Month: August 2012

Categories
Starting Up

Why Your Start-Up Isn’t Thriving?

That wonderful product concept was your brilliant idea. It was so amazing and awesome; you decided to go for it and become an entrepreneur and launch a start-up. But it not going as you expected. It’s much harder than you anticipated, everything seems to be progressing more slowly, and maybe it seems as though it’s not moving forward at all. Now, you are starting to second guess your decisions, wondering whether your next attempt at making the product a success will yield the results you so desire.

So where did you go wrong? You know your dream is achievable. There are plenty of proof points of success business everywhere you look. But how? You are not alone. Every entrepreneur feels this way at some point. It’s a test of your convictions.

Often the reason most entrepreneurs don’t survive is a mindset and perspective issue. Let’s go back and look at how most entrepreneurs get started, and then I’ll show you how those that succeed do it.

Conventional wisdom tells the entrepreneur to start with a business plan and then execute it. This is the beginning of their downfall because it cements in the entrepreneur’s mind the notion that they’ve done the research and the result is they’ve determined the recipe, a definitive path to success. However, most business plans are filled with guesses, unfounded estimates, and wishful thinking. In fact, there is so little fact and information based upon direct experience with the market and customers that most business plans are nothing more than fairy tales. They should start with “Once upon a time”. And like any fairy tale, the entrepreneur expects the end to be “And they lived happily ever after”.

Statistics on business failures show that this isn’t what happens.

In the U.S., more than 600,000 new businesses start each year and more than half will close within 5 years. This is true of businesses in other countries as well. The venture capitalists are admired by many throughout the world. They have brought us Amazon, eBay, Google, and Facebook. Their goal for start-ups is to ‘go big’ by going IPO. Yet, in the past 10 years, 30,000 start-ups were funded and only 2% of their companies have reached that goal, most failed. Collectively, the venture capitalists have conducted an industry wide business experiment. Most of these new businesses had business plans, most failed. So why do entrepreneurs continue to follow the same process to the same end? This extremely high failure rate is the result of a system that isn’t working.

The entrepreneur has missed a step. It’s the experimental start-up phase. This is where the entrepreneur designs and conducts a series of business experiments in order to discover the right product and business model. It’s when the product or service concept meets its business. How does the entrepreneur do this? They start with a concept plan that outlines what they intend to do and why, and they include all the assumptions and unknowns about the business. Unlike the traditional business plan, here the entrepreneur acknowledges the holes, assumptions, and issues. Next, the entrepreneur couples the concept plan with a strategy for conducting business experiments. This orchestrated and systematic process allows the entrepreneur to develop proof of concept of the business. Only then is the entrepreneur in a position to write a solid business plan, one based upon experience and facts.

Why is thinking of your start-up as experimental so effective? It sets the mindset that what the entrepreneur is doing right now may fail – and most likely will. It’s okay for this experiment to fail because there will be another and maybe even more. Eventually enough knowledge and information is gathered to create the experiment that will succeed.

Contrast this to the approach of starting with a business plan; entrepreneurs feel the start-up has to work as outlined in the plan. Entrepreneurs hire employees and get them to execute the plan – after all, an employee want a sense of security and admitting you don’t know what you are doing, doesn’t instill confidence. The entrepreneur may have found outside funding, in which case, the investors don’t want to hear that they are experimenting with their money, that the entrepreneur doesn’t have it right yet. So the entrepreneur seals their fate and the business plan is executed to failure.

About the Author

Cynthia Kocialski is the founder of three start-ups and helps entrepreneurs transform their ideas into new businesses. Cynthia is the author of Startup from the Ground Up and Out of the Classroom Lessons in Success. Cynthia writes regularly at Start-up Entrepreneurs’ Blog. and provides in her video series information on how to create a Concept Plan.

Categories
Teamwork & Leadership

Irresolvable Partnership Issues – Learn The Solution And Save The Business

Article Contributed by Patrick Del Rosario

Apart from marriage, having a business partnership is one of the most delicate relationships in a businessman’s life.  In the relationship, both parties have some part of themselves and most likely their pocketbook invested in making the business as strong as possible. And although you both strive to accomplish the same ultimate goal, the method in which this will occur can often times cause some disagreements and difficulty between the two partners. While some form of disagreement is a good thing and through discussion can lead to improved collaborative results, major disagreements can be detrimental to the health of the business and leave partners to struggle with irresolvable issues.

