this is one of the realities they have to put up with. Being an entrepreneur often demands that you give up everything you own all in pursuit of an idea whose potentials of success is not 100% certain.
Yet, as an entrepreneur, when your idea eventually succeeds, you’ll be the last person to be rewarded from the very idea you invented. This is the harsh reality of entrepreneurs’ going broke for a long time before ever growing rich. What makes this so?
The Incubation Period of Your Idea
That idea which often inspires your journey into the world of business will be tried, refined and must be sustained for a very long time before it will eventually hit the mainstream. Every idea must undergo its own incubation period till it reveals its potential for success.
During this period, every other person but the entrepreneur must be paid in order to sustain the idea in this initial startup stage. Employees, contractors, suppliers, marketers, consultants, even customers and other collaborators that will be involved in making the idea work will have to be paid for their involvement, except you the entrepreneur.
As an entrepreneur, you are the mother of your idea and the burden of preserving, nurturing and delivering the idea rests entirely on your shoulders. Your first test as you make your entry into the world of business is the test of your idea. No one is going to buy into your idea easily. So you’ll have to sweat it out all by yourself to prove the viability of your idea.
This process of proving your idea’s viability is what delays your payment or reward date because it will cost you so many things, both in kind and in cash. Why? Because very few people will work with you during this process for free. As far as they are concerned, your idea is still a foetus and not yet a living entity [brand].
Meaning, the possibility of your business idea surviving is not yet certain, just as every mother knows that until a baby is delivered, anything that can possibly go wrong can still happen. This is the harsh reality of entrepreneurs’ high rate of failing more often than succeeding.
It’s Your Job to Nurture Your Idea Till Maturity
Like a baby in the womb, your idea must be nurtured or else it will die prematurely. The whole cost associated with preserving, nurturing and sustaining your idea till maturity will be borne by you the entrepreneur. Therefore, in the early days of your business, you will continuously be spending money long before you even start making a penny.
To survive these early days, you must become as a farmer who must cultivate the seed which was planted till it germinates and is fully ripe for harvest. Surviving these early days is your ultimate test as an entrepreneur.
How do you sustain yourself when you’ve given up everything you own to pursue this idea? How do you survive till pay day? What keeps you going during this challenging phase of your business? How do you survive when the very idea that is supposed to be your means of sustenance is counting on you for sustenance?
Feed on passion!
Passion is what keeps you going till pay day –that sheer joy of creativity that comes with doing something you love.
When everything else seems to be lingering in these early days of your business, go back in your mind to the very moment you conceived the idea for the business. That sudden rush of adrenaline you felt when you first had the thought for the business is what you must keep in front of you during these dark phase of your business.
This is your only chance of surviving till pay day. This will keep you going when everything else seems to be failing. Passion is the fuel you need constantly for traveling down this rough road of entrepreneurship. A lot of people who aren’t entrepreneurs will find it hard relating with this level of living and this is why most of the time, entrepreneurs are called crazy, daydreamers, misfits or even fools. This is the harsh reality of being an object of mockery.
You’ve just got to hang in there living off the conviction that your idea will survive till maturity. That maturity date of your idea is when it eventually becomes a recognized brand in the market you serve. So be sure the idea you are working on is one that you are naturally passionate about, not just because of the money or profit it can generate, but because of the difference [impact] it is going to make in the lives of those you serve. This is the harsh reality of making a living by giving.
If your idea lacks the potential to make a positive impact in the lives of your target market, when the going gets tough, you won’t find it hard to back out. Why on earth would you want to hold on to a thing that is neither making you money [profit] nor making you happy [passion] nor making live better for others [impact]?
Over to you
Have you ever found yourself caught up in the dark side of entrepreneurship?
Are there any other harsh realities of entrepreneurship familiar to you?
What other challenges do you face as an entrepreneur in business?
How have you been able to cope with some of these harsh realities of entrepreneurship?
We are a community of entrepreneurs supporting one another, it’s important you participate in the on going discussion by sharing your insights about the questions above.
Thanks for your time.
To your business success!
