Dinosaurs, Wind Farms & Let’s Twist Again

May 8, ’12 10:19 AM

Author Leonora Soculitherz Categories Business Books, Business Bootstrapping, Business Funding, Business Ideas, Business Marketing, Business Mentoring, Business Planning, Business Startup, Customer Service, Entrepreneur, Getting Things Done, SOHO/SMB/SME/Micro, Small Business / SOHO, Sole-Trader, Start-Up, Start-Up, be successful, do a reality check, not to do it!, start-up in business

Keep up won’t you – most websites that promote ‘how to successfully start and run your own business’ are sponsored by big companies and government bodies and written by people that are in jobs and have never started their own business. The advice is so yesterday. It is stuff from antiquity that belongs in a museum like my hopeless, but suitably ancient for a museum, agent – Tony Robinson OBE.

Most entrepreneurs I’ve met are looking for opportunities to make money all the time. If they followed the advice on these start up websites they wouldn’t just copy stuff and they’d be too late in getting the product or service to market and the opportunity would have gone.

Look at Loubi (Christian Louboutin to you), if he hadn’t read an article about a slashed out shoe with a red line, then thousands of rich women around the world wouldn’t have fallen off his killer heels to, legs in the air, show off his signature red soles.

Dear reader and fan, I want you to take a look at the mind of an entrepreneur. Let’s take one successful one, Stefan Topfer, Editor of this Small Business Blog and one unsuccessful one, the aforementioned aberration, Tony Robinson OBE. They have two things in common; they’re both badly dressed (fleeces – urgh) and they look for business opportunities all the time.

The Recycling Opportunity

So, yesterday, Robinson rang Topfer and the conversation went like this:

Robinson: I’ve just seen on the BBC News site that a scientist has proven that giant dinosaurs could have warmed the earth with their flatulence.
Topfer: Ja – I mean, so?
Robinson: Well, where is the equivalent place today where hundreds of dinosaurs, produce masses of hot air?
Topfer: In your House of Commons and House of Lords?
Robinson: Precisely and why will this supply of huge volumes of hot air continue ad infinitum?
Topfer: Would that be because it is mainly a boys club eating vast quantities of posh nosh provided by the City and the top 100 CEOs and one or two media moguls.
Robinson: Yeah that and their humongous expense accounts that they can spend on Big Macs and pasties. It makes you feel good to know that we can now recycle all that dinosaur fuel for the benefit of the people.
Topfer: Ja, I mean nein, I mean how?
Robinson: You’re fab at technology, do the math and turn Parliament into a massive great hot air heater channelling warmth into the council housing, parks, stations and shop doorways where those with no dosh to pay for heating live.

I won’t carry on – as Topfer told Robinson never to speak to him again. The point is that here are two dinosaurs discussing a business opportunity that utilises a source of natural energy that has been available for thousands of years. There’s nothing original here apart from the possible opportunity.

Stuff to ignore

So ignore the stuff on websites that is ‘conventional business guidance’. ‘How to come up with a great business idea?’, ‘How to pitch your idea to investors?’, ‘Getting finance’ ‘There’s a business in you’, ‘What needs to be in your business plan?’, ‘Get a mentor from a Bank or Corporate’ and ‘How to sell’. the enterprise essentials are much less complicated and far more common sense and natural than this guidance.

Most successful entrepreneurs that I’ve interviewed haven’t done any of the things that are regarded as ‘good business practice’. Most don’t like borrowing money, especially from banks. Their business planning is always in their head. Most of them are action rather than words people. They often copy and improve other people’s ideas and activities like crazy. The point is that time is money and opportunities come and go and they can’t be wasting time on this theoretical business stuff.

Instead, my advice to a start up, from my award winning series of entrepreneur interviews (see my book ‘Stripping for Freedom’) is:

Look for what customers want and are buying that you’d relish providing too.
Then, preferably by bootstrapping, check that you can afford to produce it as a product or service.
Then test market your product or service with its ‘twist’, like Louboutin’s red sole or, more likely, with an additional service that the competition aren’t providing.
Then from what you have learned launch your new business always remembering that you may need more products and services or even businesses to make the earnings you need to make.

Let’s Twist Again

This ‘copying and improving with a twist’ is important to the success of many entrepreneurs.

