You do need someone to warn you from dangers in business

Call it inertia, call it ignorance or stubbornness, we tend to get caught in our own illusionary perspective of what is a safe business environment and who are trustworthy and dependable people in your domain. You got to acknowledge the fleeting and dynamic nature of relationship in business environment. You got to be aware of the powerful external influences which can alter the perspective and behavior of business stakeholders without you notice or without warning. You have to be conscious, attentive and adaptive to the ever changing business and corporate landscape. No point complaining. Just intuition is not enough; you might need someone or few trustworthy people around you who can validate your intuition. 

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Avoiding negative people is much more crucial than seeking positive company

Get rid of them from your hangout list as soon as possible, from your social network list, take a different route, come early or leave little late from office even if this is what it takes to avoid people with negative vibes. Don’t get into argument with such people, simply change the topic or leave the discussion spot. You don’t want to argue with a person, whom you don’t even want to face, do you. Argument is not going to change that person or his or her behavior, nor your point of view about him or her. It will only reinforce your previous not so good experience. If you can’t avoid them due to situation just mind your own business. Find out innovative ways to avoid them like you find out innovative ways and means to get in touch with positive influences in your life.   

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Never underestimate something which you can’t estimate now!!

You feel bad when underestimated, don’t you and that’s why you make an extra effort everywhere you go to make your presence felt, to prove your worth. You are not alone, everyone feels the same, no matter at which pedestal of success they are standing.

A child who comes to your shop and you didn’t entertain him just because he has no serious money at present, he will never come back to you again even when he will have all the money to buy your whole shop. A person who was not entertained well at a brand outlet because that expensive car or clothing is beyond his reach at present, he will never in his life will buy your car of cloth line even if he has to pay extra to go to your rival company. If you fail to estimate potential of a small time writer, actor, artist or any creative soul now, you might have lost a treasure box, something which didn’t clicked you might appeal to someone else.

Pay close attention to your future business prospects now or you will never get it. Don’t underestimate anything at its face value. 

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Don’t go broke in one go!!

You might like to create a safety net around your business wealth and personal finance in case something goes wrong. Don’t let situations surprise you in unpleasant way.  All you need is to acknowledge and understand the Certainty of unpredictability and learn to tackle. You need to create a series of checks and preventive measures around different aspects of business and personal finance and to allocate risks in different times.  A comprehensive and composite backup plan made of few larger securities (investments/ assets) and few Micro backup plans (friends/ families/ associates). 

High Moral, Knowledge, clean business persona, humbleness, punctuality, crisp dealing practice, commitment, creating dependable network are some of the avenues were one should invest apart from financial securities. Ideas is to have a moral and financial cushion similar to network of absorbent springs to help you sustain major setback. 

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Business setbacks as measurement scale.

Setbacks are part and parcel of business dynamics, sometimes business has high growth momentum, at times its all time low . What is business without a little bit of thrill. Setback is the measurement of how much risk you take in business, its part of business thrill. If you didn't ever have setback probably you didn't take enough risk. Come out of your comfort zone and have courage to take risk. Calculate the risk, have a backup plan and go ahead. You can't wait till business plan is 100 percent perfect; otherwise you will be too late in the market. 

Learn what to do when things go wrong in Business here – http://fromthediaryofmentor.blogspot.in/2012/02/what-to-do-when-things-go-wrong-in.html

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How to deal with business competition

If you think you can beat the competitor with rock bottom pricing, it can only be a short term strategy, its not sustainable. Bringing prices down to attract the customers will only reduce your profit margin, and you are only likely to compromise with quality of product or services.

To survive the competition or to win it, all you need to do is to provide uniqueness in your product or service or both to the end users. When number of people is selling the same product or service you need to differentiate yourself from the masses through innovation in product and services. 


