This site uses cookies to improve your experience. To help us insure we adhere to various privacy regulations, please select your country/region of residence. If you do not select a country, we will assume you are from the United States. Select your Cookie Settings or view our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.
Cookie Settings
Cookies and similar technologies are used on this website for proper function of the website, for tracking performance analytics and for marketing purposes. We and some of our third-party providers may use cookie data for various purposes. Please review the cookie settings below and choose your preference.
Used for the proper function of the website
Used for monitoring website traffic and interactions
Cookie Settings
Cookies and similar technologies are used on this website for proper function of the website, for tracking performance analytics and for marketing purposes. We and some of our third-party providers may use cookie data for various purposes. Please review the cookie settings below and choose your preference.
Strictly Necessary: Used for the proper function of the website
Performance/Analytics: Used for monitoring website traffic and interactions
Your success must be based upon data that is solid and sometimes flexible enough to pass several critical tests if it is to guide a business enterprise to greatness. Here in brief are ten tests for your business success. Try these on for size, and test yourself for attractiveness to the marketplace, to investors and to history. Ten tests for your business success: Is your market identifiable and accessible?
For decades, efforts to satisfy customers have been built around demographics – capitalizing on race, ethnicity, gender, income, and other attributes. Today, in this age of pervasive social media and two-way communication, the focus needs to get beyond demographics into personalities. Customer personalities define customer experience, and sets what they love, and what they hate.
Office leases are one of companies’ largest expenses, and if your whole team is working from home with no clear end in sight, you may be wondering what to do about your lease.
I have a good business friend, an experienced manager and teacher with a Harvard MBA, whose creativity and intelligence are admired by many. But he dilutes his effectiveness with wordy PowerPoint presentations. It has become a long running joke between us, as I often remind him that most of us have a very limited attention span and ability to recall important points from a presentation.
It’s time to speak of some sort of business plan. As a professional investor in early-stage companies, I have long discounted long, detailed business plans in favor of a concise “executive summary” followed by a believable spreadsheet-based financial forecast projecting three to five years into the future. Yes, everything does change between drafting that plan and its successful execution.
We’ve spent several weeks discussing your vision for success, and whether you could be the next Ford, Jobs or Musk. Now it’s time to make this more tangible, more real – by attaching personal goals to this vision we’ve created together. Reminder: What is your vision? So, your vision tells the world what you want to be as you contemplate how you will change the world for the better.
Sign up to get articles personalized to your interests!
Southern California Tech Central brings together the best content for technical professionals in Southern California from the widest variety of industry thought leaders.
We’ve spent several weeks discussing your vision for success, and whether you could be the next Ford, Jobs or Musk. Now it’s time to make this more tangible, more real – by attaching personal goals to this vision we’ve created together. Reminder: What is your vision? So, your vision tells the world what you want to be as you contemplate how you will change the world for the better.
Well, it’s a fair question. Note that none of these three famous innovators were inventors like Thomas Edison, but visionaries who see a new marketplace or niche or how to reach the mass market in ways not previously attempted. Innovation does not always equal invention. Leaders and companies that innovate new products, services and methods of delivery are the ones that stand out in a crowded business world, especially when attempting to gain recognition among the throngs of competitors visible
In the world of entrepreneurs and startups, high level relationships are everything. You can’t start a business alone. You need partners, team members, investors, vendors, and customers. But people don’t realize that all relationships are not the same. There are people you only recognize on the street, business friends, and then close friends whom you can always count on to help.
Isn’t it amazing that some people you know always seem to be working hard, but never seem to get anything done? As an entrepreneur, you need to avoid partnering with these people, or hiring them into your startup. The challenge is to find people who get things done, as well as work hard. LinkedIn profiles and resumes still focus too much on responsibilities rather than results.
One of the biggest impediments to starting a new venture is the “ terror barrier ,” as popularized by Bob Proctor, a 85-year-old millionaire and world renowned entrepreneur. This is the imaginary barrier that always seems to appear at the critical point where we would step out ahead of peers or competitors, but fear causes us to stop short. Everyone has a comfort zone, or level of risk, where they feel in control.
The cost of entry to the entrepreneur lifestyle is at an all-time low, but the challenge of winning and success is at an all-time high. Anyone can build a new web site, or publish a smartphone app for a few thousand dollars, but getting market penetration requires a lot more. Customers have come to expect disruptive change, so yet another social network is not the way to get traction.
Commonly, I find that business owners and entrepreneurs look first at solutions which solve painful problems, or have high profit margins, regardless of their own commitment to a higher purpose, such as saving the environment or helping the underserved. For your own happiness and satisfaction, I recommend you start instead working from that higher purpose and passion.
