If you are thinking of moving from working for someone else and starting your own business, I suggest you use this outline to plan your new venture. You might just avoid the pitfalls that many new business owners fall into. When you are ready to take the plunge, you might want to sign up for my Trades Coach Academy, online course for newer business owners. It’s packed with ideas, systems, tools and templates to help make your new business a success.
No company can be successsful today if it tries to be all things to all people.
Rather, the most successful companies – the Market Leaders – select a unique value that they endeavour to deliver to their chosen market segment better than anywone else.
So says Michael Treacy and Fred Wiersema in their book The Discipline of Market Leaders which I read over summer. If you are really wanting to choose an over-arching strategy to set your company apart in the marketplace, this book might be a good place to start.
Do you have your family home in a trust?
The building industry is a risky one. The chances of you getting into financial or legal problems are higher in the building trade than in most other businesses. I am not saying that will happen to you, but in view of the higher risk profile you should take all the necessary steps you can to protect yourself and your family. That includes putting your family home into a trust.
No company can be successful today if it attempts to be all things to all consumers. Rather, the most successful companies — the Market Leaders — select a unique value that they alone deliver to their chosen market better than anyone else.
The big question is, “where will you focus your business’s Vision and Value Discipline for the future?” Pick one corner of the Value Discipline triangle and make it your anchor point, then develop your business processes to deliver on it. Read on to find out more about the different value Disciplines.
Last week I ran a planning and goal setting workshop for clients and other contacts on my database. This time of year is traditionally the time where we as business owners take stock of recent results and direction, and think about what the coming year could look like. At least many do and I hope you are one of them.
So, does your business serve you and your life, or are you more of a slave to the business and you get what energy (and money) is left over?
In 1998, Kodak had 170,000 employees and sold 85% of all photo paper worldwide. Within just a few years, their business model disappeared and they were bankrupt. What happened to Kodak will happen in a lot of industries in the next 10 years – and most people don’t see it coming.
How will you look to adapt your business to take advantage of the opportunities that will come up?
Could we see news headlines like this in a few years? Hard to believe with the current state of the construction industry, but we all know it is a cyclical business and for every upswing, there is a downswing.
Here we are; the start of a new year. Have you set some New Year resolutions yet? By any chance are they somewhat of a carbon copy of last years resolutions that you didn’t quite achieve? Why is that? Why do so many NY resolutions end up on the back burner and never get delivered…
The Ministry of Business, Innovation & Employment has just released it’s 3rd Construction Pipeline report for the next five years in New Zealand. Have you read it and considered what it means for your company? There is no doubt that the value of construction is set to stay at high levels over the next few…
It is normal to have to work hard and put in the hours when starting out on your business ownership journey. What is often also normal, but unnecessary, is for the long hours to continue after years of business ownership. It almost becomes a habit. One becomes conditioned to long hours in the office at…