- Published in Entrepreneurship, Start Up
SELF EMPLOYMENT: The Deadliest Business Trap Ever and How To Avoid It
As an entrepreneur, being self-employed is the deadliest business trap ever!
Business, whether online [virtual] or offline [brick and mortar], small or big is governed by the same principles and calls for the same set of basic functions – production, marketing, finance, staffing and so on. Any difference that exists at all lies only in tactics.
Marketing is still about finding, keeping and growing profitable clients, whether your business is online or offline, big or small. The same goes for value creation [production], whether it is a product or service business you run, the reason for offering those products/services is the same -generating income by solving people’s problems.
Also, online or offline, big or small, every business needs workers [staffing] and the same principles and functions of leading them apply.
You see, in both business and in life, principles and functions rarely change, what changes is tactics. ‘The why’ [principle] and ‘the what’ [functions] are fundamentally the same, what differs is ‘the how‘ [tactics]. So, that you run an online or small business, is no excuse for not structuring and running your business on fundamental principles and functions that has been the bedrock of every successful business.
Having this consciousness is what makes successful business owners exceptional. They understand from the outset that being self-employed is limiting and from their small beginnings, they begin to lay the foundation for building a company that has the potential to grow and someday operate without them.
Are You DOING Business Or BUILDING A Business?
Doing business is the definition of being a self-employed entrepreneur [freelancer]. When everything about your business is dependent on you as the owner, you’re simply doing business. The keyword here is ‘dependency’. Being a self-employed entrepreneur means everything about your business revolves around you the owner.
When you don’t work, your business is down. Why? Because you are ‘working in’ [doing] your business rather than ‘working on’ [building] it. This is the danger of being a self-employed entrepreneur –you and your business is inseparable!
Building a business is the definition of being a Chief Executive Officer [CEO]. When everything about your business is NOT dependent on you as the owner, then you’re building a business. The keyword here is ‘independence’.
Being a CEO means you run your business as a company and everything about your business doesn’t revolve around you as the owner. When you don’t work, your business is still working. Why? Because you are ‘working on’ [building] your business rather than ‘working in’ [doing] it. This is the benefit of being a CEO –you and your business is separable!
Being self-employed [doing business] is the deadliest trap of business ever. That you are small is no excuse for wanting to be a one-man army. Someday soon, you will no longer be able to do all the things you so easily do now as a result of age, so what will become of your business then?
Someday soon, your small business will outgrow your capacity to meet all your customer’s increasing demand, so what will become of your business then?
Then, you’ll suddenly realize that all your ‘can-do-it-all-by-myself’ attitude as a self-employed entrepreneur is counterproductive. Then you will come to terms with the universal truth that one tree does not make up a forest and that one is too small a number to achieve greatness!
Successfully running a business is about profitably helping your clients achieve desired results consistently through the products/services you offer to them. It demands a high level of coordination and execution of several key activities. These activities cannot be handled successfully by only one person over a long period of time, so there’s need to create an operational structure/system for effectiveness and efficiency.
Creating this operational system/structure for your business is crucial to your success as a small business. At the head of this structure/system, is where you must operate from as the owner of your business. And the formal title given to anyone occupying this position is Chief Executive Officer [CEO].
Running a Business as a Company is the Essence of Being a CEO
Recently, I began to notice a general misconception among many small business owners especially the self-employed internet entrepreneurs that the CEO title is for the bureaucratic corporate organizations and not for those who want to ‘do their own thing’.
In fact, the other day I read the entrepreneurial journey of Ingrid Abboud of nittyGriddy and it really made me think deeply about why many online entrepreneurs shy away from the reality that someday their own thing will outgrow them.
While I can relate with the fact that most small businesses are started from the efforts of only one person at first, this is not enough reason to want to inhibit the growth potential of your business by still running it as a one man show. From the outset, it’s important to consciously go about your small business with the mindset as if it were already a big business.
Thomas Watson Jnr., once said about his father, Thomas Watson, the founder of IBM when the company was still a very small business, not even yet known within their locality. His father came home one day and suddenly announced the change of the business name from what it used to be to IBM [International Business Machines].