For example, the unique ‘twist’ that Stefan Topfer achieves with WinWeb is that he is absolutely passionate about beating the global competition not just by great cloud software and infrastructure but with exceptional customer service too. His customer service people are mentors. He’ll sack people that ‘sell’ his products and services as he believes in the customer buying what they choose that is absolutely right for them.

The great news is that everyone starting a business on their own can provide their own ‘twist’, a unique level of service, to support a product or service that customers already understand, want and need. Just get your offer out there as quickly as you can after testing it.

-Finis-

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Job vs. Your Own Business

Apr 5, ’12 5:20 AM

Author Stefan Töpfer (Editor) Categories Micro Business, start-up in business

People of my parent’s generation still had “jobs for life”, at least to me it seemed like most people had jobs for life. It was often equated to having a stable and secure life for yourself and your family.

Even if that was the reality then, jobs for life do not exist anymore today!

So here is the question I keep asking myself, what is the attraction of getting a job? Why not start your own business – even if you are only planning a micro-business, like becoming a freelancer?

The way I see it, you will work for more than one employer in your lifetime. You can do it in sequence or in parallel – that is really the only choice you have.

Start working for more than one company from day one is the best option. If one company ends your contract, you still have the others. You keep on building your network all your life, not for your employer, but for yourself.

Today – if you want a job for life, start your own business.

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We may have got the T shirt but it’s still to be earned.

Mar 28, ’12 7:32 PM

Author Tony Robinson OBE Categories Business Ideas, Business Marketing, Business Mentoring, Business Service Professional, Business Startup, Development, Development, Development, Entrepreneur, Getting Things Done, Marketing/PR, Micro Business, Small Business / SOHO, Small Business / SOHO, Small Business Support, Social Entrepreneur, be successful, do a reality check, grow your business, handle problems, market and sell, start-up in business

We don’t know what we don’t know

I always chuckle to myself when big companies that sponsor awards to start up and existing small business give, as part of the prize, mentoring or advice from a senior executive in their company. Perhaps it is no laughing matter.

Firstly, it’s arrogant to assume that starting and running a micro enterprise is so easy that someone without any experience of doing it, just because they’re a top corporate executive, can offer useful help. Start ups and micro enterprises are not boiled down versions of corporates!

Secondly, because the fledgling micro business owner doesn’t know what is good and what is bad support they could implement something that turns out to be the kiss of death to their business.

A colleague, Robert Craven, has just written a blog describing how a potential start up lost their redundancy money to unscrupulous ‘support’ providers. How were they to know that they were being conned? One of the reasons we founded the Enterprise Rockers movement is that we felt that a massive community, ‘the power of plenty’, of micro business owners could be self sufficient and we could sort out the wheat from the chaff.

It is important that we do sort out what’s good and valuable from the vultures and the ‘well intentioned but dangerous’. The right micro business to micro business support will lead to 80% of start ups surviving over 3 years with 6% becoming substantial, employing businesses. Essential enterprise skills and know how make all the difference to success. So, it is worth seeking help.

We should encourage prospective and existing business owners to continue to learn and to continue to seek support.

We never know all about enterprise

Twenty four years ago when my business partner, Clare Francis, and I were nearly two years into our business we learned something that saved us from the scrap heap. It was incredibly simple and it was learned by watching videos of our influencing, selling and presenting.

Not only was our product and service offer usually wrong we were often presenting offers without having really found out what our potential clients wanted. Frankly we were desperate to make a sale and no-one wants to buy from people as desperate as we were. We weren’t unskilled. We’d both done postgraduate business courses and we’d both been at Director level in UK subsidiaries of American multinationals. We’d been superbly trained but not on how to start and succeed in our own business.

What I learned this week-end

This week-end I was at the FSB Annual Conference in Scarborough. On top of my membership fee I paid another £100 to participate in the events during the day. My prediction is that these two days were worth thousands of pounds to me in future earnings and hundreds of hours saved of wasted effort.

The three things I learned were:

1. How to improve my use of Linked In so that I can influence someone I wish to make contact with to speak to me. I learned this from the brilliant presentation of Andy Lopata.

2. How it may be worth resetting your goals in a different way if you get stuck in a rut and are not improving your performance. I learned this from the inspirational Roger Black, former Olympic silver medallist, who got silver by focussing on running his perfect race rather than seeking to beat his competitors.