Another advantage of having uniqueness in product and service is that you can dictate and control the prices and slowly a unique category of loyal customers emerges to buy your product and services, which also help promote your business through word of mouth publicity. You will need to create your own niche market by providing uniqueness to cope with Competition. Know top advantages of Niche Marketing, here - http://fromthediaryofmentor.blogspot.in/2012/02/top-10-advantages-of-niche-marketing.html

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Rock bottom price strategy for startups

Do you really need to buy those fancy stuffs for your business?

Know when is the right time to buy and from where to buy

Attend auctions to get stuffs at rock bottom prices during down time

Make business out of your existing business byproduct

Create a network of information channel

Keep track of your expenditure

Optimise your budget, review it, optimise it once again to arrive at realistic needs

Bootstrapping wherever possible 

Learn to operate with minimums financial resources in business career at least once - for experience sake 

Learn to negotiate well.

Learn How to leverage your business in 7 easy ways in the following article- http://fromthediaryofmentor.blogspot.in/2012/02/how-to-leverage-your-business-in-7-easy.html

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The most crucial period on business timeline

Every Business has a growth timeline and it witnesses many ups and downs as well as achieved milestones on its growth trajectory, but one of the most important time period in its growth timeline is the time when business expands- "scaling up business". Expanding and taking business to the next stage is a volatile time period unless perceived and planned beforehand. Its the time when many individuals at middle management level gets involved in a business which was originally started by one or few enthusiastic entrepreneur with few helping hands at bottom level of business.

In business or corporate arena it is said that "one should hire smarter people "  but at times in course of business expansion, business owners feel little threatened  by the pool of smart middle management which they just hired, it becomes little difficult for the owner to handle sudden growth in number of employee. Founder entrepreneurs can't do every work on their own, they should learn to develop trust in its employees and should focus on most important aspect of business development, finance and macro management.

Entrepreneur should develop a company culture from the get go to encourage and develop trust of employees in the vision of company keeping inevitable future expansion of the business.

Business expansion demands thoughtful consideration of acquisition, merger and partnerships. Learn what precautions need to be taken while forming partnership with friends and close associates in the next article - http://fromthediaryofmentor.blogspot.in/2012/02/what-precautions-needed-to-form.html

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Top 5 problems faced by new business owners in providing customer service

New startups should be aware of traps of technical support to customers

Handling multiple contractors and coordination - a toll on time and resources

Unreliable contractors - Brand image at stake

Lack of uniformity in support services due to multiplicity of outsourced work

Poor workmanship by contractors - Difficult to meet the quality of services provided directly by Office staff

Not that profitable

Suggestions

Online and Telephonic customer services can be encouraged

Make a robust FAQ section, answering every possible customer queries,

Following article will answer youre all the basic queries about the customer service - http://fromthediaryofmentor.blogspot.in/2012/03/why-and-how-of-customer-service.html

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What precautions needed to form business partnership with friends?

Keep the following suggestions in mind while getting into business partnership with friends.

Have a company vision - agreeable to everyone

Set the rules of game in the beginning - Draft a company policy up to the fine details, agreeable to everyone.

Share and ask for detailed CV - No matter you have grown up together - playing cricket together is one thing and running business together is different

Don't leave the room for surprise - Get the information validated 

Set pilot milestones - Set the short targets, do the math and see if the venture is likely to work otherwise change the strategy

Don't be casual - Maintain absolute professionalism while on job and make sure you also have fun together later

Here are the top 10 suggestions for new start-ups and entrepreneurs - http://fromthediaryofmentor.blogspot.in/2012/02/10-suggestions-for-new-start-ups-and.html

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What to do when things go wrong in business

What If the delivered batch of product had manufacturing fault?

Anybody's product can be faulty, so can be yours.

Take prompt action to replace all the faulty products free of cost

What you will get in return is "honest brand image" and "word of mouth publicity"

You will learn in detail how to manage business risk in the following article - http://fromthediaryofmentor.blogspot.in/2012/03/how-to-manage-business-risk.html

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