Dear reader, in this article we are going to discuss about business. Our aim will be to shed light on what you as a business (or potential business) person can do to ensure that your business thrives successfully for years or generations to come. Setting up a business is one thing; having a successful business is another. Hence, to ensure lasting success in any business venture you must adhere to some rules or guidelines just as an aeronautical engineer must adhere to certain principles in the design of an aircraft.
An Entrepreneur is one who organizes, manages, and assumes the risks of a business or enterprise. Though business can take the following forms: individual proprietorships, partnerships, or limited-liability companies (or corporations), our concern would be the first, individual proprietorship or entrepreneurship – where a single person holds the entire operation as his personal property, usually managing it on a day-to-day basis and may decide to work with a few employed hands as well.
Most businesses are of this type.
Most businesses are of this type.
To have a working definition, we define Business as any organisation formed or venture undertaken for the purpose of carrying on commercial enterprise.[1] Hence no matter the size, organisation or scale any activity engaged in and which is based on systems of law governing contract and exchange, property rights and incorporation is Business, as it is a purposeful activity.
Business Success on the other hand is not how much money you control. Success implies consistency, sustenance and continuity. Success results from taking purposeful steps in business which guarantees its continuous viability as it cannot be said to be static – i.e. success.
In today’s economies the driving force has been recognised to be Small Businesses or Small and Medium Scale Enterprises (SME’s) set up by entrepreneurs. The quality of entrepreneurship is seen by many economists as an important explanation of differences in the rate of technical progress between countries.[2] In other words the differences in growth rates between countries and between different periods in any one country can be traced largely to the quality of entrepreneurship – thereby underscoring the importance of entrepreneurship. To build a lasting business legacy and to compete successfully in today's business world, it is important to ensure that you do the following:
Gather as much experience as your can
The place of experience in life cannot be traded for anything else. Experience may be said to be the conscious events that make up an individual life. Thus working for some other persons or for a firm is part of a conscious event. When you work for others your gain practical knowledge, try out the knowledge acquired in school for instance, and develop your skill(s). This is not to say one cannot set up a business without working however. But its best to learn not from ones experiences at all times, but from others’ as you identify areas where you can make adjustments thereby avoiding avoidable pitfalls. You also build skills in the area of human relations as it were.
What’s more, when you are exposed to different work realities you develop the ability to function even when under varying stress levels – which prepares you for what you would face as a business owner. Please not that we are not in any way saying that there is no place for one trying out new things and flopping
– thus having some form of experience which lessons serves as a challenge to be surmounted by putting new strategies in place. After all the Wright brothers undertook a project never before attempted and we owe them many thanks for helping make man’s dream to fly a reality. A final word on experience, see the period of working for others as a period of apprenticeship when you get to learn more.
– thus having some form of experience which lessons serves as a challenge to be surmounted by putting new strategies in place. After all the Wright brothers undertook a project never before attempted and we owe them many thanks for helping make man’s dream to fly a reality. A final word on experience, see the period of working for others as a period of apprenticeship when you get to learn more.
Go for the object of passion
By passion we begin to imagine compulsion. Passion can be described as that deep stirring emotion within an individual – one that is ungovernable as it were. Successful and Lasting Businesses are fuelled by passion. What are you good at or what drives or compels you to do what you do? I guess you have been asked those questions on so many occasions. But it’s an n important one at that. You do not have to dive headlong into a particular line of business because others are delving into it and appear to be striking it rich “overnight”. Your business as an entrepreneur must be one you fall in love with over and over again, for better or for worse. Take for instance, many people have caught the blogging bug and a lazy to do the work it involves. They set up blogs, monetise them with Ad sense et al and forget the aspect of driving traffic to them and updating them with useful and informative content. In the end they end up contributing to populating cyber space with dead blogs or sites.
The above also applies to other forms of businesses. Your focus must not be on money first. It is true every business is out for profit; but the right approach is to focus on delivering quality products and services and then sit back and watch your rewards roll in. do you have a good sense of humour and not stage shy? Then you would do better if you decide to go into comedy – although you would have to get sponsors to as the case may be. Are you a people’s person, enjoy serving others and putting smiles on their faces and enjoy cooking? Then one of your business options should be setting up a restaurant or fast food place.
The above ideas might not include what you have in mind. But the important message is: never engage in short term thinking or in a “get rich quick manner”. Discover what you love, carve your niche and give yourself to dedication and embracing innovation and creativity all the way so as to build something different from all you find out there. Those who lead the pack are those who do same things differently.