3. This third one is a bit of a cheat because I didn’t learn this at the Conference. On the Saturday lunchtime, co-founder of Enterprise Rockers, Tina Boden, and I met the supremely wise, Andy Peers. Andy is one of the foremost experts in setting up and running social enterprises. I’m certain that everything he advised Tina and I to do will mean we do get over 500,000 micro business owners in our Enterprise Rockers movement. We will make Britain a fairer and better place for micro enterprise.

So, maybe we ‘get the Enterprise T shirt’ for having started and run our own business, but we never truly have fully earned it. That’s because we must keep learning from others and seeking the right kind of support in order to survive and thrive. .

It’s motivating and good fun too. Keep learning.

———- ENDS ———-

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The Real Deal – Don’t Accept Anything Less

Mar 19, ’12 8:55 PM

Author Tony Robinson OBE Categories Business Funding, Business Ideas, Business Marketing, Business Startup, Finance, Freelancer, Getting Things Done, Reader Stories, SOHO/SMB/SME/Micro, Self-employed, Small Business / SOHO, Start-Up, be successful, do a reality check, market and sell, plan your business, start-up in business, start-up in business

Entrepreneur Conferences need a business health warning.

November and March are always the biggest months for Enterprise and Entrepreneurship conferences. Last week, I was lucky enough to be in Liverpool for the Global Entrepreneurship Congress. Last year it was in Dubai and next year it’s in Rio de Janeiro so we were lucky to have it in the UK. Liverpool is awesome, as is the Beatles Story, but I’m afraid the Congress didn’t float my boat. However, I did learn something important, for start up success, that I’d like to pass on.

On jumping into the taxi to take me to Lime Street station from my hotel I said to the taxi driver ‘Heck you were quick, you surprised me’. To which the taxi driver said ‘That’s what my wife says’. I laughed and it was a fab trip to the station and the taxi driver certainly earned his tip for cheering me up and educating me about all the new exciting development in Liverpool. That Liverpool taxi driver was the real deal. Everything you hope a taxi driver will be and that comes from real experience of handling hundreds of fares.

Intrepreneurs ain’t entrepreneurs

However, many of the speakers at the Congress weren’t. The reason they weren’t is they were people with monthly salaries in jobs. They were passing on what they think is important to be a successful entrepreneur. But really they were still just successful people in jobs not the real deal entrepreneur/enterprise owner. That’s different. They have budgets and functions and staff – it takes quite a bit o success before a start up gets any of these. They hadn’t taken a risk, on their own, with their own money to start and run their own enterprise. Only those that have are the real deal and can new starts authentic advice.

It’s simpler than they make out

The problem is they were magnetic, interesting people and you could tell why they’d got to the top and why peers might regard them as great leaders and entrepreneurs but what they were saying was dangerous. Indeed it is safer if prospective enterprise owners ignore their advice – difficult I know – because they’ll overcomplicate things for you and over-complication usually leads to very expensive ways of doing business.

Sir Richard Branson and Lord Sugar, despite their many critics, are definitely the real deal and although they’re now at the top of large organisations they haven’t forgotten what it is to start your own enterprise. Hearing from them is a reality check. Some things they said that show they are still totally in touch with practical realities. Branson is in favour of student type loans for start ups, and so am I. The difference between him and many of the other speakers is that he says, something like ‘it doesn’t take much money to start a business’.

Lord Sugar says something similar when he advises start ups that a good tip is to ‘work out how you’re going to make the salary you need in your first week of trading’. They know the value of a £pound and they see a few £thousand as a significant investment. Many bank advisers aren’t interested in loans under £50,000. Yet you or I investing £500 in our start up enterprise will be regarded as a serious entrepreneur by anyone who has started their own business.

Enterprise isn’t complex and it’s about your ability to sell products and services. It is not about leadership, business planning, strategy and pitching to investors.

Multiple income streams and test trading

Two weeks earlier I’d been in Leeds City library at an event for people thinking of starting their own business. Apart from my wonderful co-founder of the Enterprise Rockers, Tina Boden, the speakers made setting up and promoting your own business sound very complex. Why? Because all of them were speaking at the event for free. They hoped that the delegates might seek them out afterwards and pay them for their advice. If they made starting up sound easy no-one would pay them to help them. Again, advisers are not always the real deal.

