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Let's first define what a wildly successful business is. Here are some of the parameters by which I measure the success of a business: 1. Profitability increases year on year. Feeling elated at increasing sales without focussing on profitability is insanity. I would rather have a USD 100 million business with 20% profit than a USD 1 Billion business with 1% profit. 2. Customers queue outside the door to purchase our products and services; rather than the business chasing customers to convince them to buy. 3. Best-in-class professionals queue outside our door to work for our business and those who are working with us never want to leave. Here's the input that is needed for the above output that we are seeking to create: 1. The Leader at the helm of the Business is deeply connected with his purpose of life and is crystal clear how his purpose of life is being lived through the work he is doing. This is the foundational step towards building a purposeful organization; where the Vision of the organization is not just some posters on the wall. 2. The Leader at the helm of the Business has clearly articulated Values; which to him define who he is as a human being, which give him a way to connect with each Being in his space, which give him a way to fulfil on his purpose of life and lead his organization to fulfil on its Vision. It is the Leader's Values that breathe life in the organization's values. The best way to know if values have any meaning for the Leader is to check if there are family mission and family values that he uses at home to parent, lead and coach his kids to be the greatest version of themselves. Otherwise, its mere rhetoric - both his belief and the Values that the organization claims to live by. 3. The CEO and the Senior Leadership team experience compassionate love, gratitude and reverence for themselves and for each other; leading the way for employees to feel the same way. 4. The CEOs and the Senior Leadership team start and finish meetings on time. They honour their word to each other, to employees, to customers and to all other stakeholders. If there is a broken word, they take responsibility and restore their word. 5. The CEOs and the Senior Leadership team play the game of mastery. They play to be the world's best in what they do as a business and play for personal mastery to have it all - successful business, loving relationships at work and at home, happy responsible kids, nourishing me-time while being at the source of transformation in the world. 6. Succession planning is a way of life, where the successor of the role is set-up by the predecessor to be more successful than him. 7. If disaster happens, Leaders take responsibility. If huge success gets created, Leaders give away the credit to everyone else. 8. Employee Business Model Innovation is a way of life: a. How are we making a difference to our employees? b. How can we make an even bigger difference? c. How do we use innovation and creativity to support our employees to realize their greatest dreams in deepest communion with their highest self through the work they do in the organization and have it all - deeply fulfilling, successful, abundance creating career; loving, harmonious relationships at work and at home; happy responsible kids with their genius joyfully expressed, nourishing me-time while making a difference in the world. 9. Customer Business Model Innovation is an ongoing exercise, with continuous inquiry of and powerful effective actions inside of it: a. Which customer communities are we making a difference to? b. How can we make an even bigger difference? c. How do we use innovation and creativity to create products and services to solve real customer problems at a price that they can pay? 10. The CEO and the Leadership Team switch off from work on a daily basis to nourish themselves by being with their family - physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually; creating a space for their employees to do the same. This supports stress levels to dramatically come down, give space to employees to rejuvenate and refresh themselves; resulting in creativity and innovation in each individual to exponentially increase, directly benefitting the bottom-line of the Business. I know it is easy to build a good business, than to lead it to greatness. It is easy to have a good life, than to create a great life. Yes, it is Good that is the enemy of Great. Unfortunately, the Good is not sustainable. Another word for Good is Mediocrity; which only leads to a certain death not too far away in the future - emotionally, intellectually and spiritually. The path leading to Greatness is about transforming what it means to be an organization, what it means to be a Leader and ultimately, what it means to be a Human Being. Taking it on? Love, Jyoti.
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Its simpler, less stressful and more return on hours invested to run a professionally managed large organization, than to run a small or a medium-sized business. Inspite of this, nearly all small and medium-sized business owners choose to remain small, consciously or unconsciously. Here's why: 1. The purpose is missing. 2. The business reflects the limitations of the business owner's personality. 