Category Archives: Blog

Blog

Remember your motive for starting a business

In a recent survey, 37% of start-ups stated their motive for starting a business was independence. The second and third motives were money and a new challenge.

It is so hard to maintain sight of this motive when you are working in your business on a daily basis. You forget the big picture, the grand plans and the gallant cause which means you lose your core asset, motivation. So the key to maintaining your motivation during the early years of business is to remember your motive for starting a business and ensure this is still relevant today as it was when you started.

To achieve this, I recommend you take a day out to work ‘on’ your business and not ‘in’ it. During this day you should a) revisit your motive(s), b) look at the business from an investors point of view and c) evaluate the plan.

Your motives for starting your business will never change, but your motivation for continuing will. So you must periodically look at the current motivation and ensure you and it are happy partners. If not, then look at other motivations. This motivation will then lead to how you develop the business, what customers, investors and suppliers you use.

As a business owner you have a lot of emotional attachment to the business, the products and everyone associated with the business. It is therefore very hard to look at it from a cold hard investor’s point of view. You are an investor in this business, providing time, energy, money and good will. So step back and look at the business from a third party view and see if this is a business you would invest in, if it was not yours? Ask your mentor to help you in this process, if you need help. Write down the changes you would want for you to invest.

This should allow you to develop a plan, based on your motives, your motivation for continuing, an evaluation of the business and you investing more into this business. While developing the plan, have an exit goal in mind. This is a point whereby you either completely leave the business or give one or more responsibilities to another person, allowing you more time to work on your business, not just in it.

Blog

Cool for Cats, Sales is for Entrepreneurs

As an engineering graduate, sales is ‘that stuff’ which other people do. When I became an entrepreneur the hard facts that everyone has to sell hit me, even though I had developed a product which was sold and downloaded on-line, how come?

We built a successful business with 160 customers in 60 countries without even employing a single sales person. Our company moto was ‘If you found a pump, pump it’ which meant if you saw a task which needed doing then you owned it. As a young dynamic entrepreneurial business everyone wanted to find as many pumps as they could, for experience, to ensure they were a key part of the business and also to ensure the business became a success. Our company of around 20 people continuously out preformed the sales of larger international players, how come?

Our products were downloadable mobile games. If we produced a press release over 500 websites would pick this up, if we had a new game, people would email to ask where they could get it, if we missed out supporting a handset people they would offer to test the game for us. Everyone thought we were cool (for cats). I even got mobbed on the Sun Java Stand at an exhibition, how cool is that (ok, I am a geek).

So did sales came easy?

No we had to learn fast, we had multiple levels of customers; operators, handset manufactures, newspapers, magazines, on-line portals, aggregators and end users. We had 60 countries to deal with in terms of: numerous currencies, customs and languages which all complicated the sales process.

The key, as with all sales, is turning an online product into a personal relationship which we could manage. This meant developing a complete sales cycle and customer experience solution which our customers could buy into and our competitors could only aspire too. We had to understand each client, their needs and requirements. We had to get out of our office and meet these people and make sure they liked us, our products and the complete experience we provided. The end result being they wanted to continue to do business with us every single month: repeat business.  In short we had to become an international sales force, learning on the job, we had to sell.

So if I can do it, I’m sure you can.


Blog

Why you should be an Entrepreneur in 2011

Everyone needs to be enterprising, everyone should have the ability to look at the problems around them and think of amazing ways of making the situation into a opportunity, taking advantage of the situation. You must and have to do this for your benefit, for those around you and those you care about.

When we all think about enterprising people we think about entrepreneurs, famous people like Alan Sugar, Donald Trump and Richard Branson. These people started from nothing and built billion dollar empires spanning the globe. They command respect in their ability to think outside the box, make things around them happen, have a brilliant vision which we can buy into and all admire.

Entrepreneurs are motivated by many things, for some its financial wealth, having authority, providing social good, commanding a business empire or just being able to do what they love. However, this motive drives them to get up every day and make the world around them a better place, a place where we can coexist.

