Patience is the key to success to people who are starting their own business, or business owners themselves. It is true that time is your constant companion but never works at the paste at which you’d like.

The people who are starting their own business often gets frustrated because they want things happen now as they had planned. However, rushing never helps.

For example, you just started your own website, and you spend hundreds of dollars advertising your website. But you are missing the main point – the quality of content on your website, or the quality of products you carry. Your prospects visit your website and leave shortly after. If you run a blog, your visitors need to see things that can turn into values into their lives. If you are selling your products you need to convince your prospects so they can become customers. You might carry great products but that’s not enough to convince your prospects. Adding quality content such as “live demo”, or gather “testimonials” should be your primary focus before focusing on marketing. You need patience for people to spread postive feedbacks about your products. You need patience to find the right employees. [Read more]

There are some things that will stop your business idea, no matter how wonderful it is. These are the costly rough spots that you would rather conceal from the business analyst or banker. Hiding the information will only bring you and everyone you deal with frustration. Your best strategy is to get any deal breakers onto the table and mitigate them early – the sooner the better. In case any of these apply to you, here they are:

1. 100% Financing.
Sure, you and I have heard about those folks who manage to get it. It doesn’t happen that often; more often it’s a deal breaker. Would you invest your savings in someone who apparently doesn’t have the guts or the capacity to invest in themselves?

2. Bad Attitude.
There are entire books written on this topic. The real difficultly with this deal breaker is that most polite folks will not tell you that you suck – instead they will go quietly about taking their business elsewhere. It’s not the responsibility of bankers, employees or customers to create our approach to others. We are each responsible to manage our own attitude.

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Highly effective teams can achieve extraordinary results for the organisations that they serve. Achieving success for the organisation leads to greater personal success, and achievement. Yet in truth, team success is not guaranteed. So what are 5 common barriers to team success and what can you do to avoid them?

Barrier 1: Fuzzy outcomes

If a team is to prosper and deliver results, it needs to be crystal clear about the results or outcomes that are expected to be delivered by the team. Too often teams are set outcomes that are fuzzy and vague which unsurprisingly leads to little in terms of results. Make the outcomes specific and measurable. For example, reduce waste from product X by 10% by 31 December 2008 is both specific and measurable.

Barrier 2: Unproductive conflict

All successful teams need to have challenge and conflict otherwise it all becomes too cosy. On the other hand, it is important to ensure that conflict is productive rather than destructive or unproductive. Lively and heated debate that actually results in a better outcome or solution is an example of productive conflict. Challenge that focuses on all of the negatives without offering any alternatives is unproductive.

Barrier 3: Playing it safe

Making a step change in performance or turning things round requires teams and team members to take some risk and step out of their comfort zone. This will only happen if the culture within the organisation supports and rewards this type of innovative and balanced risk taking approach. For example, if the culture is to look for scapegoats when things go wrong, people will keep within the safety boundaries rather than taking a chance.

Barrier 4: Individual agendas

If a team is to prosper, all members need to sign up to and be committed to the team goals first foremost. For many this is particularly challenging as in business, we are used to being concerned about our own individual situation. Creating a reward system that relies on the group can be a useful stepping stone to encouraging teams to focus on the team agenda.

Barrier 5: Leadership

In teams someone has to take on the role of the leader. A team without a leader is like a ship without a captain. The team might select a leader or as the team develops someone may emerge who is the natural leader. However, any successful team needs a leader.

Bottom Line – Teams can achieve great results but it is essential that the barriers to team success are identified and addressed. So what barriers are getting in the way of your teams success?

Too many times, people put too much time and effort into a negotiation that’s going nowhere. There are inheriting problems in putting too much time into a negotiation that’s not moving in the right direction. The more time and effort you put into a negotiation, the more psychologically committed you become in seeking a successful outcome. In the process, at some point, you’ll run the risk of making decisions with a clouded perception.

How then might you know when to exit a negotiation that appears not to be progressing in a meaningful direction? The following are insights …

Negotiation Situation: You’re accommodating when it comes to making concessions, but find the more concessions you’re asked to make, the more concessions you’re asked to make.

