Too often I am asked if there is a silver bullet for a start-up, something that you can simply put in your entrepreneurial pistol and fire a bull's eye with. And while nothing on its own can determine your new company's success, I believe one thing counts more than others.
There's a true story about a lady who runs a successful hair salon in Constantia – all her clients are wealthy and she's only ever done one good bit of marketing, which is still ongoing since she started it. Let's call her Linda.
Linda started very small and knew she had to get her client base up and increase her audience – somehow. She also noticed that her best clients were those that drove BMW and Mercedes Benz cars. It was her dream to get more of those. She spoke to them and they all mentioned their cars and how they enjoyed them.
So she picked up the phone and called BMW, and asked them if they would allow her to put a free salon voucher in newly sold BMWs or those coming in for a service. Sure, she was told, but you've got to make it something big, like a basket of flowers and fruit, together with your voucher. Oh, and we're not paying a cent – the cost must be yours.
So, for a few minutes, Linda sat back and thought. Over the next week, she made it a point to speak to flower and gift stores, and built up a network of contacts. Then one day it hit her, and she quickly phoned flower shops and fruit basket shops and asked whether they wanted their products marketed in every new BMW sold in Cape Town! They would have to pay, but they would get great exposure. You get the drift already… Linda got her salon's marketing brochures, together with lovely flowers and fruit baskets, in every new Merc and BMW sold in Cape Town, all for free.
That story has so many lessons in it. The fact is, you can accomplish everything you want in business by getting in touch with the right people. Some call it networking, some say it is the "who you know" of your career, but I disagree with all these buzzwords. A business friend of mine in Russia used to say often: "Your most valuable thing is your partners." So, let's simply call it your "relationships".
And if there's a silver bullet to entrepreneurship, as in other parts of life, it's how you connect and nurture those relationships. Notice how I say it's how you connect them – Linda's story shows that she saw a unique way to connect people to achieve a mutually beneficial goal. That's what business is all about.
Honing your skills
Networking is an age old talent that some just have and others work hard at. But to master it as an entrepreneur, one needs to learn how to connect those people you have business relationships with.
Imagine you are starting a website that sells clothing – you are a passionate fashionista and have had the dream of doing this for ages. Well, what have you been doing all this time? Hopefully, getting in touch and connecting with many people in your industry, to the point that when you now want to get going with your website, you have the following relationships in place: a designer for your website, a developer/programmer to build it and many relationships with clothing makers and manufacturers, as well as a delivery company. Some of these you will have to pay for, but some will gladly do the work for a share of your business – the golden way to starting a company: sweat equity.
Recently, I was challenged to build a complex technical solution for the retail market in South Africa, involving hardware rollouts into many stores across South Africa. To pay for this would cost a fortune, but instead I spent two months increasing my network in the right places, attending the right conferences and phoning the right people until I had secured a technology company to build the solution, and another to commit to the installations. I more than gladly parted with a share of my company for their involvement – each is the number one in their field.
A natural trait
I've seen great entrepreneurs in action, and they're always connecting people and telling others who they need to speak to to get something off the ground. This is something quite native about the entrepreneurial way, helping others to achieve their goals, and in turn receiving the same from your contacts.
So take a lesson from the experts out there – networking is not the ultimate silver bullet to start your business. It's how you blend the relationships you have built up, and howyou guidethose newly formed teams on the start-up you have.
How you connect people in your mind will also improve how you build connections to create better business ideas. It is definitely something you can learn, a good skill that adds volumes to both your personality and the way you interact with people in business. And in my opinion, the key factor in how successful your company will be in lifting off the ground.
Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device
No comments:
Post a Comment