Tag Archives: entrepreneur

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What makes a good entrepreneur? – Advantage

I often have to look at new businesses and see if it is ready to move to the next step, sometimes this is investment, sometimes it is getting the first customer and other times it may be ready to have a mentor. For each of these the critical element is “Is the entrepreneur making the most of their advantage?”

This advantage is diverse but it is important that as an entrepreneur you look inside and see what are your strengths and how can you maximise these in the world we live in. These strengths can always be developed with new skills and abilities. The next evaluation is the team you have in you business and what are their strengths. Then you should start looking at the business, its brand, its products, its location and the processes that you have developed. This provides a very powerful advantage that your business can project into the market to develop loyalty, awareness and revenue. This advantage is very important to understand and evaluate to ensure they are real.

This internal search for the core assets of your business, is the most important aspect of creating a deliverable vision based on your strengths, and not on your competitors. Many entrepreneurs see the world in a different way and therefore create new products, services and experiences which no other person have ever thought of. This need to generate a new solution drives their creativity to develop a new alternative future for man kind, they have vision.

If you want to see examples of this, then watch “Drangon’s Den” where the investors will only invest in businesses they understand how they can add value, how they can use their advantage to their strength. It’s not about the money, it all about their core strengths when choosing to invest. If we take a look at “The Apprentice” we see the challenges playing to the hosts advantage, when they were developing their business they had core advantage, like selling on products for a profile. Successful people understand their strengths and how much they are worth and how they can get the most out of what they have. So ask yourself this important question.

We don’t have all the resources in the work when we are developing our business and therefore resourcing is always an issue. However once you know what you are good at, the rest by definition must require some extra resources. This is always a major issue for young and inexperienced entrepreneurs as managing other people is normally out side their mind or skill set. Handling diverse people within a business is an issue as creative people are motivate in a different way to sales people. The one advantage you will always have is you are an entrepreneur who started the business, you have the drive, vision and strength to lead those in your business. This is your advantage, use it.

Blog, Inclusive Entrepreneurship

Be faster at creating change than any other business!

In the news today Nokia and Mircosoft are teaming up. This is good news for both of these companies as they may now each do what they both do best. One will make hardware which receives radio signals, which a person can use to communicate. The other will make an operating system which everyone can use. Surely a great day for the consumer!

I can remember using my first mobile phone, it was a Motorola and you needed a motor vehicle to transport it. It was a carphone, you could even buy it in a special warehouse. Motorola really did dominate the first generation of mobile phones.

Then we moved to the second generation (GSM) and the Illinois based company just could not believe what was happening, even when their European executives told them. As with a lot of businesses they did not innovate fast enough, they did not see where the market was going and they just lost touch with their potential customers. They expected business as usual.

Nokia took the billion dollar market, they had better phones in terms of functionality and also in terms of diversity of style. The mobile phone became a consumer item, sold in supermarkets and everyone had a cupboard full of them at home.

Then we did the 3G thing, which cost a lot of money(loans). Whenever this happens companies become risk adverse and they try and control the business models, partners and also the consumer. The greedy operators were taxing everyone 50%, applications, SMS and event the payment solution. The cosy manufacturer-operator-regulator friendship was working. Yes, the regulators all want to keep the status as it keeps them in a job.

Then Apple and Google, who are always looking at markets in a fresh way thought this has to stop. The internet has largely been free from regulations, so devised a plan to attack.  Providing us the consumer with better handsets, services and business models.

As a business owner-entrepreneur you must understand that everything everyday changes. You have to both believe in the change and want the change. Be the master of change and feed from it. Just because you are doing well today, providing a great product, there is out there, somewhere in cyber space, someone looking at your business wanting part of the action.

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Selling with passion leads to success

When we look at the motives for starting a business, one which stands out as the most durable is passion. The entrepreneur has a hobby, they wanted to make a difference or they have a great emotion for a subject that makes them want to start and develop a business around it.

This passion was their motive for starting and developed into their motivation to make this venture succeed. These are amazing businesses which develop around a person and lead to great entrepreneurial lifestyles that ensure their passion is maintained, developed and built upon. A self sustaining motivation leads to business success.

This success is also due to customers liking the entrepreneur and their passion for the product. They sell with their passion on their sleeve and for all to see. It’s a very simple yet powerful sales technique which only a few entrepreneurs can carry off, but it pays in pure dividends which I recommend, if you can, duplicate.

No one can take away your passion, only you, so it is a very powerful force in driving you to success and others to face the fact they believe in you. This self belief is the key to any sale, people buy from people and as you are the top of your game, you are in the right place at the right time. So when buying a product they look for people they like, they want to do business with, or people who make them feel good. Your passion does this, so make it your sales mantra which drives your success in sales.

People with passion for their product also say no, when customers ask for changes which they don’t like, increasing the desire for the product. People with passion have a vision they want the product to go in and therefore a vision which the client can buy into. Passionate people make the best sales people.

Start selling with passion and create your success in sales today.