They are just like you, and you need to find what is your entrepreneurial motivation, why are you going to get up every morning and make that difference? How will this motivation be so strong that you will have the courage to keep your businesses moving forward while others would have updated their CV, looked on the internet job sites and asked their friends if they know of any vacancies.

Finding the real motivation is the main reason the majority of people don’t start a business, it’s the single largest reason why you should start a business.

No one in the UK has ever been put to death for having a business failure.

So why do you think you will be the first, why do you think having the experience of starting a business, finding new contacts, building professional relationships with people across the world and learning diverse skills from budgeting, marketing and people management will result in you being worst off?

Starting a business and becoming an entrepreneur will make you a better person

96% of businesses in the UK are small business, with less than 10 people, (99% have less than 50) so if you fail you can become a valued employee in another small business, having developed those skills which every SME business in the UK is looking for.

Having ‘started a business’ on your CV will be attractive to employers.

The experience you develop as an entrepreneur will help you develop your other business ideas, which you will be able to take further. This means when you are ready to start thinking about a new idea, based on hard knowledge, based on real industrial experience, based on the best education the world has to offer, real world experience. Just remember you can’t read about experience you have to do it.

So just do It!


Blog

Bootstrapping

It seems that most people expect others to finance their business. The fact being, that if you are not prepared to put your money in then why should others. Most people then give up on their ideas as they believe other don’t see the value in the business. This is not true.

The most important person who should believe in your business is a customer who is parting with their cash. This person is the top of the business value chain and is your champion, they are the customer and always always right. So find this person to help start your business.

You owe this person everything, because without them you have nothing. Even if you were able to get all the money in the world to start your business, yet had not a single paying customer then you still don’t have a business. I just have to say dot com.

Therefore, bootstrapping is the process of starting a business based on customers paying you for products and services. The profit from this sale (money) is put back into the business to fund the next round of customers. Each time you sell something you make a profit and the business builds it value. This is the way the majority of businesses start and grow. Therefore it should be a major part of your business plan, growth strategy and business launch.

When I tell people this they come back with:

So what if I need to buy some major equipment? Lease it and ensure the profit is still there based on the sales and cash flow.

So what if I need to have some offices? You can only afford offices once your cash flow provides the capacity to do so. So either hot desk or find a more cost effective solution.

So what if I need to hire 50 people and a large factory to make the product? You will have to outsource the production and pay for the completed products.

Bootstrapping allows you to own your business from the very start which means you will always be in the most powerful position when it comes to dealing with new shareholders, banks, suppliers, customers and staff.

Blog

Goals Goals Goals

At this time of year there are two types of businesses, those which are the middle of their best sales and distribution period and those winding down for the Christmas break.

Which one are you?

For those of you winding down, it’s the best time to start planning for the New Year. Don’t wait until you need to make a financial plan. It’s now the time to think about what you want to achieve next year. The best way is to split your goals into three, short, medium and long. What you define as short, medium and long in terms of time scale is up to you and depends on your business. However, what is important is you think about them, write them down and communicate them to everyone involved.

The Short term goals are there to motivate you, get you up in the mornings and also ensure the New Year goes off with an amazing quick fire win. So some of these goals should be achieved during the first few weeks of the year, maybe one should be to communicate the 2011 plan to staff, customers and suppliers, it maybe email all your customers to say thank you for their loyal custom in 2010, call your most valued customer and ask how you can do it better.

For the Medium term goals, we are looking at the hard work and this means customer acquisition, increased revenue per customer and reducing costs, i.e. making you business better, faster and more efficient so you can ensure your success in 2011. The target dates for these should be from June through to September.
Your Long term goals should be the great big airy audacious goals which will make sure your business stands out from the rest. These goals will not just make your business a good business but a fantastic one, a business which others in the market follow, a brilliant success. So take a long hard think about them. They (because there should be more than one) may take less than a year but the timing of these is not important, the fact you assign a date to every goal is.

Now you know your hat-trick of goals, it’s time to go and buy the Christmas presents now, knowing that 2011 is going to be your best ever.