![]() Diagram ©2004 The Caring Enterprise Coach
Today, the average North American entrepreneurial business lasts just four years, the average sole proprietorship even less. Yet entrepreneurship is not rocket science; it’s nothing more (or less) than making a living for yourself with your business partners, instead of depending on some indifferent corporation to provide you with a living wage. Running a business is certainly no more difficult than raising a family, or landing a job and building a career with a big company. The essentials of entrepreneurship could easily be taught in every school, and there’d still be plenty of time left for the rest of the school curriculum. But, perhaps because big corporations and the governments they control want the ‘labour force’ to be meek, subservient, fearful and insecure, most people have come to perceive entrepreneurship as a complex and difficult art, fraught with danger, unprofitable, emotionally scarring, and demanding of enormous courage and energy. “It’s certainly not for everyone”, I keep hearing. Entrepreneurship requires self-knowledge of what you’re happy doing, what you’re especially good at, how much you’re willing to put into your enterprise and what you expect to get out of it. Without this self-knowledge, you’re likely to be as miserable in your own business as working for some unappreciative boss, and that unhappiness will bear directly on its success. Beyond that, all you need are common sense, self-confidence, and a modicum of four key, learnable skills:
Then it’s simply a matter of learning and following the process that every entrepreneur has learned by trial and error, to set up and operate your own business successfully, on your own terms, and actually have fun doing it. One of the 15 steps in the process of establishing and running an enterprise is avoiding the landmines. In MBA school they now call this Risk Management. This article identifies ten of the major landmines for entrepreneurs, using some real-life examples. I don’t believe any of the enterprises described below is still in business (though some of the entrepreneurs have moved on, learned their lesson, and succeeded in other businesses):
Many entrepreneurs I know feel very lonely, exposed, and helpless. The big consulting firms aren’t interested in them until they grow bigger or go public. The smaller firms are selling one or two specific products, and rarely have entrepreneurial skills to share. And these suppliers are expensive. The government is cheaper, but with a few notable exceptions they aren’t very helpful either. As a result, many entrepreneurs have formed their own ‘support groups’, helping each other to avoid the landmines, and learning from each other’s experiences and failures. Retired entrepreneurs are another good source of advice, and a quarterly business breakfast with a trusted entrepreneur or advisor with some experience in the trenches can be an excellent investment. These breakfasts don’t need an agenda — they’re run as an informal ‘interview’, with the advisor asking pertinent, open-ended questions and listening and offering counsel and options and ideas. They are a critical element of what my new business, The Caring Enterprise Coach, offers. Another technique entrepreneurs can employ to alert themselves to potential landmines is establishing an Advisory Board made up of people who have well-rounded business experience, knowledge of markets, and skills the entrepreneur and his partners lack. Such Advisory Boards are often reciprocal, offering mutual support and advice in lieu of fees. I am constantly surprised how few entrepreneurs use such ‘support groups’, relying instead on their own instincts, the counsel of inexperienced and costly ‘professional advisors’, and others (bankers, customers, franchisors, and various ‘agencies’) who have only a nominal, and purely financial, interest in the entrepreneur’s success. Some ‘support groups’ and networks have been set up as money-making ventures, but these tend to be unwieldy and their members terribly needy — ten people looking for advice and new customers for every one capable of offering useful information or counsel in return. It’s best to create your own. The problem, of course, is that most entrepreneurs are paradoxically too busy fighting fires and avoiding landmines, to be able to invest time finding and networking with support groups and other valuable advisors who can help them avoid the next round of fires and landmines. But, despite the failings of the first generation Social Networking tools, such tools hold enormous promise. Although Shoshana Zuboff coined the term The Support Economy to refer to federations of businesses working together to support their shared customers, the first true Support Economy may well be entrepreneurs supporting each other. |
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A lot of good, on-target information here.
Geat comments Dave, i would like to share some advices and experience with other entrepreneurs.We manage our own Research and development firm, we work most of the time for medical groups so we have some experience (2 years) working giving some advice and trying to survive in a very chaotic environment (called emergent economies, Latin America).When you were talking about OVER ESTIMATING THE MARKET topic, its very common for entrepreneurs to hesitate about their calculations about real market size, everytime i have done some launching program have the same problem, this part its ALWAYS the weakest part of any business program, launching program, etc… but the most important think its to know your sales force and the incentive you give them, because sometimes it doesnt matter how accurate your calculatiosn are, but the strength of your sales force; here i recommend to calculate your brake point and define the strategy to get it, its easier than measuring the market size.When you talked about cash flow problems i would recommend to make it vary detailed for the first to years, something like a weekly cash flow calculation in your 3 escenarios (optimistic, realistic and pessimist), because if you do it monthly or yearly you dont realize about cash flow problems, you can get a positive balance at the end of the month but a negative cash flow in the 3 week.About customers, the most important think (even sounds funny its very common) its to know WHO YOUR CLIENTS ARE, ill gice you an example: if you produce computer parts, your real client its not who buy it, but who goes to make the tech support, he/she is who really use its, who has the problem, etc… so ask to the right persons.I think that you Dave forget a couple of things that are very important: PHILOSOPHY explain to your co workers and partners what you expect from the company and what do you want to get with it, its sound dumb, but many problems (financial, opperations, hhrr, etc..) are becausesome some directors wants A, others B but they didnt express in the right moment or took desicions that crush the opinions and the last think NETWORKING ITS THE KEY for small business specially, make ono to one marketing, talk to your friends what you are doing, your ex co workers etc… you never know what you are going to get.I woul be very happy to help some other entrepreneurs in their adventure, feel free to contact me please.patadeperro@lycos.com.I will be an honour to help others to free them selfs
Miguel: When it comes to overestimating sales, the problem is more often not understanding the customer (because of inadequate research) than anything involving the sales force. Your points on the need for the partners to level with each other, and develop a deep trust in each other, is very valid, as is your point on networking.