I have written about this before on a blog but I feel it will be awesome to revisit and share it on steemit. This approach of kick-starting was developed by me and I have used it to consult for most startup entrepreneurs and MSME business persons. Recently, I used this approach for a fashion entrepreneur who was scared of competitors who have more capacity than theirs and could take over the market thereby getting them out of the market. She came with quite a lot of some other pressing issues but she returned back to her business with the assurance that she has better advantage than the competitors. So, I will like to do the same thing here. Get someone to get excited about his business so as to have the right kind of results.
But before I proceed, I would like to say that for every change of level, there are always new things to do. To kickstart a business is not different. Someone could be leaving his/her job to start a business while another could just be someone who is passionate about solving problems and may have no balanced experience and skills to start. Whichever way, kickstarting a new business is risk-involving and therefore requires great deal of personal and/or shared experiences, skills, abilities and resources.
Every business is installed to do three primary things; solve an identified problem, create jobs and make profit for the shareholders. For every business to achieve these three things there must be well-structured and responsive systems, processes and organizational structures put in place. Also, it is key to note that every business is working towards growth, stability, sustainability and continuity which are principally achieved through development and coordination of thriving business strategies for growth, survival and corporate social responsibility.
For us to make full-scale impact as entrepreneurs, we need to have great mastery over these five key areas; emotions, relationships, finance, time and physical dimensions. Emotional mastery will help an entrepreneur to have a practical understanding on managing himself/herself while understanding and managing others emotions and exploiting them for better productivity. Relationship mastery will help entrepreneurs understand how to build, maintain and sustain healthy and profitable networks that can impact their entrepreneurial journey positively. Finance mastery will help entrepreneurs the role of money in achieving success and to place money in its rightful place. Also, financial mastery will help entrepreneurs to effectively deploy resources to where they are most needed thereby improving productivity and profitability. Time mastery will help entrepreneurs not only to manage time but to have control of time. Time mastery makes time a friend to an entrepreneur rather than an enemy. Finally, the physical mastery will help an entrepreneur understand his strengths and weaknesses then know how to empower his strengths and turn his weaknesses to his own advantage. For entrepreneurs who had mastered these abilities, it is easy to milk any opportunity in the environment.
Back to our discussion, so we all know milk right? Yes, you could have taken it today. Somehow, we take milk daily or perhaps on average, weekly. We could have taken it as full cream, sweetened or skimmed. For someone of us who are allergic to fresh milk, we could have taken it as yoghurt, cheese or the likes. Milk is almost a daily nutrition for us all. It is the number one food of every new born baby. It contains all food components which provide the baby’s bio-system with all food nutrients needed for body growth, cells maintenance and nourishment. Milk is an all-purpose food for new babies. In fact, it is the essential food for newbies. In this article, I will show us the milk tools in business and how they can boost and sustain business growth and development.
As milk is foundational to meeting the nutritional requirement of a baby so is it also for the milk tools for business.
So let us get to it. Just be ready to get your business drink enough of this milk so that your business can be well founded.
The milk here is an acronym; so each word has its own meaning.
M - Management-driven.
Do you want to have a sustainable business with ever-increasing growth? Do you want to constantly meet and exceed customers’ expectation in your business? Do you want to have the best product (as perceived by customer) in the market? And so on… If yes, then be a good and skilled manager. Management is simply the effective and efficient use of resources at your disposal to achieve goals. Having management skills will clearly distinguish your business for good Always obey management rules; plan-organize-staff-direct and control then you will see your business growth continuously and sustainably.
I-Innovation
To dominate in any given market irrespective of the level of competition, you must constantly innovate to stay ahead of the competition. The day your business stops innovating, it moves down the ladder in the customer’s choice-board. Competition is not a threat but rather a challenge that we all must face as business entrepreneurs because it gets us better. Ensure to innovate in every aspect of your business; from product initiation to development, customer service, marketing and staffing among others. If you want your business to grow continuously, keep innovation as a core value for your organization.
L-Leverage
Leverage as an English word from the Dictionary simply means using something maximally to an advantage. In business, there are so many things that we can use maximally to our advantage especially as a start-up entrepreneur. We can leverage on relationships, networks, technology, internet, social media and mentorship among others. Leveraging a business boosts it especially in terms of asset procurement and expansion. Robert Kiyosaki summarized it as; other people’s resources (OPR) and other people’s money (OPM). You can use OPM, OPR or both to grow your business maximally. Just think out of the box and you could find great resources at your disposal to expand your business.
K – Knowledge
To keep up with the pace of change, we must constantly update our knowledge, skills and abilities. As human behavior keeps changing, we need to keep up with the trend so that our businesses do not get to go into extinction. Practical knowledge is key to business growth, survival and sustainability. Every other day, there are changes in technology, environment, politics, legal systems and culture. It is worth to note that businesses that are sustainable are those that are adaptable to change. So, seek for more knowledge in your own kind of business, both the general and specific.
Thank you so much for reading. If you are impressed with this article, please kindly let me know. And should you need business advisory support, please feel free to ask me.