There is no shortage of tips and tricks that promise to get your business to where you want to see it. But after all is said and done, you have to make decisions that work for both you and your start-up. Here are the principles upon which you can build the business of your dreams.
1. Learn to delegate while you focus on the bigger picture
Virgin Group CEO Richard Branson once said: “The secret to my success is people because they had skills that I did not. In some areas, they knew better than I did how to make my vision a reality.”
One of the secrets of a successful entrepreneur is knowing what to be involved in directly and what to delegate to others. To truly develop your business, you cannot try to do it all on your own. By outsourcing or hiring staff to take care of most of the time-consuming tasks, you get the chance to focus on the most important, high-level priorities.
2. Choose your business partners wisely
Many times businesses fail because people blindly pick their friends and relatives as business partners. Rather than selecting business partners purely based on blood ties and friendship, go into a partnership based on considerations of complementary skills, talents and abilities. Friends and relatives could easily compromise business values by expecting favours or being unable to distinguish family relationships from business relationships. Choose a partner that is committed to the job, is diligent, hardworking, visionary and, above all, trustworthy.
3. It’s not about great ideas; it’s about solving market needs
Strive Masiyiwa, Econet founder and Zimbabwe’s richest man who made his fortune in mobile telecoms, says if he were starting his entrepreneurial journey today, he would venture into agriculture.
This is because Africa imports a lot of food from other continents, worth well over $60 million (Sh6.4 billion) each year. This was echoed by Aliko Dangote, Nigeria’s wealthiest man.
Basically, what these tycoons are saying is the motivation to enter business should primarily be about finding the niche in the market – what people are lacking at that time.
A lot of potential entrepreneurs miss this point. They may have a great idea borne from lots of research, but it won’t amount to much if it does not solve an existing problem.
Good entrepreneurship is all about solving pain points. It is all about changing people’s way of living by introducing, or developing, a good or service that essentially translates into an easier life for people.
4. Give debt to clients with caution
Whenever possible, avoid getting into deep debt or extending big credits. Debts whose defaulting could lead to business slowdown should be completely avoided. But in the case where extending loans is inevitable, a good entrepreneur should find a way to track the monies owed and compel the debtors to pay on time to prevent a cash crunch. Defaulters, or partners who are not creditworthy, will ultimately jeopardise business projects.
Perform a thorough background check on a business before offering credit. Also, offer discounts for the early repayment of bills. Check the level of credit your competitors offer and tune your business to that.
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5. Forget about being an overnight success
Rome was not built in a day, neither was any successful business. Take time to learn and improve. Start small and rise through challenges and competition, creating networks along the way, overcoming upsets until you finally stand out. That is why one of the main characteristics of any successful entrepreneur is persistence.
Some of the biggest companies in the world started very small, way below average, streets behind the main players of the industry at the time. Take, for example, Bidco Africa. The multinational manufacturer started out making soap in 1985 and has grown into one of Africa’s biggest producers of fast-moving consumer goods. That was decades’ worth of growth.
6. Understand your value; not every customer is right for you
Most people sell themselves short because they are afraid that if they stated their ‘real’ market value and demanded that customers match it, they would end up losing to lower bidders in the industry. Often, that (the loss of bids) happens because of competition, and in the desire to beat it, people sell themselves for an amount that is way below their real worth.
An entrepreneur should be aware that the markets will be unfair and will expect them to sell their goods and services for way less than their value. But the entrepreneur should not bow to this exploitative trade off. If you offer quality, the right customers for you will show up. Your prices do not have to keep up with those from competitors offering mediocre services.
7. Consider mergers as an easier way to fundraise
One of the challenges that affects start-ups is raising funds that can sustain the business in the short term before the venture can independently support itself. Sometimes loans from financial institutions may be impossible to obtain, or repayments impossible to keep up with.
And many people are unwilling to risk investing their resources in ventures whose returns are not guaranteed. One way to get around this and still raise funds is to merge with someone interested in your industry and who has the resources, or even key contacts, to keep your business running.
8. Be ready for backlash, failure and disappointment
Entrepreneurship is about highs and lows. Stumbling blocks will always be along the way, trusted partners sometimes turn out to be disappointing betrayers, and the business landscape can be unforgiving. Entrepreneurship is not for the fainthearted. You have to rise above the challenges, learn from the mistakes and always give it a stronger, better shot.
9. Separate your work life from family life
Many entrepreneurs end up failing because they are unable to strike a healthy balance between work and family. They become obsessed with the operations of the business such that they do not have any family or private time.
Make sure to separate family and business time. This will help you avoid burnout. Separate family finances from business finances as well so that you can keep track of your net worth, expenditure and assets.
There are those who avoid carrying work home so that when they are with family, they can focus on being present. This, however, requires great discipline. You can also decide to separate your work email from your personal email, and even have office telephone contacts that will not be reachable on unless you are in the office.
10. Understand that no sales means no business
This is the ultimate mantra of business. You are here to make money, and at the end of the day, factors such as branding, customer relations and office décor will amount to nothing if there are no sales to show for all the hassle. No sales means the entrepreneurial venture should not even exist.
11. Lower on your overheads
Limit, as much as possible, your overhead costs.
Make smart hiring decisions and hire quality instead of quantity. Also, negotiate new deals with landlords during times such as these, when there is a pandemic that could lead to business failure.
Find ways to reduce costs on utilities, such as the Internet. You can either get a lower bandwith, or rope in fellow entrepreneurs and share the costs of connectivity.
Outsource services whose internal maintenance is costly, such as IT or even accounting. This way, you can also reduce sales and marketing costs.
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