Friday, July 21, 2006
Does Your Business Draw From Your Strengths?
Imagine you've just been challenged to an old-time duel. If you accept the challenge, your life will be on the line. This is nothing to take lightly!
As the one who was challenged, you have the choice of weapons. What weapon do you choose?
The outcome of the duel is dependent on how skillfully you can wield that weapon. Do you choose one that you are expert in? Or do you choose one that you've always been kinda interested in and think it would be cool to try?
You choose the weapon you're best with, of course! What kind of idiot would go into a crucial situation with something they knew nothing about?
Yet when it comes to starting a business, many new business owners go in with an "anything will do" attitude. Maybe the fact that starting a business is new to us leads us to believe that the subject of our business should be new to us, too.
The fact is, though, that you have the best choice of success when you choose something you already have some expertise in. Learning how to run a business will be challenging enough without adding to it the burden of learning an entire new field of interest, too.
Your ideal business is not what everybody else is doing. Your ideal business leverages your unique experiences and skills to create a business that no one else ever could.
I've written a couple times about Rich Schefren's insights into starting a business. He's started several with remarkable success. And he's always leveraged his strengths in every business he started.
He took over a failing clothing store when he was fresh out of college and turned it into a roaring success. How? He took his knowledge of what people his age liked and repositioned the store to appeal specifically to that niche.
His competitors? Those stores were run by stodgy middle-aged men who were merely guessing at what that age group wanted. Rich KNEW, and this strength gave his business a huge advantage.
He next took over a small hypnosis clinic and turned it into a big franchise operation with offices all over New York. How did he do this?
He entered a market where he saw that the existing business owners viewed running the business end of things as a distasteful necessity. He then brought the business know-how he had gained from his clothing store and used that to out-advertise, out-position, and out-maneuver them all.
He's done this again and again. He never starts a business without first finding a way in which he will have an advantage that lets him dominate the field.
So how do you do the same? First, avoid the thinking that plagues most new business owners. You don't need to copycat what "everybody else is doing." Don't automatically think that running a business involves having a web store that sells generic gifts or electronics or whatever.
Thousands of small-time gift or electronics shops sit abandoned on the Web, their owners having given up. They found they couldn't siphon off the customers from the sites that knew their field much better than they did.
Second, take a good look at your strengths. What do people tell you you're good at?
We often downplay our strengths because they come so naturally to us. But your strengths are what give you the best chance of succeeding.
Third, think creatively. Look for markets where nobody is currently leveraging those strengths that you have. Then use those strengths to offer customers something better than your competitors do.
What about if you already have an existing business? Look for ways that you can apply your strengths in ways that reposition that business to draw from them.
The last thing you want to do when entering a life-or-death duel is to choose a weapon you have no experience with. Similarly, the last thing you want to do when creating a business on which you place your financial security is to choose a business model where you have no strengths to distinguish you from your competitors.
Take a look at yourself and find your strengths. And be prepared for a pleasant surprise.
Jeff
Imagine you've just been challenged to an old-time duel. If you accept the challenge, your life will be on the line. This is nothing to take lightly!
As the one who was challenged, you have the choice of weapons. What weapon do you choose?
The outcome of the duel is dependent on how skillfully you can wield that weapon. Do you choose one that you are expert in? Or do you choose one that you've always been kinda interested in and think it would be cool to try?
You choose the weapon you're best with, of course! What kind of idiot would go into a crucial situation with something they knew nothing about?
Yet when it comes to starting a business, many new business owners go in with an "anything will do" attitude. Maybe the fact that starting a business is new to us leads us to believe that the subject of our business should be new to us, too.
The fact is, though, that you have the best choice of success when you choose something you already have some expertise in. Learning how to run a business will be challenging enough without adding to it the burden of learning an entire new field of interest, too.
Your ideal business is not what everybody else is doing. Your ideal business leverages your unique experiences and skills to create a business that no one else ever could.
I've written a couple times about Rich Schefren's insights into starting a business. He's started several with remarkable success. And he's always leveraged his strengths in every business he started.
He took over a failing clothing store when he was fresh out of college and turned it into a roaring success. How? He took his knowledge of what people his age liked and repositioned the store to appeal specifically to that niche.
His competitors? Those stores were run by stodgy middle-aged men who were merely guessing at what that age group wanted. Rich KNEW, and this strength gave his business a huge advantage.
He next took over a small hypnosis clinic and turned it into a big franchise operation with offices all over New York. How did he do this?
He entered a market where he saw that the existing business owners viewed running the business end of things as a distasteful necessity. He then brought the business know-how he had gained from his clothing store and used that to out-advertise, out-position, and out-maneuver them all.
He's done this again and again. He never starts a business without first finding a way in which he will have an advantage that lets him dominate the field.
So how do you do the same? First, avoid the thinking that plagues most new business owners. You don't need to copycat what "everybody else is doing." Don't automatically think that running a business involves having a web store that sells generic gifts or electronics or whatever.
Thousands of small-time gift or electronics shops sit abandoned on the Web, their owners having given up. They found they couldn't siphon off the customers from the sites that knew their field much better than they did.
Second, take a good look at your strengths. What do people tell you you're good at?
We often downplay our strengths because they come so naturally to us. But your strengths are what give you the best chance of succeeding.
Third, think creatively. Look for markets where nobody is currently leveraging those strengths that you have. Then use those strengths to offer customers something better than your competitors do.
What about if you already have an existing business? Look for ways that you can apply your strengths in ways that reposition that business to draw from them.
The last thing you want to do when entering a life-or-death duel is to choose a weapon you have no experience with. Similarly, the last thing you want to do when creating a business on which you place your financial security is to choose a business model where you have no strengths to distinguish you from your competitors.
Take a look at yourself and find your strengths. And be prepared for a pleasant surprise.
Jeff
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