3. The business owner is too busy working in the business than on the business. The Purpose is Missing Being an entrepreneur is not about money, or fame. Its about solving problems for the society and the passion of creating opportunities where people only see problems. - Steve Jobs. Co-Founder, Apple. Net worth in 2011 at the time of his death: USD 10.2 Billion. Being purpose driven provides a company the competitive edge, staff confidence and strong innovation. Recent research at Harvard shows that companies with a ‘higher purpose’ are more than three times as likely to retain their employees. Deloitte found that companies with a strong sense of purpose were almost twice as likely to be confident about business growth in both the short and long term. - Richard Branson. Founder, Virgin Group through which he started and controls more than 400 companies. Net worth: USD 5.1 Billion. Most businesses are started with the objective of making the founder financially free. Though this is a sound objective, it doesn't have the horse-power to lead the founder too far. As long as the passion is more for making money than for making a difference through solving a problem; the business meanders along the path of mediocrity without any definite direction. Business is a beautiful opportunity to live your purpose of life. Most business owners are not aware of their purpose of life, leave alone have that be connected to the business that they run. As long as that disconnect remains; the businesses that they run will never deeply fulfil them nor create unimaginable wealth. The business owner will continue to dance to the tune of mediocrity, chasing their customers rather than experience the joy of customers chasing them. The Business Reflects the Limitations of the Business Owner's Personality Ask yourself: What are your strengths? What makes you different from everyone else? What are you terrible at? This introspection is important because it will offer an almost exact preview of how your company will operate down the line. Founders have demonstrated time and time again that the essence of your grown-up company is going to reflect your own key traits. - Inc. (US Business Magazine) This makes the business owners the biggest barrier to their own business' growth. Most of the time, the business owners are so busy being busy, rushing around, doing ten things at a time that there is no time for self-reflection to discover their own blind spots, their own limitations that impede the success of their business. There is no understanding of the importance of focusing on their leadership depth, which is the biggest block holding their business back. The business will scale to the extent the business owner scales up as a leader. Some of the leadership skills that the business owners need to learn to grow their businesses with greater velocity - self-awareness of their limitations / blind spots and courage to go beyond; emotional intelligence to increase performance and productivity in the organization, starting with one's own self; effective delegation; creating a learning organization to provide thought leadership transforming the industry itself and inside of that the community that it is a part of; creating an organizational culture of personal accountability and excellence; creating a blue ocean to be a monopoly, leaving the competition far behind to fight bloody wars in the red ocean; inspiring (not motivating) employees, customers, suppliers and other stake-holders through leading, coaching and nurturing to give not only their mind but their hearts and souls to the Higher Purpose of the organization for the organization to cut-over from good to great. The Business Owner is too Busy Working in the Business than on the Business If you are a part of the painting, how can you see the whole picture to figure out if it is what you wanted in the first place or if the painting needs to look different? You need to step out of the painting to become the painter. If you are engaged in operations day-in day-out; fire-fighting all the time; you won't have the clarity and the big-picture understanding to lead your business to greater heights of success and profitability. To be able to manage this transition, you will have to unlearn a lot of old habits and learn new ones which require you to keep stepping out of your comfort zone. To begin the journey to work on the business, 1. The first thing you want to do is set the Standards for everything because you don't want your business to buckle down as soon as you begin to step away. 2. The second step is to define, plan and implement the Standards through Systems, Procedures and Tools. 3. The next step is to Hire Right - giving greater importance to the mindset than the skillset because it is easier to coach people on skills than on the right mindset. 4. Train, train and train. Remember if there is a problem, it is always because either the process isn't there, or isn't implemented correctly or people are not trained to effectively follow through. Getting upset and angry is the shortest route to cutting out your connection to innovation and process excellence. 5. Delegation not by running away from what you don't want to do but by careful planning, coaching and measures based review to support your people to be successful in whatever task you delegate them with; which means they actually do the job better than you. In Conclusion Just as our responsibility to our infant is to support her growth till she stands independently on her own feet; it is our responsibility to support the growth of our business till it grows to become an extraordinary business, running independently of us. Any limitation that we place on business growth is more a function of our own personal limitations than anything else. To ensure business growth; 1. The business owner would begin with a deeper understanding of his own higher purpose and have that be lived through his business; so that his people have the experience of building a cathedral rather than merely cutting stones. 2. Be passionate about the personal transformation that the journey of leading your organization from good to great will require by nourishing, growing and transforming all the four bodies that we human beings possess - intellectual / mental, physical, emotional and spiritual. 3. Be clear right in the beginning about the intent to lead the business to greatness; and move towards working on the business than in the business at the right time. If you follow the right approach and methodology, you will own not just one small struggling organization but many great organizations growing with velocity. Wishing you many deeply fulfilling, successful, profitable, purpose-driven businesses that transform you and the world around you. Love, Jyoti. Wealth creation is actually very simple and that is why most people don't get it. The more you learn, the more you earn. The reason nearly everyone struggles to increase prosperity is because they are busy running around chasing money rather than learning something new about their field.
