10 Startup Tips
Chapter 6: Some Useful Skills
Show your action to others that you appreciate their actions. – Aysa Angel
You are the key to the success of your business.
Your strengths and weaknesses will quickly show up on the job.
Before you worry too much about it, though,
remember:
Nobody perfect.
An artist works on a project with an employee of a large company.
He asked them to draw the image that best represented their CEO.
The officers drew a loose cannon rushing down the hill with a tiny detonator.
The cannon caused a loud bang when it exploded,
but only fired a small projectile that rolled nearly 1m.
Everyone has weaknesses.
In fact, the most stressful speaker
I’ve ever met is billionaire Richard Branson.
Usually, a weakness is just a very small downside compared to a strength.
The most important thing is to honestly evaluate yourself to find your strengths
and weaknesses,
and then balance them.
Making an honest assessment of yourself may not be easy.
Try to be honest and objective about yourself.
Don’t be too modest or too hard on yourself.
Think about the things you enjoy doing the most,
the things about your job that you don’t like
– they often correspond to your strengths and weaknesses.
Method: Complete the exercise below to help you find your strengths
and weaknesses.
Ideally, ask a trustworthy and fair friend to help you with this exercise.
Strength
What are your strengths?
What kind of work do you like to do the most?
What job do you do well?
What specific skills and experiences can help you?
Weakness
How can you fix it?
What kind of work do you dislike the most?
What do you avoid doing?
In which areas of technical knowledge
or experience do you find yourself weak?
Assertiveness
Being assertive is hard work.
It’s not about being a tyrant
but having a firm belief in your own worth.
Confidence: This is the elixir of success.
It’s very difficult to do great things,
like control the world’s economies.
But basically,
believe that you have unique unique values.
In fact,
confidence is something that can be changed.
It is not an inherent quality,
it is reinforced over time from the positive feedback we receive.
It is important that you constantly strengthen your confidence.
Read Chapter 25 “The Motivational Potion” for the secret.
Don’t underestimate yourself:
Lack of confidence can give you a strong incentive to prove yourself,
but it can also cause problems.
You may undervalue yourself,
undervalue your work,
give in in negotiations,
make promises to customers,
or be defrauded by suppliers.
Learn to say “no”:
Concentration is at the core of success.
You will have to get used to saying “No” politely
to potential customers,
suppliers, or friends to give you time to make good products.
It’s also vital to form the habit of telling customers
you can’t do anything.
Business Secret: Promise Less – Do More
It is better to tell the customer the actual completion time from the start,
than to make a hasty promise of delivery time,
and then be a day late and make the customer angry.
Time management
I love using deadlines at work.
I usually finish the work before the deadline.
(Douglas Adams)
Time management sounds like a chore?
But this life is created by time.
Being busy makes you feel important,
but you also have to know how to delegate unnecessary tasks.
When you first build a business,
you will basically have to do everything
from ordering stationery to washing dishes.
In the beginning,
everything goes well (and costs little),
giving you the thrill of seeing everything in action.
However,
then you will find that you only have 20% of your time left
to do the work that generates 80% of the business value.
If you can’t distinguish what’s important in business and what isn’t
(or someone else does better),
you’ll be stuck in a single job for 10 years.
If you want to grow a highly profitable business,
you can’t spend all day gluing envelopes.
The website www.fromacorns.com has fairly simple timelines.
Apply them with these tips:
Take a course on time management.
You have to spend a bit of money
but it’s your best investment.
Sign up now.
If your work involves computers,
remove all computer games – now!
They reduce your productivity a lot.
Start your day with a simple task.
My father had a pretty good way:
when he wrote,
he always left the last paragraph unfinished.
So the next morning,
he had a simple way to get to work.
Avoid being interrupted by friends,
correspondence,
emails.
Set aside some time during the day for these.
Find the most creative time of your day.
Let’s do it
important or difficult work at that time.
Allow yourself to rest.
You’re not a robot
– reward yourself for completing a task.
Get out and get some fresh air.
Set aside some free time.
When planning a project, spend the last week imagining.
Understand that urgent work does not mean important.
By thinking and acting for the long term,
you can save many crises.
The ability to listen
Your goal is not to deliver a product,
but to satisfy a customer need.
This is the essence of selling.
The most important skill is the ability
to accurately identify the needs of the customer.
This is not simple.
Sometimes, customers don’t know exactly what they want.
“I think the word ‘creative’ should be banned.
Customers often ask us about this,
but then they reject our idea
because ‘nobody has done it before’!”
(Mark, engineer)
Or if the customer knows,
they won’t tell you either.
Remember the time you had a bad meal at a restaurant
when the waiter came up to you and asked,
“Is the food good, sir?”
And you happily reply,
“Oh, that’s delicious, thanks!”
while thinking to myself
that I will never go back there again.
Sometimes, opportunities come very quietly.
You need to learn to listen.
You also need to know how to ask the right questions
and read the ‘hidden’ needs and wants of your customers.
For conservative entrepreneurs this can be difficult
as they have to learn when to stop talking!
For more information on the art of selling,
read Chapter 16.