Here are a few ways to overcome disagreements between business partners

Disagreement over work expectations

As an entrepreneur you want your partner to work as hard as you do, especially during the early stages of the business. When this does not happen, or their work ethic falls short of your own personal expectations, there is likely to be a certain level of frustration within the partnership. Once it has been made clear that expectations on both sides are not being met, it is time to have an honest discussion.

Draft out and compromise on how you both see the business being run, the number of hours you will both put in, and the timing of those hours. Through honest discussion, if you are unable to resolve your work ethic differences, it may be time to decide who has the best interest of the business in mind and give them the reigns to make the business work. Another solution may be to divide up different areas of the business which will be better run by one partner or the other. This will prevent a complete dissolve of the partnership and improve the way the business is run.

Distrust among partners

Just as in a solid marriage, you must be able to trust your business partner with 100% of the information and responsibility you hand over. After all, you will be sharing rolodexes, private information, and most importantly, finances. If you have ever been given a reason not to trust your partner to the point where you do not feel you will be able to repair the trust, it may be time to dissolve the partnership for the greater good of the business.

During this process, it will be crucial to involve a third party lawyer. This person must remain neutral to be able to find missing information or hidden financial data that may confirm or reject your suspicions. The lawyer will also be able to negotiate on your behalf to help you regain trust in the business as a whole, and ultimately save it from falling under.

Steer clear of emotional decisions

Once your trust has been broken, either through failed work expectations, stolen finances, or any other disappointment, a decision must be made to move forward as separate entities. As this process takes place, it is important to keep emotions out of the negotiations and focus on what is best for the business as a whole. For entrepreneurs, this is much easier said than done. After all, your business is one was your idea to begin with, that you have built from the ground up, and the place where you have invested many hours of your time and effort.

As negotiations take place, keep in mind that in order to make your idea and your business succeed, you must keep yourself and your heart out of the equation and take a look objectively at the resolutions available. Continue reminding yourself of the importance of this as you work toward a common resolution that will end the partnership on an amicable note.

About the Author:

Patrick Del Rosario is part of the team behind Open Colleges, one of Australia’s pioneer and leading providers of first rate Management Courses and latest certificate iv in training and assessment. When not working, Patrick enjoys blogging about career and business. Patrick is also a photography enthusiast and is currently running a photography studio in the Philippines. If you have a blog and would like to feature his works, you can find him on Google+.

Categories
Teamwork & Leadership

3 Ways to Positively Be an All-Star in Business

Article Contributed by Joey Faucette 

My nephew, Dan Uggla, starts at second base for the National League All-Star team this week. He plays for the Atlanta Braves and while he has been on the NL All-Star team several times previously, this start is his first.

So how was he chosen? And what can you learn from him about how you can positively be an All-Star in your business?

Here are 3 Ways you can grow your business like Dan Uggla so you will positively be an All-Star:

Be Engaging

Major League Baseball selects its starting lineups for both teams by fan voting. Fans go online, have 25 votes per person to cast, and select their favorites. Dan led all second basemen in the NL in voting.

Your customers/clients vote for you, sometimes in ways of which you’re unaware. Sure you see their votes as they walk in the door, call, purchase online, and sign a contract—all of which show up on your P&L.

What about when they refer a friend over lunch? Or, tell a coworker in the break room?

Engaging your customers/clients seeds loyalty. Loyalty’s fruit is referrals. Your harvest grows.

How do you engage your customers/clients so that they vote for you?

Engage them and be their All-Star. Solve their problems. Make their lives easier. Create an experience.

Be Exclusive

All-Star voting is by position. Dan plays second base.

What exclusive position do you play in your customers’/clients’ minds?

When they think of you or your business, do they search all over the field? Or, do they go immediately to your position?

There’s a direct connection between how they think of you exclusively and your level of engagement with them.

Perhaps they think of you around your unique selling proposition (USP). Is it based on value? Or, exceptional customer engagement? Or, ease of use?

Or, are you more exclusive than that? Have you clearly identified your niche? Sure, everybody should do business with you, but more often everybody’s business is nobody’s business. For example, do you engage customers who are dog owners, and prefer Morkies?

The more exclusively you identify your customers/clients, the more they know what you do, how you do it, and refer you to their friends; thus positively growing your All-Star business.

Be Excellent

My nephew is great at playing second base and hitting a baseball. He holds the rookie home run record for all-time second basemen. He has hit 30+ home runs for the last 5 consecutive seasons—another record for second basemen.

