An Entrepreneur’s Journey

Spoken to someone whom is preparing for a new business. She shared her idea which is viable however she overlook one point. She didn’t know who her target is. She thought she could sell to everyone. Well, who doesn’t want to if we could sell to everyone. But like any experience entrepreneurs, I know it is not possible.

Even if you have a super duper product, still not everyone will want it. My point is you can’t sell to everyone. So what should you do?

Since only some people will be interested in your whatever products you are selling, then go look for these people. Tapping into 1% of the population is good enough in creating wealth for yourself.

To be successful in your sales, find out who are those whom are interested in what you are selling. Remember you can’t convert everyone.

Let’s discuss just one method to help build your business. It is so simple that you may not believe that it is so simple. So what is it?

Simply by telling others that you are good at doing one thing and one thing alone. Your customer are just like any human being, they want to the best for themselves. They want to know that those who are helping them solve their problems are good and reliable business people.

So it comes down to consistency. Keep telling people the same thing on what you do, even if you may have expanded your business, industry or service. You want others to have an image or perception of you being the figure in your industry.

Your customer also wants to know that the people they are dealing with are experience and knowledgeable enough to help them. Don’t be shy to announce to the world how you can help them.

Some of my friends have moved from industry to industry, business to business - business hopping. They have this idea of if it doesn’t work in 3 - 6 months, then it’s not going to work. In the end they achieve nothing, they lose their credibility, no one trust them.

You may have several businesses, still just promote your core business. Once they get a chance to know you better, then you can share about your remaining business.

Now there’s a catch to just telling people that you are good at doing one thing. That is you must be really good. Well, at least you must be improving all the time.

Keep doing what you are good at, very soon people will start knocking at your door.

Becoming successful, wealthy is a long journey. It’s not necessarily a tough journey, it can be an easy one. Certainly you want to have a successful business or achieve financial freedom as early as possible.

One of the way to achieve your success in the earliest time possible is to practice the principle of LEVERAGE. So, leverage on what? In this post, let’s discuss - leverage on other’s experience.

Find someone who has done it before to guide you in your success journey. This person has been through the pitfalls of the journey, to be able to leverage on his experience, you are able to avoid them, thus speed up your success journey.

The easiest way is to read their books or listen to their audio book if they have any. This is the cheapest form of investment. I invested a lot of my time in reading. It helps me get into the brains of all these successful people, learning about how they succeed, what are their secrets to success. Secrets of Self Made Millionaire is one book I read it twice to get the juice out of the book.

Another effective way is to attend talks, seminars and workshop run by these people. There are many of these success gurus, and their courses don’t come cheap, but most of the time the values I got out of the course worth every single cent. You realize I used some of the time, because some are craps.

The final method we are discussing today is to give these people a call; buy them lunch, ask for an hour of their time etc. Get to talk to them in a private session. If possible, get them to be your mentor. Getting them on board will shorten your learning curve by at least 5 years. I have been actively looking for mentors to guide me. By talking to them for an hour, it always gives me insight on my own journey.

Over the years, I had a few mentors who had supported me. It helps me grow in a tremendous rate. When I look back my life to where I started, I saw a huge transformation. I am glad I took this path, I never regret make that decision to start my business 5 years ago.

How do you win a competition? How do you build a great business? How do you achieve success? CONSISTENCY maybe!!??

Life is actually a marathon, it was never a sprint. A sprint means a burst of speed for a short distance, achieving a great timing in that short distance but burned up all the energy, thus unable to go for another run anymore.

To achieve success, you can’t do a sprint, you have to do it the marathon way. Though I had not run in any marathon, I do run in cross country ever.

Day in, day out you do the same thing, you tell others the same thing. Continue doing what you had been doing regardless of any challenges - that is consistency.

If you are in business or want to be in business, consistency plays a huge part to your business and your life. Building a business is a long term affair, never a sprint. Rain or shine your business goes on. You don’t stop because today you don’t feel like working on your business. While you stop building your business, the world doesn’t stop for you. The rest of the world is moving, building as well.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that you can’t take a break. Of course you can rest. I would suggest an intentional rest. Meaning to say the rest day is planned. For example every Sunday is a rest day. That is consistency. For inconsistency means I rest as and when I feel like it.

