Few things you should always follow to start a stable Business

Starting your own business and being self-employed is a very ambitious dream. You’re trying to lead yourself being your boss and that really needs a lot of skills and guts.

Here are few things that you should always do after starting your own business:

Be an avid learner:

In this era of information, there’s nothing better than knowing more and more. To me learning involves three stages: read, write and practice. In the other words: capturing information, storing it and executing it in your life. This approach is extremely useful to define next directions for yourself and your business. Also, never miss the track; read many things but store only churned information. You may see numbers of opinions and recommendations by many authors, writers, experts but as a learner you need to churn the best vital information for your life and try to apply that knowledge in your daily life.

Remember, when you start your own business, there’s nobody to instruct you, guide you or teach you. You need to define your own path and direction and that’s where avid learning skills can be your best navigator tool!

Stop comparing:

Most of the startups I’ve interacted in seminars, exhibitions or meetings; they have some bigger company as ideal and they always compare with successful case studies and dream to become some XYZ enterprise. I always oppose this with a fact that each and every individual has a different shoe and so the starts has! Being yourself, you can’t become somebody else or can’t replicate someone else’s life. How can you expect the same thing with your company when it’s managed by different people with different minds. So what is the solution?

All you need to do is stop comparing with the orders and start chasing your own goals in your own way. Try to learn failure case-studies along with success stories as failure is the best learning lesson with example. It can make you remember few things which you may never repeat. But as they say, “Learn from the others’ mistake to save your time!” and that’s where Failure case-studies can be super useful to improve yourself.

Planning is Good Overthinking is not! :

Once you start up, first thing you may face is “Insecurity”. That’s when you realize that you’re out of 9 to 5 culture. If you’re a case-study learner, you must be aware that it doesn’t matter, how many investors or funding you may have, with the effect of poor management; things can go inverse.

Now, to avoid that situation all you need is a “Plan”. Planning is the key to run a successful business. This can only happen if your plan is based on facts and figures. Always try to see your industry and market statistics and analytics. Gather a good amount of insights in an useful manner. Do not be skeptical on every person or situation. I have observed many people over analyzing the situation or over thinking each and every thing in their professional life. This may cause many problems in your small team of startup. Such as, Non-optimal utilization of funds, Lack of learning curve and adaptive approach, Non-acceptance of other team members’ opinion, Lack of risk taking skills and many more.

Thus, only focus on a fact based plan and do not start over analyzing anything in your business. Insecurity should be a part and parcel of your life in order to take calculative risks.

Process is a back bone :

Remember, a flourish mind comes after a strong back bone. If your back bone is not strong enough to structure your body well, there’s no meaning of having a smart mind. The same is applicable to your company. Your processes for various types of operations are the back bone of your company. It provides you a strong structure of management and an ecosystem where all resources are in place and bound with productivity. If your processes are not well-defined, it doesn’t matter how smart you are or what is your unique selling point (USP); it’s certain failure.

When I say process, I do not mean only rules and regulations. For me process means set of rules that defines steps of execution and individual accountability for the resources involved on every steps. Thus, along with an open minded culture without barriers of cubicles and dress-codes, it’s must to have a strong operational process for each of your departments.

Patience is the key to success:

You may come across many perceptions. Some will tell you “Hard work leads you to the success”, later they changed it to “Smart work is a road to success”. Well, if you observe a little, all entrepreneurs who are well-known for their knowledge, creation, companies or products; are all hard working, smart, intelligent and well versed. Still, it tool almost 10-15 years to get on this place where they are at present. Why? The only answer is: “Because they never gave up!” They are all individuals with highest patience and peace in them. They have a never ending hope and confidence in they actions and they have a deep capacity to face inverse situations, failures, rejections and much more.

We all are fan of Larry Page, Surgey Brin, Mark Zuckerburg, Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Warren Buffet and many more well-known entrepreneurs or business leaders. We all see their glorified success but we never try to dig down and check their real hard time. We never try to learn their failure cases in their early days and how strong patience they kept during that time to get to the solution! That’s what needs to be learnt and keep trying until you get your envisioned success.