This excellence took years to develop. I remember playing catch on the beach with him and family vacation softball games. He languished in the Arizona Diamondback’s minor league system until the Marlins picked him in a Rule 5 draft. They traded him to the Braves two seasons ago. Throughout, Dan arrived early and stayed late, hustled and worked hard. He learned and grew through repetitive practice.

What do you do daily to improve your business skills?

The pace of change increases weekly, affecting your business in all kinds of ways. Evaluation and skill development produce excellence over a lifetime.

Lots of business people intend to be excellent. Fewer act in strategic, measureable ways that over time lead to excellence.

As Jim Rohn was fond of saying, “There’s very little traffic on the extra mile.”

Be excellent by doing excellence daily in your business. As you do, you positively become an All-Star business.

All Star game,Major League Baseball All Star game,Dan Uggla,Work Positive

Want to be an All-Star in business? Discover 3 Ways how with best-selling author, speaker, & coach Dr. Joey Faucette.

About the Author

Dr. Joey Faucette is the #1 Amazon best-selling author of Work Positive in a Negative World (Entrepreneur Press), coach, and speaker who help professionals discover success in the silver lining of their business and achieve their dreams. Discover more at www.ListentoLife.org/Speaking.

Categories
Planning & Management

Are the 5 Classic Traits of Effective Leaders All There Is To It?

One of the classic schools of thought on the subject of leadership holds that leadership – whether in business, politics, or other areas of society – consists of a collection of traits. These traits can be cultivated by anyone who wishes to become a better leader.

To show you just how long this school of thought has been around, I’d like to share a quote with you from Sun Tzu’s The Art of War:

Leadership is a matter of intelligence, trustworthiness, humaneness, courage, and discipline…reliance on intelligence alone results in rebelliousness. Exercise of humaneness alone results in weakness. Fixation on trust results in folly. Dependence on the strength of courage results in violence. Excessive discipline and sternness in command result in cruelty. When one has all five virtues together, each appropriate to its function, then one can be a leader.

The quote is an eloquent statement of what I think of as the trait theories of leadership. Trait theories are an attempt to discover and describe the immutable skills of leadership, and the essential aspects of leadership that all leaders possess.

Interested in this approach? There’s a whole lot of research on the subject (if you’re interested, I’ve included a bibliography at the end of this article). Here’s the upshot, though: after extensive research on people generally considered effective leaders, experts in this field agree that a consistent relationship exists between leadership and the following traits:

1.         Intelligence

2.         Adjustment (ability to adjust to changing circumstances)

3.         Extraversion (as opposed to introversion)

4.         Conscientiousness

5.         Openness to new experiences

6.         General self-efficacy (belief in one’s own competence)

In these traits, many will recognize a “classic” leadership style that many entrepreneurs, public figures and experts aspire to. And yet, there’s a problem with this type of research, which is this: it tells us that leaders have these traits, but it does not explain how these traits contribute to leadership, or why some people with these traits are not leaders.

For this reason, I tend to think of the trait theory of leadership as a “one size fits all” approach. They’re popular because they simplify a complex and elusive concept. However, by focusing on that which is common across all leaders, they necessarily exclude important aspects of leadership that vary from leader to leader and may, in fact, have more significance than those traits that are held in common.

As Stephen J. Zaccaro noted in the January 2007 issue of American Psychologist, trait theories still:

1. Focus on a small set of individual attributes such as Big Five personality traits, neglecting key issues like cognitive abilities, motives, values, social skills, expertise, and problem-solving skills

2. Fail to consider patterns or integrations of multiple attributes

3. Do not distinguish between those leadership attributes that are generally fixed and those that are shaped by, and bound to, the situation at hand

4. Do not consider how fixed character traits account for the diverse range of behaviors that effective leadership calls for

One danger with this kind of simplistic approach to leadership is the conclusion that if you simply develop the necessary traits, your leadership abilities will emerge (in my experience as a coach, this simply isn’t true). Another danger is focusing on these widely agreed-on leadership traits as selection criteria in filling employment positions.

Why?

Because these traits are drawn from a popular definition based on only the most obvious forms of leadership, such as those exhibited by heads-of-state, senior executives in business, and the military. From our perspective, this not only ignores the diversity that exists across different forms of leadership, it devalues forms of leadership that are less obvious and more subtle, but equally as effective.

