Let's Be Successful Again!

Entrepreneurial thought

I occasionally listen to Stanford University's Entrepreneurial Thought podcast when I am driving long distances. For some women, their secret shame is buying the latest copy of Vogue or TV Quick (or the Dobies catalogue...actually, that is my other secret shame) and flicking through with a nice cup of tea before anyone else in the household is awake.

Well my secret shame (apart from the Dobies thing) is listening to and reading stuff about business. This is stuff most people find boring but which I find stimulating in ways I can't really describe. Just as one might look through the latest trends in Vogue knowing full well they cannot afford the clothes, I listen to pocasts like Entrepreneurial Thought and read the Case Studies in Harvard Business Review knowing full well they are not really relevant to me with my little business.

However, I always pick up a few gems and this morning was no different. The speaker was the founder of  LinkedIn, Reid Hoffman. He is not a great speaker in that he doesn't have much stage presence and seems to find speaking to an audience rather challenging. However, every word he spoke made perfect sense. Listen yourself to hear everything he had to say.

But the part that has stayed with me today is his challenge that a good business is more than a good idea. Simple and obvious perhaps. But he argues that the best businesses set out to solve a simple problem where there is a clear need. They do not set out to solve difficult problems. When we set out to solve difficult problems it is usually because we want to test ourselves and our mental capacities and demonstrate that we can do something clever. In fact, this is a poor motivation for starting a business.

Instead, solve a simple problem, in a simple way if possible. Clearly the solution may not actually be simple and a great deal of technical knowledge and skill may go in to solving the problem but it appears simple to the user.

Hoffman provided me with a lot of food for thought today, questions I need to ask about my own businesses and the solutions we provide. However, that one seemed so neat, so simple if you like, that it may change the way I present what we do for companies. It isn't necessary to show off how clever you are if the solution meets a simple need, simply.    

Saving the world

I've just discovered Justin Rowlatt, the BBC's Ethical Man. He and his family spent a year trying to cut their carbon emissions. Now he's travelling across America to save the world. These are his words - he is going to save the world!

I love his language. He is an optimist and his journey isn't smulzy (as they say in the USA). I watched his film about the Amish with joy. He seems able to connect with people in a gentle and respectful manner - pretty unusual in today's journalists. 

It occurs to me that despite everything that's going on at the moment, we are developing an appetite for a positive outlook. Maybe it really is the spirit of the war bringing out the best in us.  We seem to care more about each other and the planet when we are feeling the pressure.

Where there used to be no "good news stories" we now find a peppering of features about people who have succeeded, people who are doing important work, people who entertain us. We want to make a contribution by buying fair trade products or by recycling our cardboard or by giving to charity.

Watching the lives of the Amish in Justin Rowlatt's little film made me realise how much excess there still is in our lives though. We may feel pride at buying our rice from the cut-price shelf (there was a little tear in the bag meaning it was down to 50p) or at growing a few spuds in the garden. And it is certainly better to do something than nothing at all. But there are people who live on far less and certainly seem to have some quality of life we are missing. Yes, many people are leaving the Amish way of life and who can blame them - long hours, few comforts, a small insular community. But there is also something very appealing about a simple, uncluttered life.

And if this recent "good cheer" I have been noticing isn't a figment of my imagination and is the result of a realisation that we enjoy a challenge, maybe we would be even more cheerful if we had a little less.

 

Other great blogs

Today I am recommending three other blogs which I think capture the same spirit as Let's Be Successful Again. I would love to know your recommendations:

The Recessionista - You don't have to be a follower of fashion to enjoy this blog. Thought-provoking and fun.

Peston's Blog - The BBC's Robert Peston comments on the business news stories of the day

Founder Frustrations - Noam Wasserman is a professor in the Entrepreneurial Management unit at Harvard Business School. His focus is Founder Frustrations, the experiences of people starting up their own businesses. 

What are you reading at the moment?

Guest Blogger - Clare Flynn

Clare Flynn is a creativity expert, a former ?whatif! consultant and one of the founders of Make It and Mend It, a new business focused on learning the skills of making your own and mending it when it's broken. Many of these skills have been lost or forgotten in our drive for "Newer", "Faster" and "Shinier". You can join her campaign by going to the website and reading the blog at http://makeitandmendit.blogspot.com/

Here are her thoughts and tips for success:  

Being Successful in Recessionary Times

If we are to believe the media, we are on the brink of Armageddon. Yes, the signs of recession are visible in the empty shop-fronts now appearing on even the most prosperous high streets and in the jobless statistics and the newspapers and magazines that have suddenly got quite a bit slimmer as they are deserted by many of their advertisers. Despite all this, most people are quietly getting on with their lives. Most people are still in jobs. Many of them are enjoying a healthy improvement in cash flow as they reap the benefits of significantly lower mortgage repayments and now reducing energy and petrol bills.

In recessions successful people get more so. Recessions are great times to start up new businesses. There’s less competition for a start. When everyone else is focused on cutting costs and cutting headcount, it is a great time to steal a march on your competition by getting closer to your customers and cranking up your innovation efforts.