What was disturbing were the number of people I spoke to that after listening to advice from the stage thought they had to work one business idea into a serious business plan and then get the finance to fund their plan. Two people I spoke to were very relieved to hear from me that you should test as many ideas as you can.

In fact testing is more important than planning. Certainly you can start with more than one product or service and can have multiple ways of making money. You may even choose to have money from a part time job or freelancing to help you in the early months.

Happiness is more than one egg in the basket

One person I spoke to went away happy that he could start, virtually the next day, seeing if he could make some money from both landscape gardening and making bicycles easier to ride by perfect fitting and alignment. He had been trained in law and was very confident at writing and was even more pleased that he could blog about totally different subjects and lead prospective clients to two very different websites.

The big lesson to me from all this is that real entrepreneurs that have started and run their own business know that the focus is on what can I sell, to whom, by when in order to start earning my living through my busness. That’s the real deal.

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8 Top Tips for Start-Ups

Jan 11, ’12 8:09 PM

Author Lorraine Allman Categories Business Startup, Micro Business, Small Business / SOHO, Start-Up, Start-Up, start-up in business, start-up in business

January is perhaps unsurprisingly one of the busiest months of the year to start up a business, yet the statistics on survival rates continue to make shocking news. For example in 2010 297,000 UK businesses went bust, equivalent to more than 1,170 every working day. Further research shows that less than 50% of companies established in 2005 were still trading at the close of 2009. (source)

So what measures can you put in place to avoid being a negative statistic, giving your business a better chance of doing more than just surviving?

Do your research Yes, I know it sounds boring but researching at least the basics about your market (e.g. trends, scale), target groups (where they spend their money and time), and competitors is essential to inform the rest of your business plan.

How are you helping the market? For most businesses to succeed you need to have a pretty clear idea about what problem your business is providing a solution for and/or what need you are meeting. If you’re thinking of entering an already busy market, consider how you’re going to differentiate your business from competitors. What are you going to do that’s better?

Keep listening and talking to customers This sounds obvious but it’s surprising particularly during the early years how we can be so focused on getting the business off the ground, learning the ropes and managing day-to-day that we forget the most basic of requirements for a successful business to listen to and talk with your customers. Create an authentic and meaningful relationship with them to engender loyalty and make sure you’re meeting their often changing needs.

Don’t take everything on yourself Easy to do in the early days when money is often scarce, but take a long, hard, and honest look at your skillset and time available. Consider outsourcing anything you’re not so good at. Doing your accounts is an obvious one (particularly if you’re Limited company) but help with administration or sales could be equally valuable. Ensure your network of colleagues complements your own skills and knowledge and don’t forget to keep an eye out for collaborative opportunities with complementary businesses – so much more can be achieved with a collaborative effort

Avoid starting with debt Being under-capitalised is one of the key reasons why businesses can fail. If your cash flow is poor to start with you could face an uphill struggle making the figures stack up. If you’ve done the figures and are short of money to start up take a look at some of the alternative funding sources such as crowdfunding (I’ll be writing a blog about this very soon) or even for small amounts your local credit union.

Find a mentor Many new initiatives that have started in the last year encouraging start-ups and existing businesses to find and benefit from a mentor. Some of these are volunteers and others charge a fee. Recent evidence suggests 70% of mentored small businesses survive longer than 5 years (double the number of non-mentored enterprises) so finding a mentor or coach isn’t really an option anymore, it’s essential.

Consider finding a Non-Executive Director This option isn’t for everyone however if you have genuine aspirations to grow your company quickly but need investment and skills to do that, you may want to consider finding an Investing Non-Exec. Once the domain of large corporations, an increasing number of start-ups are now choosing this route to add credibility to their management team as well as much needed funds and contacts. You can read more about this with some case studies here.

Test-trade or work 5-9 Thousands of people right now are holding down full-time jobs whilst starting a business of their own. They do this by working what is commonly referred to as the ‘5-9’ shift although in reality of course the hours are much longer! Test trading in a small way and/or working 5-9 can be an excellent way to find out a) whether you’re suited to being self-employed (it really isn’t for everyone despite what you may hear others say!) and b) help you determine basic information such as whether there really is a market for your business and if so how much people will be prepared to pay for your product/service.