I quit my corporate career to start my coaching business seven years ago with a minimal viable product of Rs 600/- Today, I serve my clients with a product 4500 times that amount. I owe this completely to exclusive focus on training & developing myself on a daily basis. Of course, there is a catch as there always is. The catch is what you learn must be to make a difference to others; and not for your own self-gratification or for certification to give you credibility to get the customer to sign on the dotted line. Ultimately, it's not networking, it's not a jazzy website or snazzy posts on social media, it's not even impressive elevator pitches or your carefully cultivated personal brand that increases your revenue or profitability. All that matters is are you playing to be the world's best by learning, evolving and growing your own self in order to contribute to your target community. Wishing you the joy of accelerated learning and deep fulfilment of having made a difference. Surprisingly, wealth creation becomes an effortless by-product of that. Love, Jyoti. I don't know of a better definition of a start-up than how Steve Blank puts it - A start-up is a temporary organization in search of a profitable, repeatable, scalable business model. Start-ups are temporary organizations because you are not going to be forever in the search mode. You have to keep pivoting to find your sweet spot fast enough before your cash, passion and energy runs out. When you iteratively find your profitable, repeatable, scalable business model through a series of experiments with each feeding the next; you transition out of being a start-up to a company which scales-up on known parameters as the equation for growth has been discovered. In the final stage; you become an enterprise, hopefully keeping the start-up consciousness still alive for continuous innovation to deliver greater and greater value to your target community and be the best in your industry. The entire business modeling exercise during the search phase starts with answering three basic questions: 1. Who is your customer? 2. What problem is he facing? 3. Is the problem critical enough for him to solve such that he is willing to pay you more than your cost of acquiring the customer and delivering the promised goods / service to him? You run experiments, collect metrics to validate assumptions and keep pivoting to reach your profitable, repeatable, scalable business model. Here are 8 ways in which you can pivot to iterate forward to build a business that makes a huge difference to its target community, which is the only way to laugh all the way to the bank: 1. Customer Problem 2. Market Segment 3. Technology 4. Product Feature 5. Revenue Model 6. Sales Channel 7. Product vs Services 8. Pivoting to differentiate from Competition A word of caution of here - pivoting too fast or too slow - can both lead to painful death of the start-up. Ensure you are connected strongly with your customers, entrepreneur communities and mentors; so that you have them holding the mirror to you all the time for you to keep course-correcting at the right time, at the right pace. Most small businesses spray and pray, blindfolded; hoping something that they do will give them the profitability that they are seeking. Time to take off the cover from your eyes, learn and implement the science of business-building that gives you deeply fulfilling super success. Love, Jyoti. Further Reading: https://www.forbes.com/sites/martinzwilling/2012/01/21/a-smart-business-knows-8-ways-to-pivot-their-vision/#1563b2717f96 Don't Have the Street-Smartness to Raise Funds for Your Venture? That May Be Lucky. Here's Why.15/4/2017 In a study done in the US of high growth start-ups, more than 80% of these companies were financed through the founders' personal savings, credit cards and second mortgages. The founders of these start-ups essentially relied on debt or retained earnings to grow. Businesses nourished with customer's money follow the shortest route to success as you will be forced to think of ways to make the biggest difference to the customers by focussing on solving their problems rather than spending time wooing investors. More often than not, entrepreneurs confuse raising money with building a sustainable business. These two not only require two completely different mind-sets but also completely different skill-sets. Time and brain-power spent by founders; in churning out business plans with 5-year projections to attract venture capital in an environment that is rapidly changing and uncertain by its very nature; is sheer wastage as this does not contribute towards strengthening the fundamentals of the business. The only reason to raise money should be to scale your business, after you have hard data that proves you have a business model that is not only profitable, but repeatable and scalable. Without this, the investor money is too much too soon with the founders not having the entrepreneurial wisdom and maturity to lead their businesses towards contribution and sustainability. All that is left then are bubbles bursting all over the place. Here's what Arthur Rock; America's legendary venture capitalist who helped finance Fairchild Semiconductor, Teledyne, Apple and other companies; has to