About the Author:

Lynda-Ross Vega: A partner at Vega Behavioral Consulting, Ltd., Lynda-Ross specializes in helping coaches, coaching clients and entrepreneurs . She is co-creator of Perceptual Style Theory, a revolutionary psychological assessment system that teaches people how to unleash their deepest potentials for success. For free information on how to succeed as an entrepreneur or coach, create a thriving business and build your bottom line doing more of what you love, visit www.YourTalentAdvantage.com

 

 

Categories
Sales & Marketing

Converting Leads to SALES! Leveraging Technology to Reach Your Peeps

In order for you to convert a lead into a client, your ideal client needs to hear about you (or see you) anywhere from seven to seventeen times before they’re ready to move forward with your firm. That means, once a prospect stumbles across your law office’s website or hears you speak at a networking event, you need to find a way to communicate with him or her an additional six to sixteen times, so when they do find themselves in the need of a lawyer’s service, you are the one they hire.

Ask yourself this … unless they have an immediate need for your services and hire you on the spot, what are the odds your prospects will hear from you another six to sixteen times after your first encounter?

As you already know, most people only hire an attorney “as needed” or because they have an emergency. So, unless someone finds you on Google or meets you at a conference at the exact moment they require legal help, your chances of turning them into a client are pretty slim.

There is an easy solution: deploy an automated communication system! But before we delve into the reasons you must create one (and trust me, you do), let’s make sure you’re already taking care of the first step in communicating regularly with your prospects: using a CRM database to create a list of prospects you can develop a relationship with on an ongoing basis.

When you meet people who might be in the market for your services, you need a system of gathering their contact information. 

When you have such a system in place, you are “building your list” every time you network, speak, advertise, send out direct mail or use social media.  List building is the keystone of any direct marketing strategy, and though there’s a bit more science to it than simply collecting email addresses, you DO need to first make sure you’re keeping track of the people you meet, and collecting their contact information so you can reach out to them regularly, inviting them to get to know you and your business, before they ever even need to hire a lawyer.

So, what CRM (customer relationship management) System for lawyers and law firms are you using to build your list?

Okay, maybe you already have a list. Now what?

About 3% of your potential market will have an immediate need when they hear about you, but the other 97% need reminders about who you are and what you can do for them, should they need you at some point in the future. So, even though this potential client may not be in the market for an attorney right now, you want to be sure you’re the first person on his/her mind when he/she is ready. And that’s why you need an Automated Communication Campaign. 

  • Automated: Because it has to be, otherwise it won’t get done.
  • Communication: The basis of every strong relationship.
  • Campaign: This means consistent, so you are communicating at least every other week and preferably weekly.

Your communication campaign should be designed to make your prospects feel like they know you. Your ideal client wants to hire an attorney with whom they have a relationship. People hire people who they know, like and trust. Staying in regular contact with your prospects allows you to create a rapport and a familiarity to forge bonds before you ever work together.

Trying to stay in touch with your list regularly takes too much time and energy to do it all on your own—you must automate! You’ll either make yourself nuts trying to get it all done, or give up on communicating all together. The solution? There are many online software systems and outsource services that can help you create a “set it and forget it” series of emails, so that you know you’re keeping up with your list without having to do all the extra work.  (More on those systems and services soon.)

One more tip: make sure that when you reach out to your list, your hand is not always palm up!

Of course, you want to make periodic offers to your list for discounted items or services, or to announce new products or special services. Let your communication invite your ideal clients to get to know you – the personal, real you. Tell your personal story through your marketing materials, share with them and show you’re a real person who wants to serve. Let people know that you are just like them, not some scary lawyer who’s going to try to take advantage of them!

Make the effort to build a solid relationship with your prospects so that when they finally do need legal services, it’s you they’ll turn to – not just the first time, but every time. 

So, are you regularly communicating with your prospects? If so, how?  And how is it working for you? We’d love to hear.  Leave a comment below to share about your process for communicating with prospects or what’s stopping you.

About the Author

Alexis Neely started her own law practice in 2003 after only three years in practice at the law firm of Munger, Tolles & Olson. Despite knowing nothing about business, she built that law practice into a million dollar a year revenue generator by creating a new law business model that her clients (and her family) absolutely loved.  Alexis wrote the bestselling book on legal planning for parents and has appeared on all the top television shows – from the Today Show to Good Morning America – teaching the American public about proactive family and business legal planning and new paradigm conflict resolution.  Today, Alexis is a Law Business Mentor and guides lawyers to reclaim their role as trusted advisors for their clients while building sustainable, fulfilling, money-making practices so you can love being a lawyer again.  For more information about Alexis, visit www.lawbusinessmentors.com