Lean Startups and Bartering Relationships (Part 3)

C) Build A Business That Will Offer Value

You cannot get rich, unless you offer people something of value.

People are attracted to things that they value, thus, they will treat it as valuable. 

How will your business benefit another?

Conduct two measurements before you embark on your business: Do a SWOT analysis, and a Cost-to-Benefit (CBA) analysis. These will give you a fair indication of what to prepare for. 

If you are investing into a business, avoid parasitic processes where you have to 'work' for somebody else's pot of gold. If you do, ensure you are higher up in the process. You can build your team, but ascertain that those you 'lead' will benefit just as much in their near-future. Avoid annoyingly-obligatory sales processes, i.e. selling to friends and family, and the  familiar. 

If it is a skills-based business, ascertain your skills, experience and wisdom. Identify your Unique Selling Points (UPSs) and uniqueness. Clarify this question: What makes you different that we should consider engaging you? Avoid the lowest-price trap (reflecting poor marketing competency).

More to follow. Best of planning and preparation!

Lean Startups & Bartering Relationships (Part2)

In a continuing series on business startups and entrepreneurial ventures, we discuss the relevance of Relationships.

B) Bartering Your Way To Results

Bartering may seem like 'old school', yet it is one of the backbones of business success. The 'Law of Exchange' is as old as trading, sales, and reciprocity. 

One of the considerations of bartering is that it can be informal, and kept 'off the books'. Because, it is an 'exchange' of service-for-service, or product-for-product, or service-for-product, or product-for-service, you can be flexible with how you calculate your 'costs'. You can barter your editing services for a new business website for advice on accounting and submitting tax forms. You can barter a workshop on business writing for a participant's spot in a business seminar. You can trade your coaching services as a personal-trainer for accommodation in a residential-apartment overseas (when you are on vacation or a business trip). Write an feature article for a website, and in turn enjoy shared readership.  

Tied in to this process of bartering, is the Law of Reciprocity (as observed by Robert Cialdini, Ph.D.). You can reap massive benefits by leveraging on professional and personal relationships (more on this later). This may also pave the way for co-branding, partnering, co-sponsorship, and alliances.

Leadership Lessons: Bartering is about exchanging, and not taking advantage of anyone. You can trade products, services, and even opportunities to maximise progress of your business and vocation. Consider how you barter sensibly and with sensitivity. Sometimes, paying for the service or product is much 'cleaner' and without attachments and encumbrances.

How To Start A New Business

I have heard this script before from retiring members of the working community: ‘I’ll probably start a business with the small amount of money I have.’ Is that a good idea? Could there be a better or best idea other than starting a new business – a high-risk proposition? When pursued further on which business they had thought of, the vague reply I get includes ‘I will probably go into the food business!’ or ‘Something similar to what I have been doing!’

There are also cases where a staff feels that they have had enough experience working with/for somebody that they decide to start a similar business with a team of partners. Some resourceful ones bank on their track record of competencies and leverage on it in their new venture. That sounds like a good start, yet is there more than meets the eye?

Is it clever or optimistic to start a business, when you have not had the experience? Can you harness the power of pure passion and channel it towards business? Doing business is also starting a new lifestyle on renewed focus, purpose, and sense of relevance.

Whatever your dreams and motivations are, here are some considerations before plunging into the deep waters of small business:

1)    What are your reasons for going into business?

2)    What is your passion?

3)    How ready are you to convert passion into a business? Your passion for a sport or hobby may cease to be that when you focus on the business side of things.

4)    Which are your core competencies related to business?

5)    How extensive is your network of connections in your business?

6)    How do you plan to leverage on the competencies and resourcefulness of your business partners?

7)    How savvy are you in sales, marketing and promotions?

8)    Who are your mentors in business, and how do you tap on their expertise?

9)    What are your entry and exit strategies?

10) How will manage the differing expectations of partners once you develop your business past its infancy?

11) How willing will you be to give this business up?

12) Which are your operating core values? How will you show fairness, integrity, trust, honesty and respect to customers, clients, contractors and colleagues?

These are questions that small and medium-sized business owners have to contend and grapple with, throughout their company’s existence. I wish you every success in your decision.

*****

Looking forward to my track session (at 6.15am) with 14-time Ironman winner, Belinda Granger and her husband-training partner, Justin. Then, it is off to attend a Train-The-Trainer workshop. In spite of the predictions and predilections of a sliding global economy, it will be business as usual. We have to keep moving on order to engage the gears of the economy.

Tomorrow: Book Review on Innovation.

Never Frown on the Small Business

A new business startup can be a hairy and hoary proposition. There are many indicators to consider, and there are countless variables that can jeopardize any creative attempts. You may have heard about painful and disappointing close downs of businesses that began with an optimistic premise. Animated conversations revolved about supporting a cause, a purpose – altruism and philanthropy as part of the company’s philosophy for business – however faded into obscurity and oblivion. The market seems intolerant of fly-by-night operations, and businesses that are built around hyperbole and multi-tiered promise of wealth and prosperity but require your 16-digit credit card number to proceed with your training kit.

Statistically, more than 90 percent of small businesses do not make it through the first year. It gets progressively harder to stay afloat in the subsequent, unless the new business-owner integrates strategic thinking, partnerships and alliances. Partnerships entrenched in shared assets and capital, invariably, end on a sour note with conflict over financial states and approach to business. Business built on a premise of failed promise, false evidence, falsified research, and a quagmire of confusion lead many down the path of the dismayed and disillusioned. Employment seems like a better choice than being your own boss.

Here are some considerations on how Small & Medium Enterprises (SMEs) can rejuvenate and re-energise industries in an ailing economy. SMEs can still act local, and think global. As I bantered with a friend today, if you were to scale up your retail business would you build another branch, or increase your existing floor space? Each is a different decision with different outcomes and challenges.

Having said these, the SME is a testing ground of wits, creativity, courage, and true grit. When you are self-employed, and even employ others, your mindset takes an enormous shift towards the future, possibilities, relevance, and connectivity. Every ounce of skill, iota of experience, dollop of influence, and bushel of potential in the fibres of your body will be called into action.

Even when things don’t go your way, there should not be any shame. It takes a lot to marry the conditions of book-smart with street-smart. You learn to turn a win-lose situation into a win-learn situation. Leaders from adversity sprout!

Reading Resource: Guy Kawasaki, The Art of the Start.