Rules For Success? – What Can We Learn From These Successes?
The most important thing about these three projects is that those involved all had a clear set of the objectives they wished to achieve.
In the case of LCAS, it was about trying to get the bank’s costs under control and also to satisfy the Prices and Incomes Board, which had been setup by Harold Wilson’s government.
With Artemis, we’d seen how project management was going and how computers were getting smaller, so a personal system based on a computer in a desk was now feasible. We’d set the secondary objective of selling the company in perhaps three or four years and walking away with about a quarter of a million each.
Respimat to me started as a bit of a punt that I could afford, but gradually became a challenge that would give me a good return on my money.
So the first rule to me in being entrepreneurial is being clear in your objectives, both technical and personal.
In some ways the technical objectives are easier to define, as you wouldn’t be going into a project, where you didn’t have at least some grasp of the technology involved.
Often though, your personal objectives are much more important, as clashes in the partners in these can destroy the best of companies.
I shall deal with these first.
The Anonymous Widower 
I have run two successful businesses and there are a few key rules I have found necessay to be successful:
1. Offer a product or service that has unique selling points. To be the same as the others you can only compete on price and that is the worst position to be in, unless of course you have developed a much lower cost solution and low cost is your USP. One way to find USPs, is to look from the user’s point of view at what is currently available and ask yourself “what are the problems/shortcomings with what is available or the way it is implemented currently”. In a word “innovate”.
2. Know your market and your routes to it. You could be the best in the world at digging holes, but if you can’t get access to people who want holes dug, then you will be leaning on your shovel.
3. Get the best people available to work with you and look after them. Trust them, give them responsibility, give them a share in the success (bonuses, share options, healthcare, pensions, life assurance, etc.), and don’t forget praise when it is due – it comes at no cost and makes a huge difference to staff motivation.
4. Keep a close eye on orders/prospects to make sure that the order/prospect pool is maintained/growing and respond with marketing/sales activity as necessary.
5. Manage the cash to ensure that there is always access to enough. More good businesses fail through lack of cash than for any other reason.
6. Have a plan for business growth. Not just a set of numbers plucked from the sky as most companies seem to have, but a real in depth spreadsheet showing sales volumes, revenue, costs, cash flow, staff numbers, and a calculated profit/loss for the next 5 years. Have data entry fields to allow input data to be modified (e.g. sales volumes) with all other fields calculated. Such spreadsheets are a real eye-opener.
6. Put in good processes, document them well, and train the staff in using them. Explain the need for good processes and ensure they are implemented.
7. Look after the customers. Happy customers are worth a mountain of marketing. Give them 101% of the service they expect and you can’t go wrong
8. Most important of all, even though I put it last, enjoy what you are doing or go and get a conventional job. With running a company, the highs are higher and the lows are lower, but the balance should be well on the upside.
Comment by John | March 11, 2011 |
[…] Previous Next 52.245212 […]
Pingback by Rules For Success? – Respimat « The Anonymous Widower | March 11, 2011 |
[…] Previous Next 52.245212 […]
Pingback by Rules For Success? – Personal Objectives – The F-Words « The Anonymous Widower | March 11, 2011 |