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Are you a small-business owner? Do you want to find a way to grow and become big?
Entrepreneurs seem to have one thing in common – they all want to make more money.
Here are 5 things you should avoid if you want to grow:
- Do not hire a consultant to tell you what to do. Consultants may be good for corporations. But a consultant cannot know what you are capable of. Knowing your own capability is a key ingredient of a good strategy. What’s good for A may not be good for you. Even if you plan to hire a consultant only to evaluate your strategic options, the problem in new ventures is not just evaluating the space – it is evaluating you and what you can do in that space. An emerging industry is a murky free-for-all until someone emerges as a leader. And no one can forecast how you will do because your capacity is not an open book. As I have noted before, more than 10 VCs rejected Steve Jobs and he just may have been the greatest entrepreneur of the VC age.
- Do not spend money on advertising if you don’t have proof that it works. I have met many entrepreneurs who think that all they have to do is raise more money, use the money to promote the product or service, and the sales will come. When asked for proof that the marketing strategy would work, it was evident that most were just guessing and hoping. Instinct can deceive. Ask any gambler.
- Do not expand before understanding why you have succeeded to-date. And which market loves you – and why. Then expand.
- Do not get VC and cede control. After you have proven your strategy and your leadership, VCs are likely to finance your venture and not demand that you relinquish the CEO’s seat. If VCs are allowed to hire a new CEO, you are placing your fate in someone else’s hand. May not be the smartest move for you. Again, ask Steve Jobs.
- Do not hire a whiz who promises success. No one can promise success. Let him/ her prove it to you before you bet the farm. Be a cynic. Tom Auth built ITI, a pioneer in the wireless electronic industry and a part of our portfolio, into a dominant company. His rule was to hire key potential team members as consultants so they could evaluate each other before coming on board.
Here are 6 skills that will help you grow:
- Get the skills to find the right emerging trend or emerging technology for you. More than 90 percent of billion-dollar entrepreneurs grew with a trend or technology. Emerging technologies create trends and new industries. The Internet is the granddaddy of emerging technologies – more than two decades after its introduction. Now it is disrupting established industries. To find growth, this should be your first job – find a trend to focus, or re-focus, on. It is usually easier to grow in an emerging trend than by taking market share from strong competitors. Steve Ells focused on the organic food trend. Zuckerberg and most of the Silicon Valley billion-dollar entrepreneurs focused on the Internet.
- Get the technical skills to succeed in the new trend or technology. New trends and technologies need new skills. Learning new skills may be difficult, but you may need to know enough to hire the right person and make sure they are doing the right thing. Entrepreneurs from Walton to Gates and Zuckerberg succeeded because they had the right skills in an emerging trend.
- Get the skills to sell in the new trend or sell the new tech. Your old sales skills may be becoming obsolete. How do new companies sell? Can you copy them and do better? Bezos has become the richest person in the universe by learning how to sell books, and everything else, on the Internet.
- Get the skills to become finance smart. Become finance smart to be able to grow more with less. That’s how Sam Walton built Walmart with $25,000.
- Get the skills to find your strategic advantage in the emerging trend or emerging technology. This is where you will have to find the right market to focus on, and the right product or service that make your target market happier.
- Get the skills to execute on the new trend. Putting it all together in real time and dominating is a key skill of billion-dollar entrepreneurs. Learn this skill.
MY TAKE: Finding new growth is difficult because you have to do new things. But if you want to grow, you may not have a choice. And no one can tell you the magic formula to grow in an emerging trend or emerging industry. How do they know?
