How to run a successful business?
First acknowledge that you can't do it on your own. Starting a new business can be one of the most challenging things that you will ever do in your life and whenever you have a high challenge you need to consider an appropriate level of support. Your support can be in the form of a business partner, a team of colleagues you work with, a business coach and a mentor. Ideally you will have all of these. However there are some key issues one must consider when establishing your support system:
Business Partner(s)
When picking a business partner you need to ask and answer the following crucial questions. What kind of partnership are you going to have? Do you both have an equal stake in the company? Do you have an equal stake in the decision-making processes of the business?
Have clearly defined roles and responsibilities from the onset of the business relationship and write these down. Consider clearly when choosing a business partner what skills, resources and experience s/he brings to the table. Do you and your partner(s) have shared values around work and business?
If the business is your idea then you need to ensure that your business partner totally buys into your idea and together you have a shared vision of where you want the business to head. The most costly mistake you can make is to assume that your business partner shares your vision for the business and find to your detriment when s/he walks out of your business after a few years that they don't!
Communicate regularly with your partner. Have regular scheduled meetings where you brief each other on the tasks you have been working on and agree actions to have taken by the next meeting. This process ensures that you are both kept up to date with each other's progress and makes you accountable to each other.
Spend time developing your personal relationship with your business partner. Doing fun, social activities will build rapport between you and your partner(s) with the net benefits of this spilling over into your working life.
Your team
A key question to ask yourself is 'If you could have an ideal team that is effective, happy and achieves results what would be the makeup of that team? What would you see, hear or feel?'
I suspect it will be a team where the individuals are competent at their roles, enjoy what they do, have different skills and experiences that they bring to the table, communicate effectively and are united around a common purpose which is the business.
So how do you select your team? Well with the same level of care with which you select your business partners because in a real sense your team are your business partners.
Your business coach
Before selecting a business coach one must consider carefully what results you are looking for from your coach? Are you looking for your coach to share their business expertise with you or are you looking for a coach to unlock your inner resources and talents in order that you get the results that you desire? Coaching in its purest form is the latter. However a good business coach is more likely to enable you to use your own resources to move your business forward and only when appropriate share their business experience with you. Your business coach should have a recognised qualification in coaching and ideally would be a member of a professional coaching body and be engaged in continuous professional development.
Your mentor
Mentors are simply invaluable especially in the plural. Your mentor is at the other end of the spectrum from your coach and shares their experiences with you in order for you to learn from them. As far as I am concerned one should have as many mentors as possible who can assist you in your personal and professional development. Your mentor should be someone with experience in the area you are looking to develop yourself in and be willing to share their knowledge and expertise with you. Where possible make sure you give back to your mentor too. Remember that the best relationships are always reciprocal.
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