Do Business Well

You have a brilliant idea and a huge market. You have started your business. Now how do you keep the show on the road?

It is not difficult to run a business. There are only a few very easy and basic rules to follow. A common mistake is to become overwhelmed by details in the beginning, preventing you from really getting off the ground. Remember, you can learn as you go along.

One of the most important reasons why people highlight the details is on business must appear “complete” and thus give as much information as possible. However, a large percentage of the information is not important in the early stages – often for the first few years.

I believe that my wife and I have successfully run a self- publishing concern in our spare time for four years without letterheads, business cards, fancy invoices or account sheets, a bookkeeper, a bookkeeping computer program and all the other things often say you need to start and run a business.

Lately our business has grown to such an extent that we do need many of the detailed aspects.

Out, we now have more spare time and money to worry about the detail than we had when we started out. When the business grows too big for us to handle, we’ll bring in people with specialised business and other skills to help us take it further.

Remember that business principles are simple. Aaron Searll, who probably owns the factory that made the clothes you are wearing now, says that he only became a self-made multimillionaire by keeping it simple and sticking to the basics. I summarise the basics as follows – be sure to follow them;

Keepeverybody satisfied, yourself, your customers, your partners, your employees and your suppliers. This is the so-called win-win situation which is part of the mission statement of all my ventures.

Be disciplined when working with money. Never spend more than you earn. Make sure that you know what you are spending and what you are earning! Always try to build up cash reserves.

Be innovative, never become complacent. New ideas will always put you in the lead and keep you there. This is also part of the mission statement of all my ventures.

Work hard. Have patience and you will be rewarde for your work.

Enjoy your business. You will only become very successful if you really enjoy your work Happiness is enjoying the journey towards success and not the success itself!

If applied, these basic rules will make your business successful; if not, you can expect disastrous results. The following examples should prove these points:

Know your customers and keep them satisfied. In 1988 the well-known British humour magazine Punch did exactly the opposite and ceased to exist after 151 years of publication. Since 1841 it had been pitched at middle-class, university-educated, well-heeled readers whose median age was around 40.

A new editorial board saw the huge potential profits in the younger market and tried to capture it. The result was that they missed both markets and turned annual profits of R5-million into losses of twice that amount.

The customer is king. All successful businesses are built on customer satisfaction. There is a saying that America’s economy is strong because the customer is king, but that the Japanese economy is even stronger because the customer is god.

If you want to know how well your business is doing ask your customer, not your accountant. The late Tony

Factor said he tried to treat the public well and in return they have always treated him very well.

Care for your employees. We had an interesting experience with a new freelance editor we employed for our publishing business. She expressed surprise at us paying her promptly after completing a first project for us. For her other projects she often has to wait for up to 60 days to get paid! Guess who she is going to help when there are many rushed jobs to complete?

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