Whatever your situation and whatever you decide to do, I wish you every success in 2012 and beyond.

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The Best Biz Mentors Can Be A Tad Crazy

Nov 23, ’11 2:30 PM

Author Tony Robinson OBE Categories Business Ideas, Business Mentoring, Business Startup, Business Trends, Entrepreneur, Getting Things Done, Home Business, Micro Business, MumEntrepreneur, News, Personal Business, SOHO/SMB/SME/Micro, Self-employed, Sole-Trader, Start-Up, be successful, grow your business, start-up in business

My Dad

I reckon my first business mentor was my Dad. He started his own business, working from home, because, like many people I know, it was the best way of earning a living. His health was very poor so he had to pack in his job. In the five years between me being 13 and 18, when he died, he built a very big business. It was always a micro business, like 95% of the businesses today in the UK.

It became big in income but never had more than six employees. It was a sales agency in the wooden box and pallets industry. Many years later, when I started my own business, I realised that nearly everything useful that I’d learned about enterprise had come from my Dad as my business mentor.

He was an unlikely ace business mentor. My Dad left school at 14, picked everything up as he’d gone along, and was a complete eccentric, a showman and a storyteller who instinctively turned anything formal into a party. At football, Hull City, he had a seat just behind the Directors’ box so that he could hurl abuse and one-liners at them from start to finish. I wouldn’t sit with him.

Corporate Crackers

The point is that what I’d learned in Senior Management, even Managing Director, at two major American multinationals didn’t help me much in my own business. This was despite having received the very best business training and completed two Post Graduate Diplomas in HR Management and Business Administration. All this was next to useless in my own micro business as against the valuable help I gained from my mentors.

My business partner of twenty five years, Clare, felt the same thing. She hadn’t realised it at the time but her corporate jobs and training hadn’t prepared her for running her own business but what she’d learned from her Dad, who had his own property business, was invaluable.

No surprise then that we decided to have a mentor, another micro business owner, for our first couple of years in business. We gave him our corporate contacts and in return he asked us wise questions which stopped us doing many of the foolish things we were about to do. No money exchanged hands although a heck of a lot of money went behind the bar during our, frequently scheduled, mentoring sessions.

Sitting or Standing Up Mentors?

One of the many theories I have, which perversely academic research and government policy has yet to pick up on, is that if you’ve got a primarily ‘standing up’ business you’re best to have a mentor that has a ‘standing up’ business too. ‘Standing up’ businesses would include most building trades, cafes, shops, blues bands, chocolate makers, ice cream makers and micro-breweries.

Similarly if you’re in a ‘sitting down in an office’ type business then choose ‘a sitting down in an office’ type mentor. I’m definitely not saying only get a mentor from a similar trade or industry, only government and BigBiz think in sectors, but do get someone who really understands what you have to do each day.

Oh and beware of men in suits if you’ve got a ‘standing up’ business’ or you’re a woman. I’m sure there are exceptions to these rules of mine for choosing a mentor but there won’t be many.

Sir Jimmy Fixed It for Us Every Day

Wrestler, DJ, marathon runner, TV presenter, volunteer hospital porter and the greatest charity fund raiser of all time, Sir Jimmy Savile, died recently. He was buried in Scarborough, where I live. Thousands turned out to acknowledge his real achievements for the people of Britain both at his service in Leeds and his burial in Scarborough. He was truly a man of the people, an inspiration to many of us, and the very same person on the telly as he was in the cafes and streets of Scarborough.

He made us feel better about life and he genuinely helped many thousands of people through adversity. He was eccentric to the last. He was buried in one of his trademark track suits, in a gold coloured coffin placed at an angle in the grave, so that he ‘could see the sea’. He was also a highly successful micro business owner, millionaire and a cracking volunteer biz and personal mentor.

Two of his proudest possessions were on his mantelpiece in his Scarborough flat. They were individual letters from Princess Di and Prince Charles thanking him for his help to them, as an informal mentor.

Lots of my business owner friends seem a bit crazy. The craziness is often just appearance and behaviour that shows we’re our own boss with our own values, passion and beliefs. Some can wrongly view this, like Sir Jimmy Savile was viewed, as not professional or not to be taken seriously. We are passionate about what we do and it’s bloody hard work doing it but we can be very useful business mentors too.

