Newbiz: Business Tips for the New Year
Wed Dec 25, 9:29 AM
URL: story.news.yahoo.com
By Samuel Fromartz
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - With the quiet holiday week upon us, this is a good opportunity to think about the year ahead.
So here are a few tips about business, culled from interviews with business owners over the years.
1. Dream and create. Set your sights on a distant goal and go for it. Don't let all the naysayers, your own internal doubts, or the "economy" scare you from trying what you believe in.
Unless you set a point in the distance, you will be following a proscribed course laid down by someone else. Stick with it until you've given it a fair shot, or stumbled onto something better.
2. Break it down. If you set some looming goal in the distance, it may seem impossible, like climbing Mount Everest (news - web sites). But consider what goes into any major task -- a plan that breaks down the project down into its constituent parts.
Work on the parts, check off each milestone, refine the plan as you go, and eventually you will come to completion.
3. Seek partners. Business owners often suffer from isolation, but the best are adept at getting help, building teams and networking.
They treat their accountants, lawyers, suppliers, customers and employees as partners, so that everyone contributes to success.
The precondition, of course, is to listen to what they have to say.
4. Bootstrap. People starting out on their own often lack capital, but many successful businesses were started by entrepreneurs working at other jobs or with very little money.
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This approach, called bootstrapping, gives you discipline. It also forces you to act, because you have no choice. You have to make money rather than just spend it.
5. Eye the cash. Cash flow -- cash revenues minus cash expenses -- are the lifeblood of any business. Measure it to see how you're doing.
If your costs consistently out-pace your revenues, you will rack up huge debts and won't be in business very long. Make sure that even if you are accumulating losses, you are moving in the right direction.
6. Don't be afraid of the unknown. There is an endless amount to worry about in business. If you face a problem -- a customer won't pay, a supplier won't deliver -- solve it. If you can't solve it, take your lumps and figure out how to avoid it the next time around.
Don't spend a lot of energy worrying about what "might" happen; deal with those things you can control and make them work.
7. Stumble but don't fall. Success is made up of accumulated failures, even those little mistakes that force you to refine the way you do things.
The idea here is to be conscious of what it is you're doing. When something doesn't work out as you hoped, look at the lesson, and try not to get stuck in a cycle of blame.
8. Adapt. Be willing to take radical turns when things don't work out according to expectations. When a side business, like an ancillary product, turns out to be a bigger winner than your main product, run with it. Don't fall in love with your original idea.
9. Go with your gut. Often you will be faced with a situation where it isn't clear what decision to make. In these instances, entrepreneurs often say they follow their instincts -- they make an educated guess.
The most important thing, after all, is to make a decision and move forward. You must act, because you make it happen, no one else.
(Samuel Fromartz writes about entrepreneurs and emerging companies from Washington, D.C., and welcomes stories about young companies. He can be reached at fromartz.com. Any opinions here are his own. Edited by Maureen Bavdek) |