He said out of surprise he had to ask him why such an audacious global name for a business which was at that time only a one man show. His father replied him by saying that;
you start acting from small the way you’ll like to be when you eventually become big.
The CEO title as corporate or bureaucratic as it may seem, comes with its own unique responsibilities and functions. Business is a team sport and every team needs a coach in order to be effective and successful. The CEO is the coach of a business.
Being a business owner is about performing certain functions, these functions are governed by certain fundamental principles that cut across all kind of businesses, online or offline, big or small. Performing these functions is what being a CEO is all about.
The function supersedes the title or position. The title simply serves as an encapsulation of the fundamental functions and corresponding roles required of every business owner. This unusual article is about knowing what these fundamental functions are, their underlying principles, and their corresponding roles.
With this new knowledge acquired, you will stop doing business and start building a business, thereby escaping the deadliest business trap ever –self employment!
A Company is More VALUABLE than a Person [freelancer]
That you are currently operating as a self-employed entrepreneur [freelancer] is not enough reason to think or act small. Look for other smart people to bring on board as vision partners in your company. Share the vision of your business with them; they don’t have to be full-time employees for now till you can afford them.
Bring them in as freelancers or strategic partners to work together on specific projects and help build the company. But make sure they share the same values as you, because strategic partnership/alliance can only be formed on the foundation of trust powered by shared values.
Remember always, that you are not simply doing business [freelancer], but rather building a business [company]. Therefore, endeavour to seek out the right kind of vision partners that can fit into your core ideology and culture as a company.
Two Self-Employed Entrepreneurs Who Built a Company
- Brian Clark of Copyblogger
Built a truly SIGNIFICANT [unique and useful] company –Copyblogger Media LLC by strategically partnering with the likes of Tony Clark co-creator of Teaching Sells as Chief Operations Officer [COO], Sonia Simone of remarkable communication as Chief Marketing Officer [CMO], Sean Jackson the creator of Scribe SEO as Chief Financial officer [CFO], Brian Gardner founder of StudioPress as the product manager for their Genesis Framework and turnkey themes for WordPress and Brian Clark himself occupying the CEO position.
With these 5 member team, Copyblogger Media LLC is growing into one of the most successful social media company in the world today coming up with innovative products such as; Premise, Authority Rules, and Third Tribe.
is also doing the same thing, that’s how he created the Human Business Works [HBW] company by strategically partnering with Rob Hatch as COO, Liz Stewart founder Lush Beads as project manager, Josh Fisher as the creative director, Merlene Paynter as director of content, Anne Bryant as the executive assistant and Chris Brogan himself occupying the CEO position.
With these 5 member team, the Human Business Works [HBW] company has successfully launched innovative products/services such as; 501 Mission Place –a nonprofit, Kitchen Table Companies, and Blog Topics.
Size has NOTHING to do with Running a Business as a Company!
On May 1st 2006, in my sitting room, I and my mentor and friend Tolulope Oyebola, [he taught me most of the things I know about I.T. –Information Technology] decided to go into business after we both resigned from working as computer and network administrators for a cybercafé. We co-started NEWCHILD, an I.T. support company.
Prior to this day, Tolulope had been doing business as a freelancer alone on part time even as an employee with the same business name [Newchild]. But on this particular day, he decided it was time to build a real business, so that’s when I came on board –to help in the building of a real business [company].
From the outset, we assumed different roles in the business based on our individual strengths and weaknesses as individuals. As the founder and being a core technical person, he took up the CEO [Chief Executive Officer] position in order to technically [value creation] drive the business. I, being a core conceptual person, took up the COO [Chief Operations Officer] position in order to strategically [business development] drive the business.
While he ensured the business consistently had the technical competence to solve customers’ problems being an I.T. company. I ensured the business had the capacity to consistently function as a real business by putting the necessary operational structure/system in place. And so together, we began the building of Newchild Information Technologies, as a real business [company].
My first task was to turn Newchild from just an ordinary business [legal entity] into a company [living entity] and to do that required branding. At the time, they were several computer repairs and networking freelancers all operating as self-employed entrepreneurs, rather than as a real business [company]. So, I began the branding strategy by positioning the company as ‘The Professional I.T. Support Consultants”.