Consistency applies to life and character as well. A friend who is into cars for a long time, I will consider him the expert in cars. Whenever I need advise on cars, he’s the person that I will go to. Consistency build trust. It builds your character and reputation.

When you met someone who constantly changing what he does every 3 months, what is your trust level in him? It shows a lot of character of this person, isn’t it?

Success doesn’t comes overnight. It takes years and years to build. It takes consistency to last those years.

Major learning experience today. It was the ice cream project re-launch after a 3 weeks break. We thought we are so good in spotting good location, but hell we were wrong.

This morning sales was pathetic. I couldn’t believe the sales volume in that location. After the first success of the sales 3 weeks ago, I am very confident on finding good location and bringing the amazing result again. Maybe, I am just over-confident. It brought me to the ground, to re-assess the points to take note in locating a hot spot.

We are changing strategy again tomorrow. Our current strategy is too taxing on us in terms of time and mental aspect. We are adjusting again, which is good. It shows that we are not giving up, and we are fine tuning to find the best method to make this business model works.

I am very blessed to have a super duper teammates, Clive and Dennis. They are simply marvelous beings. Being with them is simply a comfort, joyous and exciting experience.

Have you heard of the book The E-Myth Revisited by Michael Gerber? I have read the book few months back and learn more about system in a business.

What is a business system? In my humble opinion, it is transforming your business into auto-pilot so that it can run without you. This is the dream of all entrepreneurs, isn’t it? Having a business that run without you, putting money in your bank while you are on holiday, that’s financial freedom.

Interestingly, this is what we want to achieve, but why so few people achieve it. One of major factor is because most entrepreneurs fall in love with their business. Yes, we need passion in our business - but passion and love is different.

I met entrepreneurs falling in love with their business to the extent that they are unwilling to delegate certain tasks. They want to do it because they felt no one can do a better job than them. There is nothing wrong with that, however, if your business grows, you have to delegate. You should focus only on income generating activities, and not some administration work or decorating job.

Yes, you know about auto-pilot, but how to do that? How do I build a system?

Recently, I had a chance to really look into a great business opportunity that will be transformed into an auto-pilot business.

I had a major distinction on business system - Break down the business.

The whole business operation may seem complicated when you look at it as a whole. Most of the time, only highly motivated entrepreneurs are able to manage that multi-task requirements.

You may want to break down the whole operation into smaller, simpler individual tasks. These individual tasks should be so simple that anyone should be able to do those tasks.

Recent incident taught me to break down the business operation. Now the business can run with just students working in it. Amazing learning for me.

In a business system, everything must be standardised. It comes down to the pen that you use. Yup, your system got to be so detail that even a pen is taken into account. You have to do that if you want an auto-pilot business.

Then comes to the next reason why most entrepreneurs did not turn their business into auto-pilot. Because, building a system is not easy and it’s time consuming. They have to juggle between managing the business and gradually converting it into a system can be a tedious process.

Every little things in your business has to be documented. That is how you can start to convert it into a business that runs without you. You got to start somewhere.

Get The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don’t Work and What to Do About It

Can this be a factor for a failing business? Absolutely! Business is a team sport. And for any sport team to win a game, all members has to play their part selflessness. Not only that, all team members has to be fitted nicely together like a jigsaw puzzle; to create the synergy.

Let’s take an example in football. In the English Premier League (EPL), the top four teams (Manchester United, Arsenal, Chelsea and Liverpool) have the potential to win any teams in the world. However, when you select the best players from these four teams and put them together in a team, they are unable to perform.

Individually they are still the best, but come to a team, they couldn’t create that synergy. It was once said that Manchester United is better than the England team. The fact is England is now struggling to qualify the Euro 98.

What is the keys to create a winning team? I guess there’s no one formula to it.

Everyone must be very clear and align about the goal of the team. There must be a common understanding that no one will quit. Everyone will do whatever it takes to achieve it.

Everyone must be willing to tell the truth. Whenever there is any unhappiness about any issues or team members, it has to be cleared at that moment. The longer you drag, the more unhealthy it will be. The unhappiness will become a resentment to you and it’ll become poison to the team.