A common initiative I hear from business owners today is their effort to improve the customer experience. Some are doing this at the expense of employee experience , which I believe is one of the major causes of employee dissatisfaction and exit of good employees today. To achieve real growth, business leaders need to improve both employee as well as customer experiences.
I realized a while back that creating a new company for the first time is a lot like whipping up a great dinner entree for the first time – you need a recipe, even though it may look simple. You know the basic ingredients, and you can visualize the results you want. Yet you may not be so sure where to start, and how to put it all together. In all cases, don’t skip the basic training.
Since the recent pandemic, I find that business leaders are fighting to retain and attract new talent to recover from necessary attrition losses and team members quitting due to personal priorities. In the wake of recent struggles , the people you need and want are looking for a new human focus from their leaders and managers in today’s chaotic and competitive labor market.
Based on my work as a business consultant, I find a growing challenge in getting employees to complete their commitments on time, or even finish a task before moving on to new work. After digging deeper, I find that most of these cases are not intentional , and the guilty may not even be aware of bad habits which are hurting their image and antagonizing management and customers.
Many business owners and professionals I know claim they are too busy in their jobs and not interested in taking part in any networking events. They don’t realize that success in business and their career is dependent on the right relationships as well as hard work. In addition, relationships found through networking can make your life a lot more satisfying as well as more productive.
Entrepreneurs seem more quickly frustrated these days when their “million-dollar idea” doesn’t turn into a sustainable business overnight. They don’t realize that it takes many skills to build a business under the best of circumstances, and today’s world of instant gratification doesn’t leave room for the patience and practice to develop these skills.
Willingness to take a risk is the hallmark of a serious entrepreneur. That’s why one of the first questions that potential investors ask is “How much of your own money, and friends and family, have you put into the new business?” If you won’t risk yours, you won’t get investors to risk theirs. A few years ago I was impressed with the classic book “ When Turtles Fly ” by Nikki Stone, an Olympic champion, which explains this well.
If you aren’t willing to take some risk as an entrepreneur, then don’t expect any gain. Yet everyone has limits, and every investor implicitly has similar limits on what makes a startup investable, or one to avoid at all costs. If you need investors, it’s important that you understand their filters, and even if you are funding your own efforts, you need to recognize the red flags.
Maybe it’s just me, but I sometimes feel that accountability is a rare talent in business today. In big businesses, people are quick to defer with “that’s not my department,” and even startup founders too often blame failures on the economy or the lack of investors. As an investor and advisor to entrepreneurs, I see accountability, or lack of it, as an override to even the best idea.
Traditional marketing says you have to “push” your message out to customers, over and over again, to get you remembered. A more effective approach in today’s Internet and interactive culture is to use “pull” technology to bring customers and clients to your story. You influence people in by providing new content with real value on your website at least every few days.
One of the reasons that now is the time to be an entrepreneur is the explosion of startup assistance organizations, usually called incubators or accelerators. According to the International Business Innovation Association ( InBIA ), there are over 2,000 of these locations worldwide, and new online versions springing up all over the place, like Founders Space in Silicon Valley.
Investors invest in people, not ideas. Customers buy from people, not companies. Employees rally for a great leader, not a brand. As an entrepreneur, you need relationships to succeed. That means relationships with team members, investors, customers, and vendors. One of the best ways to build a good relationship with anyone is to make them feel important.
A common question I get is “How do I get a bank loan to fund my startup?” The default answer is that it probably won’t happen, because most banks just don’t make bank loans to startups. The failure rate is just too high, and startups typically don’t have the assets or revenue stream to back up the loan. That’s why angel and equity investors are so sought after by entrepreneurs.
Every entrepreneur has an idea for transforming a market with innovative new technology, or transforming society with a new process. But unfortunately, most of these ideas fail at the execution level, or are not truly innovative. Entrepreneurs who have been really transformative, like Steve Jobs and Walt Disney, seemed to know how to deal with all the right elements.
The pervasiveness of social networking and the Internet has caused a new focus and value on “openness,” which leads to a new element of leadership, called “open leadership.” The mantra of open leadership is “Be Open, Be Transparent, and Be Authentic.” This is counter to the traditional business premise of “control,” so many companies are still pushing back.
We organize all of the trending information in your field so you don't have to. Join 5,000+ users and stay up to date on the latest articles your peers are reading.
You know about us, now we want to get to know you!
Let's personalize your content
Let's get even more personalized
We recognize your account from another site in our network, please click 'Send Email' below to continue with verifying your account and setting a password.
Let's personalize your content