The owned word in this positioning statement is ‘Professional’. We wanted to differentiate ourselves by deliberately creating a dichotomy [class difference] in the market. What was this dichotomy? We wanted the market to know that there existed two classes, types or kinds of I.T. support consultants; ‘professionals’ and ‘unprofessionals’.
To communicate our professionalism, I listed out all our services/solutions such as computer repairs/maintenance, networking, web design, training, internet access etc., and branded [renamed] them. Rather than use their general names, I came up with creative names for each.
For example,
- Pre-Ups™ which is short for ‘preventive updates’ is the brand name for our computer repairs/maintenance services;
- Shareworks™ is the brand name for our networking services/solutions;
- Serverplus™ is the brand name for our internet bandwidth management solutions;
- Webcom™ [web development/design services and solutions];
- Netlinks™ [internet access solutions],
- Proficient™ [I.T. training services] etc.
My second task was the creation of a corporate identity for the company. These included the creation of a corporate website, complementary cards for the both of us, a company profile that described the company in a compelling manner; service brochure that explained in details each of our services and solutions; different sales documents such as service request forms, customer information form, customer satisfaction survey forms, all these further helped in establishing our professionalism as a company. We couldn’t possibly be a professional company without having a formal/corporate image.
In the profile, I included the responses we gathered from surveying our existing customers as testimonials; we partnered with a few other freelancers with core competencies in different aspects of I.T. and asked for permission to include their names as part of our team of professionals in return for more freelance jobs from us –they agreed.
What was the outcome of all these unusual efforts? Within six months, we were able to work for the Nigerian Air Force [logistic command, Ikeja], Lagos State Library Board and a few other small businesses. Today, the company comprises of 7 team members including Tolulope and I who still happen to be the only two core employees of the company out of the 7 of us.
So far, we’ve successfully taken over the management of a once defunct cybercafé and been managing it now for 3 years with about 1700 registered customers; we develop most of the unusual websites in Nigeria; if you doubt my claim, click on this link to view our portfolio.
Tolulope Oyebola, is one of the smartest CEOs I’ve ever come across. He recognizes his weaknesses and doesn’t in anyway try to hide it. Rather, he seeks out other smart team mates to compensate for his weaknesses. This is how together; we’ve been vision partners since 2003 after he taught me computer repairs and networking as his student.
In fact, Newchild Information Technologies is my very first project as a business development consultant. Tolulope gave me all the freedom I needed to test out all my innovative ideas and strategies.
What Makes an Exceptional CEO?
I have written some detailed articles about the essential roles of every successful CEO in a series before. Although, I am still working on completing the series, below are the ones I have been able to complete so far and I seriously recommend you read them.
When the whole series is completed, I will be making them available as a Free report [ebook]. I will only be giving out this ebook when completed to naijapreneur! subscribers. So if you aren’t yet a subscriber, enter your name and email address in the box below this article to subscribe now!
The 3 essential roles of successful CEOs
The Leadership role of every CEO
The 3 essential qualities of effective leadership
Developing the right character for effective leadership
Creating a compelling vision for your organization
How creativity gives entrepreneurs an edge
Over to you
Are you doing business or building a business?
How are you acting big even as a self-employed entrepreneur [freelancer]?
Do you think the title of a CEO is too ‘formal’, ‘bureaucratic’ or ‘not cool’ for self-employed entrepreneurs?
What are the challenges you currently face being a self-employed entrepreneur?
I would really love to hear from you, so feel free to share your thoughts with the community below.
- Published in Start Up, Thought Bank
Why Doing Business As USUAL Is Suicidal
When push comes to shove, the usual businesses die first long before the unusual ones ever do!
Business is an evolutionary process and only the strong will survive. Your entrance into the world of business can be both a blessing and curse depending on how you approach the world of business. The business terrain is a highly competitive one and gives no room for mediocres. A great deal of businesses has failed as a result of not fully taking cognizance of this fact.