say - "I usually can tell the difference between people who have that fire in their stomachs and those who see their ideas primarily as a way to get rich. Far too many people are interested in building a financial empire instead of a great company. I want to build great companies. ... I look for people who want the same thing." So, whether you are a founder or an investor, make it your business to build great companies that evolves humanity to the next level. Chase money, you may or may not end up anywhere. Chase making a difference and you are likely to create unimaginable wealth besides leaving a legacy behind. The relationship between investor and founder should be that of coach and coachee, mentor and mentee; with the investor committed to support the founder to create success even it means the original business model has to be trashed along with many others to follow because building a great business is an iterative process and you are not likely to hit gold with the first business idea. Leave footprints in the sand of time; instead of dead dreams, lost hopes and a lot of heartburn. You can do this if you invest in the fundamental principles of business building, increasing your leadership depth and commit to be the world's best in what you do. Then, the entrepreneurial journey becomes the path to your highest self and your business mirrors that. Love, Jyoti. My golf coach always says stop trying to hit the ball, focus on the perfect swing. In the beautiful dance of the body, mind, emotions and the being; the body swings, the ball just comes in the way and ever so gently reaches the farthest point when the ball, the club, body, mind, emotions and the being all become one. And, so it is with business. If you are trying to hit profit, you will struggle more and become a two-left feet dancer chasing customers day in, day out. Stop. Instead; bring your passion, inspiration & commitment to become the world's best in your domain and solve the real problem your customer is facing better than anyone else. In that graceful dance; you, the customer, the problem and the solution will become one. Joyful effective action will effortlessly flow out. Wealth creation will then be fun and deeply fulfilling. Customers will queue outside your door. You will experience mastery of life itself. Enjoy the beautiful journey of making a difference to the world and winning over yourself through your business. Love, Jyoti. The entrepreneur needs to focus on mastering three skills to ensure deeply fulfilling, sustainable success: 1. Entrepreneurial Excellence 2. Leadership Depth 3. Craft Mastery 1. Entrepreneurial Excellence means understanding the basic science of building a great business and using it every step along the way, keeping impatience under lock and key. Here is the path: a. Pick up a business idea that is linked to your passion, purpose of life. Picking up something just because it seems to have greater wealth creation opportunity is a sure road to boredom and the inability to keep the energy & enthusiasm going to grow the business. After a point, you no longer would be excited and the hard-work of raising a start-up would seem like an unnecessary struggle. Do yourself a favour; pick up something that fills you up with inspiration and brings the shine in your eyes as you think about it. b. This business idea now needs to be married to what's missing in the world. Which target community does the business idea serve? What is the pain faced by that target community that fills you up with passion to solve for? Is the pain critical enough for them to pay for solving it? This stage is where you find your blue ocean, your value proposition. Building a business is an iterative process. It is likely that you may find at this stage that your business idea does not solve a problem that your target community really cares about. In that case, you pivot back to the first step. If you find willing customers for your business idea transformed into a minimum viable product, its time to move forward. c. At this stage; you build for profitability, repeatability and scalability. Profitability - Is the cost of customer creation and product / service development & delivery substantially less than what she is willing to pay for? Repeatability - Can you repeat the entire value creation cycle (from customer creation to post-sales service) following the same steps every time, delighting the customer the same way each time? Scalability - Can the entire process run without you? d. If you are able to build your business to solve for the above, you are ready to press the accelerator to scale-up. This is where you should really seek funding, if at all. e. If you built your business right, you should now be able to hand-over the management of your enterprise to a professional team and truly become a business owner where wealth creation is no longer a function of your time. 2. Leadership Depth - This journey is about growing inwards to connect with your highest self; to bring stillness in your mind, body, emotions and spirit. Its only in deepening of your leadership muscles of Agility of Mind, Being of Service, Communicating in the World of Others, Integrity and Excellence that you inspire partnership from people in your life (family, employees, investors, peer group, business partners, customers, suppliers) to support you to transform your vision into reality. With leadership depth, you run your business with effortless ease experiencing fun, fulfilment, freedom along the way and you have it all - deeply fulfilling successful, profitable business; joyful relationships, happy responsible kids and lots of nourishing me-time. 3. Craft Mastery - Many a times, the entrepreneur gets so much sucked into the business of running the business because the fundamental principles are not followed that there is no time for investing into the domain that was