Get Mentoring

My businesses have benefited a great deal from the handful of business mentors I’ve had down the years. Most of the mentoring I’ve had is over the phone or nowadays by Skype. I usually contact my mentor when I’ve got a problem or see an opportunity that I want to talk through before taking a decision. I’ve also had a great time and learned a lot as a mentor to others. I have had some training on being a better mentor and I’m going to do some more shortly.

There are lots of places around at the moment where you can find a mentor or get some training to become a better mentor yourself. One such place is the Institute of Enterprise and Entrepreneurs, which I help run, and you can find out more here about Get Mentoring – free mentor training and free mentors.

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November – A Chance to get out there!

Nov 9, ’11 9:22 AM

Author Stuart Anderson Categories Business Funding, Business Marketing, Start-Up, start-up in business, start-up in business

How did it get to November? Already I am being inundated with pictures of friends of mine growing their ‘Movember‘ moustache for charity, a sure sign that the year is marching on!

November is a key time in the calendar of those involved in supporting small businesses and start ups in the UK, and there are some great events worth looking out for if you are an aspiring entrepreneur. I am biased of course, but kicking things of for Global Entrepreneurship Week (14-20 Nov) is the fabulous Shell LiveWIRE LIVE! event and awards ceremony for the Shell LiveWIRE Young Entrepreneur of the Year 2011- have a look at the finalists if you have a moment, some great young people with some great ideas. We bring together around 200 entrepreneurs and speakers to mix things up and get people thinking about starting and running businesses. For my money, at this stage in a businesses life, one of the most single most important things is to get out networking and forge friendships and alliances that will help you in the future. It is vital that entrepreneurs starting out get their name out there, and test ideas by talking to other people- gaining important feedback along the way and refining ideas. The only people who can give you feedback about your ideas are other people! It sounds obvious (and it is!), but people forget this all the time.

This leads nicely onto awards… Awards are a great mechanism to gain exactly the same- recognition and feedback. If I look at some of the followup sound bites and feedback from people who have won one of the monthly awards at Shell LiveWIRE, two things always appear in the feedback- Profile and Confidence. Often when people apply for an award, they are just thinking of the prize at the end, but there is so much more to applying than first meets the eye;

1) Awards are a chance to test ideas. Fundamentally, awards can be used to test your thinking to an independent panel of judges. Most awards will give you feedback on the application- and if they don’t they should do, as it is a key part of the process. There are now hundreds of awards for businesses in the UK, and yes, winning funding is great- but the experience (through the process of applying) and profile that is gained from getting involved is vital.

2) Awards are a tool to give you profile. Even if you don’t win, way before that, you should be going straight to the press getting an article in the paper to say you are in the running. Probably one of the single most important things when in the early stages of business is profile- how do people buy your goods if they don’t know you are there?

My advice at this time of year is to get out there and see what events are near you- more importantly offer to help or speak at some of the events- Profile is everything, and there are some great opportunities- have a look at www.gew.org.uk to see what events there are during GEW week.

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Micro Business vs Job

Jun 15, ’11 5:27 AM

Author Stefan Töpfer (Editor) Categories How to ..., Micro Business, start-up in business

Job security is a thing of the past, no ifs & buts, it is. Why then are still so many hell bend on getting a job in a company?

Here are a couple of things to consider when considering your future:

☺ Income Security: You lose your job, you lost it all. You lose a client you still have the others left.

☺ Job Satisfaction: Plan you business well, do the things you enjoy and you will be good at what you do, bringing you even more clients thru word of mouth.

☺ Travel Time: Work from home, or use co-working spaces near by – cutting you unproductive time every day of your life and helping the environment.

☺ Life Balance: Be the master of your time, work when you want, play when you want – be part of your family.

☺ Higher Earnings: You will most likely earn more money when you have more than only one “client” (employer).

☺ Collaborate: Work with other micro business, freelancers and build your own eco-system for new orders, new clients, bigger orders and so on. Your micro-business co-workers recommend you as you recommend them for work in your or their specialized fields.

While I know it seems a scary prospect for many to run your own business – large or small – I’m sure it’ll be the best thing you have ever done.

If you are reading this, you are thinking about it – good for you.

Share your stories & comments with us on our facebook page!

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