Welcome back!
Last week in sharing with you tips to help ensure you launch a successful business. I told you that your business must leverage your core strengths. Someone with no affinity for numbers should go work in an accounting firm. That’s a no brainer, isn’t it?
I also advised that you go into business to provide a solution and not primarily to make tons of money. I highlighted companies like
Apple and Google that are geared to provide solutions for their users, more or less ensure their staying power. Organisations that put money first, are all but ensuring that they will be swept off the business stage in short order.
This week I will share three more tips to conclude this topic.
#3 of 5: CREATE A COMPELLING VISION
Creating a compelling vision as an
entrepreneur is imperative to gain any success in leadership. As an entrepreneur you know you are a leader, don’t you?
You have to create a compelling vision that will drive your business to success. Contrary to what we have been taught,
vision not only strategy is the foundation for success. Your compelling vision captures the hearts, imagination and minds of the people working for you and should ideally secure their buy in.
I believe it was Earl Nightingale who said:
“…the mind moves in the direction of our currently dominant thoughts.”
By crafting a vision, you capture the minds of most people (not everyone…remember
Paretto’s Principle) at your business and they then make that vision their current dominant thought.
Where do you think their minds will take them? Yes…to actualizing that vision. You don’t believe me?
Many of us remember when we were little our mom had that favorite mug or tray. Mom nagged so much about you breaking that mug or tray, and you began to fear even holding the item at all. You probably had so many nightmares about breaking the item that you refused to go near it EVER. Well guess what? One normal day, mom sends you to rinse out her mug and behold it slips from your wet fingers and breaks. What do you call that? Coincidence? I do not believe in coincidences.
That’s the power of a compelling vision.
Another example, remember the story of Jacob and his father in law Laban? His tricky father in law wanted to dupe him with the spotted sheep…you know the story. Jacob put spotted planks before them to look at every day, every time they ate. And what did they produce? The mind moves in the direction of our most dominant thoughts.
What is your compelling future for your business? If you can see it (in your mind) you can build it. You can build something outstanding.
# 4 of 5: KEEP LEARNING
We live in the fastest moving progression of human thought and development.
Imagine just 30 years ago we did not have digital phones, we had wind-up phones, then rotary phones, now we have digital phones. We even have wearable phones, foldable phones… what’s next? Communication implants, I hear!
We did not have virtual reality; robots were stuff seen in movies; 3D printing, AI what’s that? Imagine, in 2016 doctors identified a new type of organ in the human body!
One new development or innovation can make your business obsolete in one day. Ask the likes of Kodak, Blackberry, and even Nokia.
Your business needs to be what Peter Senge called a Learning Organisation. You have to build
a company whose culture facilitates the learning of its systems and people, and is continuously strategically transforming itself.
Learning has to be in your DNA as a business if that business is going to survive.
Don’t ever get caught on the other side of advancement; don’t ever get caught behind the curve. In a world were more kids are learning on tablets, you want to put your resources in an investment that funds making pencils? Give me a break! Keep learning, stay ahead of the curve.
How do you keep learning? You know your competition, know what they know. Attend trade shows. Read widely and invest in knowledge.
While you are learning, don’t be afraid of change or failure. Also, experience is the best teacher. Be open to new [and even strange or uncomfortable] experiences. Mission to Mars? Where do I sign up? Let’s go there!
How committed are you to learning? Not sure? Okay, how committed are you to building a successful business?
# 5 of 5: CREATE AN EXPERIENCE
Still on the point that this generation is in no way like any of the preceding generations, you need to know that we live in the age of unprecedented DISTRACTION.
Everything Is Competing For Brain Space of YOUR CUSTOMER(S).
When you launch your business you will be competing for a share of that brain space. How can you get your subjects’ attention; how can you displace someone they are used to listening to, watching, reading etc.
Your emails won’t cut it (they get a gazillion emails and if the email server does not shoot yours to the junk bin, they will swipe left (
like in tinder) or keep scrolling.
Spam phone calls will only annoy them and they will associate your brand with something that is undesirable.
Facebook Ads will probably get their attention for some seconds but what will CAPTURE, keep them looking, reading and coming back for more them? One word: EXPERIENCE.
This generation is wired for experience, they are hungry for inclusion, empowerment, a chance at the driver’s seat…can you give them this, and more?
Look at where technology is going (it usually follows the development of culture) …wearable tech (watches, spectacles, heart monitors etc.), precision farming, 3D printers, customizable vehicles, Internet of Things etc. All of these are selling an experience to your customers. I have learnt and I am learning that for my business to get their attention I must disrupt the constant distraction.
Are you fired up and ready to go take your business to the next level? I hope so!
I hope these tips have made you think of your business passionately with a view to straightening up to fly right! Let’s go do it!
Finally, I want to state clearly that this is by no means a complete list of tips to launch a successful business. But I feel that these are a start. Especially for those of us who want to get out from under the thumb of THE BOSS and lean into our destiny. This is for those of us under internal pressure to start as soon as possible.
If you have any questions about this topic or any of the tips I have highlighted here, please drop me a message on
my website I love to hear from my readers.