Mentorship matters
Mentorship can be likened to tutelage. A mentor is a trusted counsellor or guide, one you can look up to for guidance always. Mentorship could be direct, having the opportunity of interacting one on one with another person more experienced in your field of interest, or it can be indirect, which in this case does not require direct contact. This is achievable via reading books which contains the thought and wealth of experience of such individual(s).
One of the greatest decisions you can make as an entrepreneur in business is to find or have a mentor – one who is more experienced in the exact field you are interested in exploring or already engaged in. Having a mentor also gives you the opportunity of discovering or identifying where mistakes have been made in the past by such individuals in the past and to see how you can avoid them or improve on what they have already done. The experiences got from mentorship are akin to what we discussed under our first point: gathering or learning from others’ experience(s). Your choice of a mentor must be an individual must be successful and one that has earned your respect
We said above that mentorship can be indirect. This is where books, online articles and those in magazines etc written by great minds come into the picture. A great thinker once described reading books as standing on the shoulders of sages as your mind becomes broadened and you get better understanding of things that have been confounding you in the past. And you know what? It’s absolutely true! Reading not any book but good books makes you become more enlightened. This is why those who have a phobia for reading do themselves more harm than good. When you discover or decide on who you can see as mentor, read books or watch videos well packaged by them, you would fare better as you are exposed to sound advice or info on how to avoid unnecessary mistakes, how to strategise in such a way as to position your business better, how to relate to partners and clients etc. the gains of embracing mentorship will indeed put you in the position of climbing your ladder of success faster and piloting your business better as it grows or expand.
Do not take breaks lightly
Entrepreneurship is not as easy as some may think. It is indeed demanding. In the face of competition an entrepreneur is bound to continually explore and research new methods of providing services to thrive. You will always be faced with the decisions as to whether a new product or process or productive strategy will be introduced along the line. To do this you may find that you would naturally want to accomplish so much in a short time frame, especially if you are a newbie; and the consequence being burnouts and loss of motivation as it were.
As an entrepreneur you must be aware of the negative effects of stress – even though some forms of stress could be helpful when it comes to some aspects of business and other jobs. Stress impedes on your ability to plan properly which in turn affects the health of your business. This is because the failure of planning properly or at all is the beginning of failing. It’s not new to find entrepreneurs who sacrifice time, put in all their skill energy and productivity, starve their families of their much needed presence at home but never find out when stress sets in, until their will to continue emotionally etc is drained. The consequence becomes the business packing up in the end.
The prevention of burnouts is the reason you ought to know when to get a break – to separate yourself from the business as it were. It could be a retreat of some sorts allowing you to be both emotionally and socially detached from the business. Such a period of retreat or separation gives you the time to reflect on areas that are sources of confusion or challenge in the business. In the end you will discover that such periods of time outs, which can be for a number of days, maybe, is when you birth new ideas or discover new solutions to challenges. Hence always adopt this rule of withdrawal as it helps you recover mind and body wise from stress.
Create a “mind dictionary” devoid of procrastination
Procrastination, it is said, is the thief of time. It is simply the act or habit of putting off something intentionally. Never put off intentionally the doing of something that should be done today or immediately as it could prove costly in the end as it becomes late. A little sleep or slumber when you should be on your toes implementing much needed and business life saving plans and things will go wrong. Some times entrepreneurs analyse situations or events, plan but never take any immediate action on such sometimes invaluable plans. This habit or attitude will not guarantee your building lasting and successful business.
Whatever your business is, whatever your ideas and plans are, you will do well to match your plans with timely or immediate action. Your business will be better consolidated when you develop the culture of taking immediate actions as and when due, as it profits your business.
Effective finance management
Management has variously been defined to include the management of resources – men, materials and finance. Thus it (management) implies the judicious use of means to accomplish an end. Financial management is a very important aspect of running a business for every entrepreneur no matter the size of business. Any entrepreneur who lacks good financial or risk management is in for big time trouble. Making money has never been a problem for lots of business people out there in society but effective management. Financial management means taking steps to sustain the growth and not the depletion of your financial muscle, if I may use that word.
To make money as an entrepreneur you must know how to manage the one at your disposal; and as such, you need financial tools to enable you do so effectively and efficiently. These tools include: financial statements, profit and loss statements, and cash-flow statements. These tools helps you, the entrepreneur, to better analyse the health of your business and to plan and exercise good control on the direction it is heading – I bet you wont opt for the downside when it comes to the direction you want it to head.
