How To Run A Business? Business Coach | Executive Coach

How To Run A Business? Business Coach | Executive Coach

See 1 of 100 New Videos on this topic & more.

In fact, our research specifically proves 8 Critical Success Factors for small & medium-sized businesses.

Visit www.BestBusinessCoach.ca for more info.

Or https://www.members.bestbusinesscoach.ca/success-research/ for more on the research behind it. 

Transcript:

Well, all a business is:
A person/group of people solving a problem, experienced by another.
Via a product/service.
That's it.

It means:
You have a group doing something, to solve a pain experienced by someone.
And doing it at scale.

A great analogy I like to use is:
I call a business a "Black Box".
Let's say this is a dentist's office.
On one side, people are crying & in pain.
Put them into the black box, it will fix all their problems.
[relating to their teeth.]
On the other side of the box, they come out happy and satisfied.

This is what a business is.
So, how do you run a business?
To run a business,
A) You need to have a problem to solve.
B) Identify people having the problem.
C) Solve the problem for them on win-win terms.

That's what it is.
I've also heard a couple of rules of thumb.
Like for a company, you need 3 key people.

1. Product Person.
-A person involved with the product/service.
-In charge of quality control.

2. Finance & Operations Person.

3. Marketing & Sales Person.

All 3 are different.
That is one thing I've heard about how you run a business.
 
Last year, I hired 7 different research teams.
To go through all the scientific literature availabl,e to find out:
What are the Critical Success Factors for Small & Medium-Sized Businesses?

We found 8.
8 critical success factors.

1. Self-Efficacy.
2. Strategic Planning.
3. Market Intelligence.
4. Marketing Strategy.
5. Sales Skills & Strategy.
6. Money Management.
7. Business Operations.
8. Business Intelligence.

1. Self-Efficacy.
When you wake up, do you plan your time well?
Do you get things done on your to-do list?
Are you effective at communicating your ideas?
If you hired someone to perform a role, but they fail to do so.
They are not effective in their responsibilities.
Self-Efficacy is the ability to have:
Energy, skills & capacity to get things done,
To communicate effectively.
To collaborate with others towards goals.
This is the self-efficacy factor.
It's leadership, team work, communication, time management, etc..

2. Strategic Planning.
You might be the best swimmer.
But if you jump in a pool with no water, you'll get hurt.
You don't want to invest in something that is disappearing.
Strategic planning makes you diligent.
To understand the landscape.
What are the other options out there for consumers?
What are the problems consumers are having?
Where are things in the industry going?
Supply chain considerations.
Labour market conditions.
What is your strategic plan for bringing something bigger, faster, cheaper, newer to the market?

3. Market Intelligence.
This is part of strategic planning but a little different.
It's about knowing who the market is.
What pain point are they experiencing?
What's happening in the market?
It's having a connection to the reality of their world.
You don't want to use resources on making a product.
Then realize your product is already obsolete.
There are a lot of products launched & failed because they were too advance for society.
It is not only about marketing.
It's also understanding the situation of the industry.

4. Marketing Strategy.
You need a way to communicate with people at scale.
Identify interesting facts about what you do.
Help educate people. Find ways to bring them into your world.
So you can communicate & interact with them.

Marketing is about connecting at scale.
Through mass emails, producing content, ads, etc.
Then narrows down to where you have sales.
This is where you'll have intimate talks.
Speaking to them 1:1.

5. Sales Strategy & Skills.
This can be different for different price points.
Different products & services.
Or different severity of pain requires different sales strategies.
If you have the right strategy but the wrong salesperson, you won't get results.
Or if you have a good sales person using the wrong strategy.
It's not going to work.
Sales Strategy & Skills go hand in hand.

6. Money Management.
Money is to a business like gasoline is to a car.
Money is not everything but it is an accelerator.
To buy more resources or hire more staff.
It's a way to measure how many people you've helped.

The concept is:
Do something for society, with limited resources to create abundance.
Making the most out of limited resources.
That makes a business helpful to society.
Because it creates MORE value.
[Sum is greater than the individual parts]
If you run out of money, your movements' limited.
You can't invest.
You can't market your product/service.
You can't keep up.
Money management is very important.

7. Business Operations.
This involves things like:
Meeting rhythms, hiring processes, training processes.
All things holding your company together we consider business operations.

8. Business Intelligence.
This is about the feedback loops.
It's about knowing how you're performing.
Knowing each angle of your business.
Knowing if your customers get what they want.
Knowing how efficient your process is.
How's your marketing doing?
It's the feedback loops to let you know how you're performing.
There are leading & lagging indicators.
Sales are a lagging indicator.
Because it's based on the quality of your marketing, follow-up.
The interaction with your sales rep & quality of your service.
Plus you need satisfied customers to get repeat sales & referrals.

In the beginning,
Find someone willing to pay to have a problem solved.
Getting sales to prove people are willing to pay to have it done.
Then build a sustainable means to continue it cyclically.
Ideally for years, and for many many many more people.

That's how you run a business.

If you want more information on topics like this,
Go to www.BestBusinessCoach.ca.

Check out this episode!