I have had several opportunities to teach at Indonesian and foreign companies, the topic I brought up is getting a sense of business , a topic that I have always studied both for myself and for many people who need help starting a business, or are running a company business. entrusted to him. Many people are hesitant to start a business, or don’t know how, here are some things you need to have when starting a business.
Ready to take risks and fail
Learning from successful entrepreneurs is very beneficial to be successful in business, Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos has a message for budding entrepreneurs: “Be prepared to take big risks and fail,” he said. According to Bezos, if you have a risk-free business idea, or the risk is small, there must be many other people doing the same thing. While many of those business experiments have failed, failure is an essential part of the journey to success. Jeff Bezos founded Amazon in 1995 with only 10 employees. Since then it has turned it into one of the most valuable public companies, with a market capitalization of nearly $ 860 billion.
Jeff Bezos at managing Amazon has a rare success tip. “We take risks all the time, we talk about failure,” he said. “We need a big failure to move the needle. Otherwise, we’re not swinging enough. You really have to swing hard, and you may fail, but that’s okay. ” Indeed, in this case I was reminded of high risk high return, low risk low return,entrepreneurs tend to dare to take big risks, this is what distinguishes an entrepreneur from an employee. I remember how one of my staff chose to be a regular paying employee with retirement benefits for security reasons for the future rather than doing business with me to get a bigger payoff. Starting a business requires the courage to take risks to fail.
There are several risks that can arise when a business is starting, the first is product risk .Want to start a business, of course, start with the idea of what to sell? In my business class, this is an interesting session, each participant has creative ideas and has market appeal to generate income, because some of the interesting ideas will be input for the company where they work. After having an idea of what to sell, you need to add the ability to answer the problems facing the market with our products, this is certainly unique and contains risks if the product is not accepted. This is where it is necessary to test the uniqueness of the product before being offered, persistence in this will control the risk for a product. Persistence in testing it is obtained in various ways, either through research, or also working with customers as a flagship product or service nature or through a learning process that updates the quality of the product continuously.
The second risk that can arise is market risk , if the product you want to sell is unique and has a market to sell it there is no reason for the business not to succeed. This market risk needs to be overcome by knowing who is the target customer, how big, how to access the customer and knowing the right time to sell it, not too late but not too soon. Third, pay attention to financial risk ,financial risk is indeed a scourge to start a business, what if you lose later? How to repay the loan? Where do you get your capital? Financial risk is partly the impact of product and market risk, so if the product and market risk can be overcome, the financial risk will be smaller. Regarding this risk, to control it, it is important to have good financial planning, understand how to read the financial statements initially, then with the financial targets prepared, also prepare financial milestones to be achieved from day to day.
Two other risks are team risk and execution risk , these two risks are related and are the ends of business success. Businesses can minimize product, market and financial risks through a solid teamand professional. Weak teams – do not match the company’s values or do not meet the skills needs of the company – create risks in doing business, both when preparing products and when accessing markets. Execution is a major requirement in business, many business people have great strategies but fail to execute them, need to work out the details of the business and also control the overall direction of the business. The business execution plan will make it possible to implement powerful strategies and thus ensure that employees carry out in detail the activities of every day. Connect (alignment) of the big goals, business team, and all work processes for successful strategy execution and a more profitable business. Here’s a way to reduce the risk of business execution
Being ready to do business means being ready to take all these risks and failing and successful entrepreneurs, getting through them, and continuing to take risks but creating progress for themselves, for others, to make a significant contribution to the country.
Be excited
Whenever I am in class, I enjoy motivating the participants with meaningful words accompanied by movement. One of my favorite motivational words: “enthusiasm is the mother of the spirit without it nothing great has ever been accomplished.”Always demonstrating this movement every time the participants will remember that nothing great can be done without enthusiasm. Likewise with business, starting a business requires constant enthusiasm, why? “You will be competing with passionate people,” Jeff Bezos conveyed his tip. Then people ask how to get excited every day? Often I hear, “Today I’m not excited, I have a lot of problems, lazy (lazy to move), bored ..” I have been like that too. But let’s try to learn from Og Mandino who is a teacher of world business people, Og Mandino wrote “feelings… moods and… emotions will follow action. If you want to be enthusiastic… act enthusiastically. “Enthusiasm is an action, not a feeling, if you want to be enthusiastic about acting, your spirit will follow.
The fruit of the spirit of creating a positive business, our customers, colleagues and even our competitors will see that we do have the answers they need, confident that what we do will be successful. The impact of a passion produces strength and brilliant ideas to solve the problems at hand. The story about this, one of which has become a legend, is how the American car company Chrisyler rose from loss to become a profitable company, in the hands of the passionate Lee Iacoca. “Failure will never overtake me if my determination to succeed is strong enough.” Og said Mandino
Delighting Customers
Jeff Bezos still has one more tip, above all, he said, entrepreneurs must be obsessed with customers. “The most important thing is obsessed with customers,” he said. “Don’t satisfy them, really please them.” This tip is indeed owned by many successful world-class companies, I have been with the top Coca-Cola Indonesia officials in small shops as customers who regularly buy Coca-Cola and we unite with them trying to please them, talk, listen their complaints, discuss their problems and try to fix what is missing from the product, service and operational side of the company. I also remember that one of our consulting company customers is Carrefour, which is included in the 10 largest retail companies in the world.
Pleasing your customers can start with giving them a small gift. However rich a customer may be, a small gift always makes them happy and remembers us. It’s an easy, cost-effective way to invite customers to get to know us better. Whatever it is, make sure it’s desirable, entertaining and tasty. Unleash the unexpected is a pleasant surprise for the pleasant customer, the usual amenities but pleasant enough to the customer – a cake in the lobby, a pen / pencil set with the company logo, a holiday key ring – but people will pick it up and forget about it. Look for something completely originalAnd it doesn’t have to be expensive: little toys, cute magnets, or lovely postcards are all great ideas. The more you can personalize the experience, the bigger the pleasant surprise.
Also listen to what they have to say about themselves, showing them what concerns are important to them. One time while talking to a customer, our conversation got to his hobby to go swimming in exotic sea. I pay attention to this hobby, I tell stories according to my experiences about beautiful places, provide valuable information and this makes him happy. Much more can be done for the customer’s other likes, interests, hobbies, if they tell them they are a fan of tea for example, send them some delicious, interesting tea leaf powder. Show them that we have taken the time to learn what is important to them.
The customer is most happy, if he is prioritized, I have a small experience eating fried duck in Surabaya. This duck shop is very in demand, so buyers have to line up to get their turn, I also line up in a long line of buyers. But there is something special when the waiter who knows me sees me in line, he comes over and asks what I want to order? after writing it down on paper, he asked me to wait and a moment later my order had arrived to eat. I am very happy, and always want to return because of this experience, prioritizing making our customers loyal to us.
Pleasing customers is a must-have for any budding businessman and turning it into a habit. If not, learn to make customers happy, because with them we build the future of the business . “Don’t just satisfy your customers — delight them … Anybody who has happy customers is likely to have a pretty good future” is a tip from Warren Buffett that a businessman who has happy customers is a businessman who has a bright future.
