Month: July 2019

Entrepreneurial Mindset 101

Their will be many times in which you will want to quit and you will not want to invest any more capital to keep your company afloat. To give yourself the best chance of sticking it through, you must develop a positive mindset. Developing a positive mindset can be acquired by:

  • Listening to powerful gurus or motivational speakers
  • Listening to uplifting music or music that makes you happy
  • Read positive books or quotes
  • Hang around positive people and strong-minded people

Once your mind is conditioned to focus on the positive perspective on any situation, you will be able to get through the tough and negative times easier.

Me personally, I have had my share of negative moments and times I wanted to quit. However, because of my positive mindset, I was able to get through the tough time and start collecting a lot of returns on my investments.

I started out as a broke college student with a dead end job. I worked on week-ends because I was a full time college student majoring in computer engineering. I had to keep my company afloat on the little paycheck I was collecting every two weeks. However, because I hanged around positive … Read the rest


Assess the Impact of a Decision

While you may be inclined to rely on past scenarios to give you a slightly better handle on what to expect or what action to take, keep in mind that no two situations are the same. Because the circumstances and nuances of each case are different, do not let a previous decision be the template for all of your future actions. Instead, let it serve as a learning tool and take new, different decisions as you see fit.

While there is no clear-cut method, here are some steps that may help you narrow down your choices:

  • First, create a list of all possible outcomes.
  • Rank all the scenarios, from the best to the worst.
  • Figure out what actions will result in which outcomes

For each of these outcomes, think about all the other variables that are in play. Is there anything in particular that you can do that will reduce the likelihood of the bad or increase the good?

Also, do not forget to consider people’s emotions. If this decision will impact your employees as well, take the time to view the situations from their perspective. You do not want to take an action that although will benefit you, … Read the rest


Leadership Skill Development

Build Trust

In small business, good governance begins with being trustworthy ourselves and developing a business culture that embodies that trust in our relationships with others. This is accomplished through establishing work environments that build positive connections between people. Relationship building in business is an ongoing dynamic that everyone must be committed to and engage in.

Relationships are built on agreed codes of practice, agreed principles and standards of acceptable behavior. There must be a shared understanding of doing that which is right toward each other. When someone does something right, it must be rewarded. Likewise, when someone does something wrong, it must be addressed immediately.

The successful business owner or manager holds him or herself accountable by way of example in setting this ‘trust’ culture. They make sure that the people in the business are clear about its purpose and that everyone has clear objectives that are well understood by all. Everyone knows what part they play in achieving the business objectives. Where the benefits, accountabilities and responsibilities are shared within strong bonds of mutual trust and clearly defined roles and functions, high performance is the result.

Plan Effectively

Effective businesses have clearly understood planning mechanisms in place. A … Read the rest


Finding Business Insurance Agent

The first step towards getting the right business insurance is to find the right business insurance agent. A good business insurance agent will understand your business needs and will make sure you go in for the right kind of insurance that suits your business. Some small businesses make the mistake of hiring personal line agents who lack the experience as well as knowledge to get the appropriate insurance package. Make sure the insurance agent has the commercial experience and expertise, access to multiple insurance agencies making it possible to get the best coverage at the best price possible.

Tips to Find the Right Business Insurance Agent:

  • Ask acquaintances, friends and relatives in the same line of business to recommend an agent.
  • Ask your personal line agent to recommend a good business insurance agent.
  • Getting business associates to recommend a good agent.
  • Getting a list of business insurance agents from the yellow pages and meeting prospective agents and selecting the best agent of them all.
  • Doing a search on the Internet.
  • Get to view profiles of insurance agents operating in your area.
  • If your business operates in more than one state, make sure your insurance agent does too.
  • Check if there
Read the rest

Drafting A Good Business Plan

Competitive Analysis

This is necessary to study your competition and ensure that you offer better services or products than they do to capture the market when you commence operations. It will help devise a competitive edge to your products or services.

Determine the Services or Products That You Want To Sell

Extensive market research will give you a better idea of the demand for your product or service. You can design better products or services in such a way as to make your offer irresistible to the customers. Pricing of the services or products you sell also has to be calculated carefully, making sure you are not under-pricing.

