Tag: perseverance

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What is your precious gift in small business?

Credit: From Unsplash by Matthew Wiebe.
Credit: From Unsplash by Matthew Wiebe.

The events over the past few weeks have made me wonder about what is a precious gift when you find yourself in times of adversity. We accept bumps in the road and minor setbacks as part of life but when major disasters or tragedies strike it’s sometimes difficult to get back onto the saddle and ride your horse again.

Disasters for small business come in many forms including a cash crisis, loss of a major customer, changing technology and the entrance of a new and strong competitor. These are just some. But as the business founder, the business owner, you are the driving force in the business. When personal or family tragedy strikes such as the loss of a loved one, you may take some time to recover. Continue reading “What is your precious gift in small business?”

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Warning: turning your promising idea into a viable business requires hard work

Woodfired pizza oven at Pizzeria Sorbillo, Naples
Wood-fired pizza oven (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

A small business owner recently bought a pizzeria and restaurant franchise in a local shopping centre. Not happy with the appearance and interior design of the restaurant, he set about refurbishing it. His contractors started early on a Sunday morning and by the Wednesday evening had completed the entire refurbishment of the restaurant. (You can buy my book “Breakthrough Ideas here: http://wp.me/P1A3Pz-2hY) Continue reading “Warning: turning your promising idea into a viable business requires hard work”

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What is the best predictor of your success in a start-up?

John Wayne as Rooster Cogburn in True Grit.
John Wayne as Rooster Cogburn in True Grit. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

A weekly supermarket checkout gossip magazine featured some spoof horoscopes on their front cover. Take this entry, for example: Libra – you get $100,000 out of the blue. Capricorn: a new home – and a new job. Virgo: Lottery luck is yours… At last!

Everyone knows that horoscope predictions are as flimsy as the gossip stories you get in the same supermarket checkout magazines. The same seems to be true of the guesswork involved in predicting whether a start-up founder, entrepreneur or small business owner is going to succeed or not. But that doesn’t stop the experts and guru consultants all pointing to success predictors that they swear by. Continue reading “What is the best predictor of your success in a start-up?”

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Do you have the courage to give it another shot?

IMG_3157How have you handled personal crises in your life? Have you started something new but given up too soon? Can you think of people you’ve known who have given something just one more try and made it work?

Even people who have reached the top of the ladder in their fields have been plagued by doubt. Shortly after Ray Kroc signed the contract with the McDonald’s brothers he wasn’t quite sure what he had taken on but he was eager to go into action. “I was 52 years old. I had diabetes and incipient arthritis. I had lost my gallbladder and most of my thyroid gland in earlier campaigns. But I was convinced that the best was ahead of me.” Continue reading “Do you have the courage to give it another shot?”

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Being your best at the worst of times

English: A group of acorns.
English: A group of acorns. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I heard a story once about how a sales manager in the depression years encouraged his salespeople to make their daily sales targets. He would tell them to put five acorns in their left pocket and that they could only go home after they had transferred each of those acorns into their right pocket. To transfer an acorn, they had to call on a potential customer. Continue reading “Being your best at the worst of times”

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What’s the special quality behind exceptional performance?

Rob Taylor (Photo credit: Chensey Bradshaw)
Rob Taylor (Photo credit: Chesney Bradshaw)

At 11 pm Rob Taylor, guitarist and singer, is getting ready to play his next set. He will entertain the crowd until 12:30 am. He’s playing a gig this night from 8:30 pm through to 12:30 am and it’s his second gig in two consecutive evenings.

How does a professional musician like Rob keep energised so much so that he is able to work at peak intensity for so many hours?

Just to give you an idea of what a superb and intense guitar player he is, on this evening, a Friday evening, he has already broken three guitar strings. Each time he’s stopped playing, repaired his guitar and come back on stage to play at the same spectacular level. None of this has got him down. Continue reading “What’s the special quality behind exceptional performance?”

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How long will it take before your idea becomes profitable?

Cover of "The Wolf of Wall Street"
Cover of The Wolf of Wall Street

If you believe in overnight success, perhaps you are one of the people standing at the Lotto queue on a Saturday/Saturday afternoon.

Movies like “The Wolf of Wall Street” give the impression that money can be made quickly. Perhaps it’s the truncated form of the movie, portraying a life and business that took many years to develop, that gives the impression that overnight successes possible. I’m only talking about Jordan Belfort and the time it took for him to get his boiler room penny stock operation going rather than the ethics of the type of business idea he came up with. Fleecing people from their hard earned money and pension savings is the work of a crook and con artist rather than what we believe to be a honest business person. Continue reading “How long will it take before your idea becomes profitable?”