More than ever before, the world is crying out for SIGNIFICANT [unusual] businesses. People want businesses that represent something unique and useful; they want companies that are different and making a difference. So if you are going to survive in the business world of today, then doing business as usual is definitely not the road you want to take. You’ve got to be unusual to survive the kind of global competition today’s business world is made up of.
The way business as Usual works
In case you’re wondering what I mean by business as usual, it’s just a simple phrase I use to describe mediocre businesses. They are the businesses that lack a greater purpose for being other than making profits. That is, businesses that are merely existing in their industry but never owning a spot or carving a niche for themselves.
They are the businesses that don’t stir up any reaction when mentioned; they are the businesses that don’t generate positive word of mouth; they are the businesses that don’t represent anything in the minds of their customers or prospects; they are the businesses that don’t come up with anything new; they follow all the rules and always prefer things to remain as they have been.
They are the businesses no one hears or knows about except from the mouth of their salespeople. They exist only as a number in the marketplace they operate in. They are only good for statistical purposes and are not a major force to reckon with. They are the first to die at the event of any market changes. They are the businesses that thrive on survival because they focus on just making a living.
You are dead if you’re just like the rest!
It’s just simple logic, why would anyone remember your business if there’s nothing remarkable about your business? There are a thousand and one competitions out there and people want to know what’s so unusual about your business that makes you different from all others. Especially at a time like this when the whole world is going through a financially constraining phase, people are more prudent with the way they spend. Meaning, getting money out of people’s pocket ain’t going to be as easy as it used to be.
So unless your business is well positioned and well differentiated in the eyes of the prospect and your customers, then making a sale might become increasingly difficult. You have to offer them [the marketplace] a compelling reason why it’s your business they should be dealing with and not the competitions. What would you consistently do to them that would guarantee their loyalty? Answering this question is your only chance of survival in this era of intense business competition.
The danger of doing ‘your own thing’
You see, the business as usual mindset is especially common amongst small businesses because of the general drive to ‘be their own boss’ and ‘do their own thing’. While there’s nothing wrong with wanting to be your own boss or doing your thing, the real problem with this approach to doing business is the fact that it tends to revolve around you the owner.
And once your business is all about you the owner, it becomes increasingly difficult for you to think of your business in other terms other than a tool for meeting your personal and immediate needs. This is where the whole business as usual mindset begins to set in. When you are the only person driving your business, there’s no way you are going to get past the survival mode – what to eat, where to sleep, what to wear.
Your focus will not be to do the unusual; your focus will be to get by. Since you don’t see beyond your needs being met when you think of your business, you won’t see any need to do unusual things that will make your business distinct. Your business becomes another 9-5 job that puts food on your table. Nothing else will seem to matter so long as there’s money coming in.
In no time, comfortability sets in and maintaining the status quo becomes your only goal. You don’t want to rock the boat; everything is going smoothly, why would you want to do anything silly all in the name of innovation when your customers don’t seem to be complaining about what you’re currently offering? So you plateau and probably think it’s time to put your small business empire on autopilot. But guess what?
When MONEY [survival] is the FOCUS, business is as USUAL
I have generally studied most small businesses that end up winding up when there’s a little shaking in the market they operate in. Most of their businesses weren’t anywhere near exciting at the time they existed. Their customers didn’t consider them special neither did their own employees feel they were part of something greater than themselves. All that seemed to matter to the owners was how much money their business was making them.
They were no jobs they couldn’t do, every client was a client even though the client requests for inferior work. They represented all sorts of disjointed perceptions in the mind of their customers. You simply couldn’t just place a hand on what they were about, except that they were more interested in collecting money than in adding value.
Before long, someone else comes along and takes the bull by the horn in that same industry, by then, it’s already too late for them to make any significant changes. To get past the survival mode, you have to look beyond yourself as the owner of your business and focus on the market you serve. Their needs must always be exceeded and not just being met.
Here’s the thing, if all you ever do is meet a customer’s need, then the customer would only be satisfied. He/she will not be angry since they got what they came for. But that’s no different from what others are offering too. For you to get more from a customer, you’ve got to do more than they asked for.
