I stumbled across an interesting article from Nicolas Bate, and took out some basics and thought I should share.
1. Your business isn’t special. It’s like all others. It needs money coming in, it needs motivated staff, it needs to manage its costs, it needs to innovate. Who’s making that stuff happen?
2. One 3 by 5 card. That’s all it needs. That’s all it should take. To express your essential value to the customer. To detail your strategy. To detail your pricing policy. To explain to an interviewee why he/she should join your
company. Get a stack: 3 by 5 articulation. More than enough.
3. Stop wishing. Start selling. Stop imagining. Pick up the phones. Stop playing with pipeline percentages. Ring every account and ask for business.
4. Are you excited about your business? No? Best find something else…
5. Never walk by something which could be improved in your business. A dangerous trailing lead. A dog-eared brochure. A web-site link which is broken. Notice it? Fix it.
6. The end of the quarter is only the start of the next quarter. Limping from month to month simply isn’t going to work. Create hard, sustainable value which is significantly different to your competitors. And price it right.
7. No ‘about’. Exactly what the margin is on that product. Exactly the product mix in that sector. Exactly what international cell-phone costs are. ‘About’ businesses go bust. About when their money runs out.
8. The customer is always right. So long as they are being reasonable.
9. Dress code, meeting timings and prompt phone answering ARE important. They’re a quick indication of how you handle bigger things.
10. Know where you really make money. It may not be where you want to make it, used to make it or thought you made it. So long as you know.
11. Pinch the best ideas from your competition. Then build upon them.
12. What is the essence of your business, your essential core. Your raison d’être?
13. When you need more money, don’t necessarily think investors. You may regret the freedom you give away which was actually the reason you went into business in the first place.
14. Notice how the small stuff can really wind you up when you are in line for a coffee or dealing with your bank. Does your business do that to its customers?
15. Your people will not be at their best if they do not have clear goals which get them working. But equally they cannot deliver to their best if they are stressed, anxious and/or exhausted.