the original reason for the entrepreneur to start the business. Your craft is your domain, the area of your business. You probably started the business because you are passionate about this domain. I call it Craft because the entrepreneur is really an Artist and her product or service - a masterpiece, a work of art. Therefore, forgetting to learn and build mastery in the Craft with every step of building the business; an entrepreneur would lose the purpose of being in the game. The purpose is to transform the world through serving the target community by being the world's best in your chosen craft. Wishing you entrepreneurial excellence, leadership depth and craft mastery so that you leave footprints in the sand of time and fulfil your destiny. Love, Jyoti. I picked up couple of skills in the last one year. I found that there's only one thing that supported me to learn with velocity, integrate with all that I already knew and implement it in my life for results that would not have been possible otherwise. This accelerated learning shifted me profoundly, personally and professionally. At 43; I learnt to do headstand, swing my golf club, cook edible food besides many work-related skills. Surprisingly; for me to extend my headstand longer without support, swing my best golf swing, cook food that actually ended in kids' stomachs, consume a book or content in half my normal time; all needed the same thing - stillness in the mind, stillness of emotions in the heart, stillness in the body and stillness of the spirit. When I have this, there is performance and effectiveness; and results are outstanding. It is through this that I was able to reduce my working hours by half and yet double my revenue; inspire my 11 and 8 year old kids to study on their own to get straight A1 grades; have my aging parents feel alive and young again through the experience of my love and reverence, with the intensity they might have never experienced before. I have seen way too many people in search of stillness and making it the purpose of life itself. This stillness is only a means to an end, which is your karma - the contribution you are here to make this lifetime. And, you live this karma through your work that you are paid for - as a professional or as an entrepreneur. Why not unpaid work? Because there needs to be an energy exchange for it to contribute to both the giver and the receiver. Being of Service (seva) is an important leadership skill that needs to be strengthened for sure; so caring for our family really supports us to grow as human beings and increases our leadership depth. The deepening of the leadership ability is again a means to an end, a means to live the purpose of one's life which is contribution through our karma. Therefore, it is when you integrate gyan yoga (learning through mental processing), bhakti yoga (learning through emotional processing), raja yoga (learning through physical processing) and karma yoga (learning through action and contribution) in your life that you have it all - deeply fulfilling successful career, joyful relationships, happy responsible kids and lots of nourishing me-time. It is then, you truly experience fun, fulfilment and freedom. Love, Jyoti. There is so much glamour and excitement around the unimportant elements of start-ups - business plans, pitches, funding; that the real hero of the story - the customer - gets buried under the carpet. That is why mortality rate of start-ups is so high. The only money that can sustain a start-up is the customer's money, which is an indication of value created. External funding at the wrong time will necessarily lead to pre-mature death of the start-up. External investments should be brought in only for scaling-up; after the business model has been tested for profitability, repeatability and scalability with data drawn from real customer engagements. Olympic gold medals are not won with the excitement of the athlete, running around to get sponsorships but by unglamourous disciplined sweating on a daily basis as part of a rigorous structure of success under the hawk-eye of a coach. Founders need to leave the comfort of their air-conditioned office and be foot-soldiers engaging with customers day-in, day-out to make a difference to them; rather than waste time fine-tuning their elevator pitches and business plan presentations. Love, Jyoti. One of the biggest reasons results are not created in entrepreneurial ventures is because the Structure of Success is missing. The scene at a start-up is not unlike a bollywood movie of yester years - pull out the gun and shoot-shoot, in the mistaken belief that whatever action will give the desired results. The truth is that only effective, deeply thought-through action gives the outcomes you want. A plan (written down before the month begins) of the key performance indicator for the month (usually number of new clients for a start-up) and low-level list of all actions (prioritized & scheduled) that need to take place for the number to be achieved is critical. What is even more critical is to be alive to this plan by taking this thought-through action consistently day in day out, irrespective of the chaos inside or outside. Though, it is this action that differentiates the effortless entrepreneur from a struggling one - Review and Reflection at the end of the month to understand a. what worked well, b. what could be better, c. what are my learnings, d. what will I do differently based on these learnings, e. am I chasing the customers or are they chasing me, f. what do I need to do to create such enormous value that my customers queue up outside my office door to buy my product / service. Keep realizing your greatest dreams in deepest communion with your highest self and make the difference that you are meant to make with your business. Love, Jyoti. |
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