Traits for Winning in the Small Business Arena

I read somewhere that thoughts define action.  If one thinks small then one usually gets small results.  Successful small business owners that I have known think big, and most choose to stay small!  But they still think like the titans of industry.  It must be hard for them to be satisfied with a small business.

So by training yourself to think properly you will achieve the success you strive for in the small business arena.

The guys that are successful at running big corporations do think differently than the less successful.  And the same is true for the small business owner.

The first way they think is to be like a salmon.  They swim upstream.  As Winston Churchill said, “Kites rise highest against the wind …. not with it.”  In other words, do the exact opposites of everyone else in your small business circle.

Think about these people and you will quickly see they were never meant to be a small business.  In fact, most probably didn’t even think of themselves as small businesses when the first began their careers.

1.  Warren Buffett – He stayed away from the “hot stocks’ of the moment, and stuck with his belief in being a value investor.  He had virtually no money invested in the high tech industry in 2000 when the NASDAQ was rockin’ at about 5100.  People were laughing at him for being a relic of the past.  He stood firm and said he wouldn’t invest in what he couldn’t understand.  And he certainly was right, wasn’t he?  The NASDAQ is about half of what it peaked at 7 years ago!  And Berskshire Hathaway just keeps on making money for its investors.  They are anything but a small business today!

2.  Howard Stern – He recently signed a contract with Sirius Radio for an obscene amount of money.  He’s not my favorite guy by a long shot, but you gotta give him credit for swimming upstream!  But he’s not a small business man any longer, that’s for sure.

3.  Madonna – She’s calmed down a bunch from what she was in the early eighties.  But she always danced to her own drummer and didn’t allow all of her many critics to keep her on the bottom rung of the entertainment ladder.  She has big talent and it shows.

4.  Steve Jobs – Ipod.  Need I say more?  And that was after he turned the computer world upside down with Apple.  He was born thinking out of the box.  Age hasn’t affected his imagination one bit.  But I’m sure he still remembers that small business he started in his garage with his best friend at the time.

5.  Bill Gates – The richest guy in the world.  I think he still has that distinction and he’s still going strong.  By teaming up with Warren Buffet, the two are intent on making third world countries a different place through the Bill Gates Foundation.  No doubt, they’ll succeed.

The second thing for a small business owner to do is to learn to see chances and opportunities where others see nothing buy problems and challenges.

As entrepreneurs it is the small business owner’s job to bring order and stability to his market place.  They must size up the market, learn everything there is to know about their industry, find the voids and fill them.  Put systems in place that brings order to chaos in the small business owner’s world.  That’s exactly what Ross Perot did.  He got his education at IBM and then went out on his own and became one of their biggest competitors.  He brought computer systems to government agencies. Ross Perot did not stay a small business owner for long because he found an obvious void and filled it.  The rest is history.

The most successful small business owners I know discover strategies that allow them to:

1.  Increase profits while reducing overhead

2.  Consistently generate new customers

3.  Convert new customers into those that develop lifelong relationships with their

     company and in some cases become strategic partners.

4.  Both attract and retain the best employees

5.  Diversify into new profit centers, because they are always looking for new

     opportunities in an ever-changing world.

And lastly, for some small business owners, it’s OK to remain small.  There’s nothing wrong with staying small and being happy.  Some of those guys you once hung out with may have grown their businesses by leaps and bounds.  But are they happy?

That big guy is probably jealous of you, because you chose to stay a small business, but still make a good living and have a solid manageable business.  You get to spend time with your family and enjoy your success – just on a smaller scale.  Just look around you and you will see that being big and rich ain’t what it’s cracked up to be!  And the old adage is so true.  “Life’s not a dress rehearsal.”  So, live it to the max while you can.

That’s what most small business owners start out to do on the first day they opened their doors.  But small businesses are the heartbeat of America.