Churn your social circle and team members carefully:

In this capital driven world, it’s nothing unethical to be little selfish and select your surrounding people carefully. Be with those who can benefit you. This benefit is not required to be in terms of only funds or monitory advantages but it can also be  in terms of knowledge share, experience share, advises on best practices and much more. Keep your social circle filled with strongly self driven, affirmative and resourceful people. Same thing is applicable while selecting your core team for your startup. If you’re already having a silent/sleeping partner pretending as core team member, there can’t be a more wrongful choice of core startup team.

Whether it’s social media or real society, our contacts create a bubble of topics around us that we live and discuss everyday. Having the right people around you, can give you a highly productive and up lifting professional life with lots of learning during your journey of entrepreneurship and having wrong people can give you numerous hurdles to achieve what you want. This is why many people believe that creating something out of life is very easy if you’re smart and for the others life itself is a big puzzle… 🙂

Stay optimistic and positive:

When we say “Stay Positive”; many of us imagine a larger than life “Motivational Speaking” event brain washing for “Feel Good Factor” and asking to stay positive and feel wealthy, happy, healthy… and so many never ending imagination inside that little brain.

Well, I’m not going in that direction. My definition of having positive or affirmative approach is to stay optimistic and be inclusive to inverse situation. You may face never ending hurdles or unwanted situations during your daily operations. All you need to do is to find the solution and set the right process. That’s how you can nurture your brain with solutions and strengthen your company’s back bone with right processes.

This is the optimistic and problem solving approach gives you patience and create things better and bigger.

At last, I hope you’ve enjoyed reading my views. I will be keen to know your experiences along with your inputs on this. So, feel free to comment below.

Have a Happy Business!! 🙂

Leaders are made, nobody is “born leader”

We all can recognize “born leaders” when we meet them, but most leaders are made. If you have employees who have the potential to step up as leaders but haven’t done so, there are several things you can do to help them develop.

Provide employees with decision-making opportunities:

Good leaders have the confidence to make decisions on their own. One of the best ways to build up this confidence for other employees with leadership potential is to give them the power to make some important decisions on their own. Not only does empowering employees to make decisions boost confidence, it allows them to think critically and in the best interest of the company.

When an employee is responsible for making decisions without relying on a manager, it requires them to weigh the best interest of everyone involved and become more in tune with the project or organizational goals. The responsibility of decision-making gives employees a greater sense of ownership and accountability over his or her work, which leads to better employee engagement. The next time an employee asks how he or she should move forward, instead of giving them the answer, ask, “What do you think we should do next?”

 

Encourage employees to pursue their passions:

There is no better motivation to accomplish great things than loving what you do. Another way to shape employees into leaders is to talk to them about what they are passionate about and where they would like to see themselves, their department or the company. Allowing them to see projects through that will help accomplish that goal demonstrates your interest in their vision and that you value their input.

Revealing what excites and motivates your employees and giving them the chance to follow through with those ideas can help them feel more fulfilled. Even if what an employee is most interested in is something that would occur outside of the office, such as participating in sports or volunteering, encourage them to organize these activities and get co-workers involved. Satisfaction with one’s accomplishments is not something that can be taught, but it is a feeling that can spread to and motivate other employees.

Facilitate learning:

Knowledge builds confidence and empowers people. Good leaders are continually learning and questioning how things can be done better. By suggesting books, articles and blogs to read, employees can become motivated to learn on a regular basis. Encouraging employees to attend webinars, watch videos, go to networking events and workshops can also help emphasize the importance of learning. The more experiences and knowledge employees gain, the more they can contribute to the growth and success of ideas and their work.

 

Acknowledge accomplishments:

Acknowledging your employees’ hard work not only builds confidence, it also fuels a sense of pride in what they are doing. Investing time and money into staff well-being and happiness will also strengthen the company culture and bring out leadership skills. Whether it’s public praise at a staff meeting, an award at a company gathering or a gift card, tokens of appreciation are encouraging ways to assure an employee that he or she is on the right track. Additionally, if your employees notice you praising others, they may be more open to peer encouragement, which will continue the cycle of positive reinforcement and the behavior you want to see in a leader.

Good leaders, whether they are born or made, are often at the crux of a successful company. As a manager or an executive. it’s important to foster a work environment where leaders can thrive.

Hope you’ve enjoyed reading, have a Great time!