The idea for this post came out of a mocking conversation I had over the Twitter yesterday and how my Twitter profile said I started a couple of businesses and done pretty well. Which is extremely vague, but to my own defense, I never really thought to take it that seriously.
If you look today you will see its a much more appropriate: purveyor of sex, drugs and rock n’ roll.
Which about sums up my career in a nutshell.
That’s not really what this is about though.
The conversation was about so called ‘gurus’ and ‘ninjas’ in regard to telling people how to run their businesses. And, I will say it again, the only person that should legally have the right to call him or herself a ninja had better be carrying a very sharp sword.
Alas, a business is really just a combination of 5 processes, each of which is necessary for success.
Here are the 5 things that you have to be doing to have a legitimate business on your hands and a few thoughts on them:
1. Value Creation: You’ve got to fill a need. Sure, no one really knew they needed a tablet computer as badly as they do now until Steve Jobs told us we needed to, but you do have to add some kind of value to your customer or you aren’t operating a business.
2. Marketing: That guy who said to “build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door” was lying to you. You could build the best mousetrap in the world and go bankrupt if no one knows you are in business. So you have got to let people know you are there and selling the greatest mousetrap. So market away!
3. Sales: This one confuses a lot of people because too many people lump sales and marketing into the same category. I’ll make it easy for you: marketing gets you attention and sales gets you money. They are extremely different and just because you are good at one doesn’t mean you are good at the other.
4. Value Delivery: This ties in with the creation of value from #1. You have got to make sure that once you have created something that adds value to your customers’ lives that you can deliver on your promises. So you have to make sure you design a system for the delivery and quality control of your product or service.
5. Finance: Here’s where you know whether or not you are winning or losing. If you aren’t bringing in enough money to make your efforts worthwhile, your little endeavor won’t be a business for long, if it is one to begin with.
That’s it. 5 simple interconnected processes that you need to make sure are incorporated in your projects to make sure you have a business on your hands.
Do you think I missed anything? Or is there something you would add?