·       Be aware of the negotiator that attempts to continuously squeeze you. In a negotiation situation of this nature, be aware of the negotiation road upon which you’re traveling. When making a concession, get a concession. Concessions don’t have to be on a one for one basis, but don’t get too far out of sync. If the other negotiator consistently asks for concessions and you don’t get concessions in return, you could be setting yourself up for a lot of wasted effort. The other negotiator could simply be ‘pushing you’ in order to make you exit the negotiation so he can ‘save face’, or for some other unforeseen reason. He may be in a position whereby he can’t deliver on what you’re seeking from the negotiation, or tying to maximize his return at your slanted disadvantage. [Read more]

Wastage could be loss of time, loss of interest, loss of materials required and so on. A good solution to this can be achieved from the practical approach that 5S provides.

Lean Six Sigma practitioners have faith in it as a culture that aims at continuous improvement of the working environment and the work conditions. The philosophy is applicable to any aspect of life. 5S refers to the five structured principles of seire, seiton, seison, seiketsu and shitsuke.

Translated, they mean sort, systematize, sweep (shine), standardize and self-discipline. All these terms are self-explanatory. Even if you take them in a daily simple scenario of tidying up your home, you will find that you are doing the same thing.

The first thing that is done is a sorting out of all items. They should be arranged systematically or categorized. Then the entire area needs to be cleaned. [Read more]

Building up a network of diverse people is very helpful for any business. Contacts with different clusters or groups would help you possibility of greater opportunities. A closed group of contacts will not let you this kind of exposure.

The more diverse the network is the better it would be. Your networking should cut across the geographical boundaries. When you attend group meetings, collect the business cards of other people. Meeting people frequently could help you to could bring you business.

Networking would help you to expand your contact list. This could help you to expand your sales base. It could also bring you in touch with different requirements help you to diversify your business.

However busy you are you should give importance to networking.. It is important to create a lasting first impression on people whom you meet. The impression you create will bring you greater business opportunities. You should always try to keep in touch will the contacts you have developed.

You should help people in your network. This would not only bring you goodwill but also business. If a person has a product to sell, giving him the contact number of a person who needs the product will help you in the long run.

You should identify ways and means to improve your networking. You should view networking and relationship building as a continuous process. Networking aids the growth of your business and expands your horizon. It would aid you in creating new products and expanding your knowledge.

If you are a professional you should seek new ideas and pastures that would help you to grow. If you are attending a networking meeting, be well prepared. Think in advance as to what kind of people you are going to interact with. When you meet people, you find out what their requirements are and whether you can fulfill them.

The purpose of business planning is to prove or disprove your business case.

Scary as that might sound, it’s as simple as making sure your business will draw enough customers to pay enough money for your products or services to enable your business and you to survive and perhaps even

What’s proof to some may not be proof to others. While absolute proof is hard to come by, there are many ways to strengthen or weaken your business case. The stronger your case, the more confident you will be in your business idea. Your confidence will come about as a result of a number of things you do. The important thing is to use building blocks that make sense to you, and to those you may be trying to romance with your business plan.

Newbies tend to experience uncertainty at the beginning of any business venture. A business plan provides an opportunity for you to gain confidence in your ideas. In other words, prove it to yourself and you will be in a better position to convince others.

Here is a glimpse of how it works. Imagine you have $100,000 and I am trying to entice you to invest it in my hot new business idea; selling laptop computers to polar bears.

• When I first mention my business idea, you might think I’m crazy and set your browser to block my emails.
• If I back my claim up with letters of support from the Northern Polar Bear Association, you might be curious enough to want to know more.
• If I show you written orders for 20 laptops, signed by furry bad-breathed polar bears, you might start returning my phone calls.
• If I increase the number of orders to 100 and include a couple of long-term contracts with established retailers in polar bear country, you might take me more seriously. You might even Google me, my ancestors, polar bears (your misdirected search for “bare laptops”, proves to be nasty!).
• If I provide you with credible financial projections that detail how you can earn a staggering return on your investment over the next 18 months, you might consider the case “proven” and lunge for your chequebook.

The business plan is an opportunity to build your business case, step by logical step. By the time you get through it you will either have proven your business case, or not. Prove it and you may be ready to go into business. If you can’t prove it, don’t give up your day job just yet.