Regardless of the current age or stage of your business, you will begin your journey with the SEEDLING stage. Revisiting your start ensures that you have a solid underpinning before you continue the work of growing the company.
A business is the most fragile at the SEEDLING STAGE.
We understand how small businesses succeed, why a great number fail and why a few thrive. They say only one in ten will survive, and that’s just the way it is. We don’t accept that.
WE CAN CHANGE THE ODDS
FOUR UNIVERSAL TRUTHS
To change the odds, each of us must have expert knowledge about four universal truths, which aren’t really a mystery. Every entrepreneur intuitively knows them – and those with a passion for growing a business spend their whole lives working to understand them. They also make sure that everyone in their company knows them too.
Know Yourself asks these questions:
- What am I good at?
- What do I care about?
- What do I want?
- When do I want it?
- How do I get it?
Knowing yourself is the source of your corporate identity.
Know Your Business asks these questions:
- What business are we in?
- How do we behave?
- What does the future look like?
- What are our roles?
- What are we responsible for?
- What are our goals?
- How do we achieve these?
Knowing your business is the source of your corporate energy.
Know Your Customer asks these questions:
- Who’s our customer?
- How do we find them?
- What are their needs?
- How much would they pay?
- How often will they pay?
- How many customers are there? (How big is the market?)
Knowing your customer is the source of your corporate power.
Know How You Make Money asks these questions:
- Does the industry have room for us?
- Can we disrupt the industry?
- How can we create a competitive advantage?
- What resources do we need?
- How will we fund them?
- What activities are required to offer the solution?
- Who do we need to hire?
- How much will all of this cost?
- Is it worth the effort?
Knowing how you make money is the source of your corporate success.
Starting out well means learning about yourself as a leader, understanding what business you’re in, learning about your customers and understanding how you make money.
Understanding these four axioms is what
sets the successful entrepreneurs apart. And it is what will set us apart
because we
all have the potential to become great entrepreneurs.
But in the words of Jack Stack (The
Great Game of Business):