Here’s what I mean;
To be memorable in the mind of the customer means you’ve got to do something unusual, something they never anticipated. Through your product or service, their expectation and perception about what you are offering must be elevated beyond the general industry standard, that’s the only way you can be remembered.
You want your business to occupy the highest position in their mind when compared to all others in your industry. You want them to associate your business with a particular and unusual idea. You want your business to be the reference point in your industry, that’s what really being unusual means. To occupy an irreplaceable position in the customer and prospect’s mind – to deliver the unexpected. Only when you can take them beyond their wildest expectations will they never stop spreading the message of your unusual business.
It’s not WHAT you do, But HOW you Do it
The trap of doing business as usual is mostly associated with the mindset you bring into your business than on what you actually end up doing in your business. It doesn’t matter the market or industry you are in, it doesn’t matter what it is you sell or provide, what matters is how you see and perceive your business and its role in the environment in which you operate.
If you see your business as an instrument for making a difference, then you wouldn’t do the usual things common amongst other businesses in your industry. But if you see your business as a personal instrument for your own benefit, then you wouldn’t see any need to do things differently with and through your business.
It is often a matter of intention rather than action. It begins with your original intent for going into business. If your intent is to make a difference, you would be different [unusual] and would use your business for something SIGNIFICANT [unique & useful]. In the end, it all boils down to whether you are in business to make a difference or in it to make a living.
The benefits of being UNUSUAL
- You stand out from the crowd
- Standing out from the crowd makes it easier to be spotted
- Being spotted eliminates all others who are present and increases your odds of success
- Being spotted draws attention towards you and then,
- Makes it easier for you to make an impression
- The impression made will always be remembered
- The remembered impression made turns into a FREE advert for your business through word of mouth
- Eventually, word of mouth brings you more customers to also make an impression on!
In the end, it’s only those who are unusual that will be spotted and only those who are spotted will be contacted and those that are contacted will be rewarded with more and more business and enjoy the greatest form of marketing; word of mouth advertising, thus eventually increasing their chances of turning leads into lifetime clients.
How to Do Business NOT as USUAL
It wouldn’t be fair on my part if I talked about and showed you what doing business as usual is without pointing to you or giving you a clue on how to actually do business unusually. That is what this site was created to help you achieve. Here you get to read the most unusual articles about how to build SIGNIFICANT [unusual] businesses in the whole world wide web for free [pardon the play on words, it was intended to make you almost bite your tongue. I hope you did!]. To get them, you are going to have to subscribe by entering your full name and email address below.
- Published in Entrepreneurship, Management, Start Up, Thought Bank
The TWO Kinds Of Business, Which ONE Are You Building?
What Kind of business are you building?
This is going to be a very passionate post, so I want to pre-warn you early, stay off now if you don’t want to experience a radical paradigm shift in the way you do business.
Last week Monday I wrote a guest post on bloggingbookshelf about trading comments and that article really caused uproar. While this post is not necessarily a follow up on that, the underlying principle remains the same and that is;
“Why should you settle for GOOD when you can have GREAT?”
Two kinds of business: Good or Great?
Management guru, Jim Colins wrote a classical book on this issue titled; “good to great” where he emphatically stated that the enemy of great is good. I couldn’t agree more. You see, there is absolutely no joy in doing anything unless you are prepared to give it your best shot. Being good is never good enough when there’s nothing holding you back from being great. You are only going to end up shortchanging yourself if all you ever want to be and do is ‘good’. Good businesses are the first who gets swallowed up by the great ones.
All businesses are not created equal. Hence, there two kinds of businesses;
- Published in Entrepreneurship, Management, Start Up, Thought Bank
11 Fundamental Business Questions For Every Startup Entrepreneur
Many people venture into the world of business without taking the time to critically answer some very
Fundamental Business Questions For Startup Entrepreneurs
fundamental business questions that goes a long way in determining how successful the new business venture becomes or not. In this article, I will be sharing the 11 fundamental business questions I usually use in my coaching and consulting process for start-ups.
I urge you to devote the time to answering each of these questions and as a gift for your readership, I am offering to review them for free to as many of you that will send me their answers
- Published in Entrepreneurship, Start Up, Thought Bank