Again ensure that transactions are done via banks – I make this point because most business owners still conduct businesses using cash, no matter the amount, in the part of the world I live in. if you do accept large cash in the course of doing business, ensure you take it to the bank before or at the end of office hours (you can make special arrangement with your banker with regard to this so they can attend to you even when its exceeded normal banking hours. Again, never mix personal funds with that of business. Avoid buying things which are not needed or unnecessary. As a good entrepreneur do not take your business fund (capital plus surplus) as your personal money. Pay yourself like your employees if you have. Let it be as a discipline. Never help yourself to the finances of the business as you are bound for the rocks in no time if you do. I believe lessons from the Madoff saga are enough illustration – where he used public investment to satisfy personal needs.
Update your knowledge and skill
Updating your skill and knowledge is important in any activity you want to participate in. I listened with rapt attention to the news when I heard one of the founders of Google was to take over as CEO after going back to get more knowledge in school. The need for that was not to get certified alone as it was to give him added edge to steer the business in the right direction. Knowledge is got via education – formal or informal. Education does not serve as just a process of transmitting the values and accumulated knowledge of a society. It also serves as a means of sharing new ideas developed or discovered through research, hence the need for continuous education.
As an entrepreneur or prospective one there is the need for you to go for knowledge with respect to your area of interest as it helps you to work with freshly got ideas, skills and knowledge that work. Many businesses die off because their owners fail to embrace changes with respect to a dynamic world. When you do not accept change you are left behind in the business world. Updating your knowledge and skills also better gives you an edge in being innovative and creative as you get armed with better ideas as opposed to obsolete ones. Updated knowledge and skills gives you an edge over competitors who do not access new knowledge. This is because you discover new areas where you can innovate and apply creativity to create something new which in turn will add to the sustainability of your business
To be abreast with current happenings you would do well to read good books and attending seminars, webinars and workshops. Workshops et’ al exposes you to the teachings and experiences of professionals and experts in your chosen field. If you are one, you gain too from other like minds as such platforms are avenues where you rub minds and exchange ideas. You also get exposed to areas where you can engage in applied research – which is where reading comes in handy too as you begin researching deliberately to exploit ways of meeting particular business needs.
Reading not only exercises your mind but broadens your mind, gives you access to the solutions to problems which solutions have been found by other entrepreneurs or business people, past and present. When you read you also find motivation from the life’s stories of the authors, who themselves are now successful and famous in what they do as business people, and what kept them going even when the odds were or are against them.
Conclusion
Having explored what entrepreneurship is all about; we now recap the points of our discussion. Because entrepreneurship has become a key determinant of economic growth the place of entrepreneurship cannot be over emphasised. Hence to be part of this engine room for growth and to leave a lasting legacy behind – a healthy and successful business – you ought to apply rules or principles that would guarantee its fruition, just as a plane must be designed in such a way as to beat the laws of gravity if it is ever going to leave the runway.
We identified seven (7) important rules, though not exhaustive, which you should apply to build a lasting and successful business; and they include: getting as much experience as you can; going for your object of passion; getting a mentor if you don’t already have one, taking a break from the business, deleting procrastination from your modus operandi, updating your knowledge and skill and putting in place a good finance management system in place.
As a refresher, firstly we highlighted the importance of working for others and in different work environments as it helps you build experience and to sharpen your skill. Secondly we discussed the need to opt for what you have passion for to be the foundation for your business. This is because to excel you must love what you do; not working like some zombie that is emotionally detached from your business. Thirdly, we also stressed the need to get your self a mentor – a direct or indirectly via reading books or other packaged materials –; one that can guide you as you navigate the routes of your field of interest as an entrepreneur. Such an individual must be successful and one that has earned your respect as it were. Again we looked at the essence of taking breaks or time outs periodically to ease off stress and to re-strategise so as to maintain a healthy business. We also highlighted the need to avoid all tendencies to procrastinate with regard to taking immediate business related decisions. Further still we looked at the need to have a good financial discipline. Finally we discussed the need for updating your knowledge base and skill if you must match today's dynamics in the business world.
Having recapped our points of discussion it’s apt to say at this point that we believe that as an entrepreneur or a budding one it’s apparent that the above key points we have discussed in this article is what you need to build lasting and successful business. Apply the above rules and see the difference.
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