Some of the most interesting new product launches and most successful corporations entered the world in the midst of recessions. History is rich with examples of those that built unassailable gains and rode to greatness in these periods.  New needs emerge in such times: Health insurance was born out of the US Depression as were stereo recordings, digital computers, Monopoly, sunglasses, ballpoint pens and bubble gum, to name but a few. Messrs Hewlett and Packard got their products rolling from the famous garage in 1939. Despite industry in crisis and companies going under, Fortune magazine, the world’s first and most successful business publication was born at the height of the Great Depression. This was a counter-intuitive and risky venture at the time, but proved an unqualified success.

Whilst money may be tight, creativity comes free, as does spending time understanding your customers’ needs. Time spent now hanging out with customers and consumers, observing them, talking with them and listening to them, will yield rich insights about their needs and behaviour that will give a huge edge to your new product and service development efforts and help you hone your advertising messages.

History shows that it is twice as easy to grow share in a recession as in buoyant economic periods. Those firms that succeed in growing market share in this recession are likely to hang on to it, while those that lose it will have a tough and very costly battle to regain ground when things pick up.

On a personal level, I am in the throes of launching a new business and am feeling very excited and optimistic about it. So what are the qualities needed to be successful in tough times?  Here are my top tips:

Frugality: whilst it’s not going to help our high streets, is a great tool to help you re-focus on what really matters. Cutting out stuff, questioning whether you really need something or not, enables you to get rid of a lot of distraction, as well as saving money. You can also find a lot of pleasure in doing things that don’t cost much. It’s more creative, it’s more of a challenge and it’s ultimately more satisfying. Yes, frugality is the new black. 

“Stickability”: hang on in there and don’t give up. Success is born out of many failures. If it doesn’t work, try doing it a different way. If you believe it is right and want to make it happen, don’t let go! Make the future happen. Keep experimenting and keep learning from your mistakes. You may have to double the frugality efforts if you are investing in a new enterprise, or searching for a new job, and on little or no income, but in the words of Kevin Costner’s character in Field of Dreams “If you build it they will come.”

Work bloody hard!: if you want to get ahead and stay ahead you have to be prepared to put the hours in and keep the effort up.

Make time for fun: When times are tough and you are working hard, it’s really important to have plenty of “me time”. Whether it’s curling up with a good book, having a long lie-in at the weekend or hanging out with friends and family, make sure you allow yourself the time to do it.

Eat chocolate! 

Flushed with failure!

As I flick through the front pages of the newspapers today I am not surprised to find the following headlines – “Half of middle class home owners fear their properties could be repossessed next year”, “Pound plummets to weakest level yet against the Euro”, “Recession tightens grip on High Street”, “We now worry for 2 hours a day (and it’s all because of the credit crunch)”…I could go on.

Although the UK is not officially in recession yet (this is expected to happen in January) it is impossible to get away from the fact that the world economy is a mess and will continue to be so for at least another year. Whilst most recessions last, on average, 11 months, this doesn't include the period of getting in to recession and the period of crawling back out, so it certainly feels like the problem will be around for a while yet.

Not very uplifting so far Blaire!

Well, I am not in denial about what is happening. Job losses are real (about 150,000 already and 600,000 predicted in 2009), people's investment values are falling which affects pensions and our ability to use our savings to get out of financial messes (so even those of us who were quite sensible and saved money for a rainy day now find it isn't worth as much as we put in) and it is harder for a company like mine (providing coaching and leadership development) to win business because everyone is worried about spending money.

So, what is the point of this blog? The title is "Let's be Successful Again" and yet, so far, I have done nothing but list all the reasons for feeling gloomy. How is it possible, against such a backdrop, to find anything positive and encouraging to say?

1. The vast majority of people will not be affected in any life-changing way by the recession. They will not lose their jobs, their homes will not be repossessed, they may even find the cost of living goes down as VAT is cut and companies compete for their custom.

2. For those who are directly affected by the recession (and I include myself as a business owner) the only way to survive this in any fit state is to look for opportunities, think about what is possible, look at ways to make this as good a year as it can be and focus on success, not failure. 

Successful olympians standing at the starting block don't look to their left and to their right and think "I'm never going to win against this kind of competition". They focus on doing what they have trained to do and they focus on winning.

Successful business people don't spend every moment worrying about going out of business and moving back in with their mum. They focus on making the most of every situation, using it to their advantage.

The threats they face daily are very real and they aren't ignorant of those threats. But they know that focusing on them exclusively is likely to bring about the exact series of events that they fear most. If you focus on failure that's what you get.  

This is not easy. We are bombarded by frightening stories in the news and it is almost impossible to avoid these without keeping the radio and television off at all times and refusing to ask friends how they are feeling. However, many of these news stories are opinion based rather than fact based. Looking again at the headlines which begun this blog, the first and the last are about people's fears. The headline doesn't say half of middle class families are losing their homes. It simply says they are afraid they will. Most, of course, will not. 

The problem is that, whilst there are real financial problems in the system, we have made it (and will continue to make it) worse by our reaction to the situation, by changing our spending habits, but battening down the hatches and by allowing fear to affect our effectiveness. 

In this blog I will provide the very real reasons to focus on success rather than failure, backed up with interviews by some of our most successful business people, sportspeople and leaders. The idea is to provide some balance to the stream of negative headlines and worrying statistics which hit us all every day and to give each of us the ability to focus on how to make our own situation better during this difficult year. 

I believe that changing our attitude is the only way to bring about a swift end to this recession and we can only do that one person at a time. And as you being to change your attitude you will affect the attitudes of the people around you. And that is how we bring about a major change.