Business Plan

The experts cannot emphasize enough the importance of drafting a business plan. A business plan is a valuable performance assessment tool. A good business plan will include a brief description of the business, its history, and a list of the owners or partners. It will describe the target goals and objectives, the services or products that you are offering, the demand for them, the target market, and the strategies to be adopted. It must include cash flow projections, as cash flow too has to be planned carefully. Many are the … Read the rest


Form The Culture Of Business Startup

Find Your Purpose

Start by thinking about what the vision for your business really is. You need to think about where you where you are headed and where you want to go. Having some direction early on with your business startup will give you, as well as your employees, something to work towards and aim for. The decisions and choices you make should directly support your vision and allow you to drive your company well into the future.

Along with your vision, you need to create the values that your business startup stands for. This is an important step as this will carve out the ideals of your brand and expectations of your employees. Your employees are just as much a reflection of your business as you are and having values that they can live up to can bring a strong reputation and recognition to your company.

Spread the Message

Once you have developed a vision strategy for your business startup, you need to be vocal about it. You can’t expect your team to catch on if they are unaware of its evolution. Spread the message and allow yourself to be transparent about its meaning to you. Allowing yourself to … Read the rest


Skills Needed As An Entrepreneur

Stay Focused

You have to be ready to give it all it takes, when success in the business is your priority, you will find yourself ready to tackle any kind of challenges along the way. After setting a goal, knowing how to “laser focus” on the very next step to get closer to the ultimate goal. There are so many distracting forces when trying to build a business that this skill is not easy to master.

Productivity

This is a sensitive topic, the fact is there is no one right way to be productive that works for everybody. Learn about your peak energy times, your routines, and the productivity tools that work for you in order to create your own plan for success.

Sales

Some entrepreneurs get stuck here, every entrepreneur is a sales person whether they want to be or not. They are either selling their ideas, products or services to customers, investors or employees. They work to be there when customers are ready to buy. Alternately, they know how to let go and move on when they are not. If you’re always nervous about selling, try enrolling in a sales workshop to learn this much needed skill.

The

Read the rest

Businesses In Difficulty

The Solution

The way to cure a patient is by diagnosing the disease and subsequently treating by the right medication. Treat your company like a patient.

Run Through

Have a close look at your business. Have you been avoiding it? Are all the key decisions left upon managers? Do you know each and every minutest detail related to the function, if no, then the reason behind such difficult position can be attributed to the lack of apt management and close monitoring.

In fact the first guide to drive your business out of difficult times is to know the root cause of such positioning which can be clearly assimilated only by engulfing every detail about your enterprise.

Now that you are aware of the details of the hour, plan a course of action to deal with it. Two simultaneous plans, one in long run to deal with the key issue and one in the short run to improve cash flow, run parallel.

Long Term Course

The root cause has been deciphered, the key term here is root cause (do not focus on the upfront issues rather dig for more crucial factors back stage), now sit back and make a strategy to … Read the rest


Social Entrepreneurship

Finding a viable business project, which will be both sustaining and profitable, is inherently difficult. Coming up with the most suitable business that not only turns a profit but also assists a wider community, without negatively impacting on environmental and social issues are what lead to failure. It is pointless taking a failed business and trying to turn it into a success. What is needed is a new idea with new, sustainable markets, that will take people out of poverty and engage them in keeping up the program for the long term.

Get a big idea that is not local consumer based. Focus on setting up a product or service which has a more powerful end-user, such as government or industry. By creating a problem solver for business, such as software which calculates dirty factory emissions, the business not only helps the company and workers but also gets cleaner air to the surrounding population.

Harness market forces for social enterprise. Create a positive knock-on effect in society.

It is not a difficult proposition when you head straight to the government to find out what their social needs are. Often there are social problems such as alcohol or substance abuse. Investing … Read the rest


Measure Business Success

Profit Margins

How are your profit margins compared to the rest of your industry? Do you know where your business stands when comparing it to complementary businesses? This is an important thing to know so that you can work on being even more successful.

Customer Satisfaction

Send out a survey to your customers occasionally to find out how they are doing. One way to do this is through your follow-up autoresponder messages. Make it a habit to send out surveys to them on a scheduled basis so that you can regularly know how your customers feel.

Your Personal Satisfaction

It might seem strange, but business success is not only defined in the numbers but also in your own personal satisfaction. Check in with yourself to make sure you’re enjoying your life and feel good about what you’re doing. No amount of money can make up for feeling unsatisfied personally.

Your Competition’s Success

Where do you stand in comparison to your competition? Not just on income, but in all factors? Keeping tabs on your competition is a great way to not only inspire yourself to do better but also to know where you stand as a business within your direct industry.… Read the rest