Don’t be afraid to ask more of each other. The team is as strong as it’s weakest link. Ask more of each other, so that members can improve, thus the team improve. Warning: don’t think that the strongest will always be the strongest. The strongest may be the weakest link if you are not careful.

Be very transparent with the team. Trying to hide things from the team is going to cause suspicious. If a member in your team know something, ensure the rest of the team knows about it. This keep everyone align and equip with the same information.

Communication, communication and communication. A team is made up of people, and people needs communication to keep them going. The interaction in the team helps to maintain the energy in the team. Interaction brings members closer, and breaks down any barriers with each other.

All the points mentioned are experiences from a winning team. It is the best team I had work with. We are definitely going to be the Champion.

Many wants to start their own business but lack the know-how. Here is an article briefly stating what are some of the things to look out for in a new start-up.

Excerpt of article:

Thinking of starting your own business? You are not the only one who wants to start a business but lack the knowledge. If you have been an employee all your life, starting a business can be very different. It may seem so cool to own your own business, but there are business tasks to take care. Here you get to learn some of the critical stuff about starting a business.

Click here to read the full article

Finally, I am involve in a mastermind group. After 2 years of searching for the right people to form the group, the right people appear.

I wouldn’t say I found them, rather they found me. Thank you Dennis and KL to want to form this mastermind group. I have a feeling that we are going to create very strong bonding among us.

This group exist not to support each other in business alone, but any personal stuffs or life challenges, we may even go down to darkest secret, things that our wives won’t know, how not to have strong bonding. Does it sound scary now?

I can really foresee the growth in this group in terms of our friendship, and the level that we are playing at. We want to support each other and at the same time ask more of each other. Furthermore if there is a need to call it or screw one another to get any member to grow, we’ll do it.

I am looking forward to our first meeting on Wed. This first meeting is not in a serious mode, but towards setting the context for the group.

I am visualizing how my life will change with the support of this group. I am feeling great right now with the birth of this mastermind group, and feeling excited for our Wed meeting.

Past two days, I’m conducting Spirit of Enterprise Program, our core program for PRSS.

A total of 44 students in the class, with very good facilitators supporting this program. Without the facilitators, this program won’t be possible. Thank you Vasu, Kok Leong, Byron, Lynn, Yiming for being there.

This is one of the best program that I’ve done. Students were participative in all games, activities and debrief. I really enjoyed training this group of students very much. Thank you for allowing me to play a small part in your growing up.

Few things happened that touched me.

Firstly, when the whole team was down for lunch in their school canteen on the second day, some students greeted us when they saw us. That moment, I knew we had made an impression on them on the first day.

Secondly, one of the group (the all girls group) started to chat with me casually. They even greeted Jean very loudly in the class before the program starts. I knew bonding has been created and I am happy with that. Creating bonding with them, isn’t that all we want?

Thirdly, when I am done with my closing at the end of the program, the students gave a big round of applause. I felt appreciated, and it also means they enjoyed the program.

Fourth, some left comments like, “This program should be held for more days”, “Joe engaged me with his presentation style, unlike some other trainers who bored me”, “The facilitators are fantastic. They are able to relate their experiences to us”, “The lessons in this program can be applied to school and my life.”

I felt so much joy in doing this training. Thank you Mr Albert Neo for inviting us and arranging the venue, students and all the logistical support. Thank you for Seri for being a helpful and smiley librarian. Thank you for the students in PRSS, you gave me a wonderful experience.

Thank you facilitators:

Kok Leong: You are a darn good facilitator. Relating your experiences to the students, giving them a different perspective. You are also a freaking good upseller. Upsell and upsell and upsell. You added another dimension to the games.

Yiming: Awesome music person and timer. Always present in your task, never ever made a blunder. Tough negotiator in the game, I had fun seeing you negotiating as well.

Byron: Help us for many times, you know what is expected. Thank you for guiding the new facilitators. Your facilitating skill has definitely made a great leap forward.

Vasu: What can I say? With you around, there are laughter. You brought your experiences in business into your group. I will never be worried about you taking a group of students.

Lynn: You are everywhere. Always in present , ready to jump into any task given. Your presence always gave me a sense of support and encourage.

Jean: As always the most hardworking one, packing all the stuff on your own. Preparing all the logistics, ensuring the program runs smoothly.

Thank you so much everyone for allowing me to grow.