Great Small Business Ideas to Start: Value innovation When firms compete, they tend to become locked in a cycle of incrementally improving a combination of costs, product, and service. Value innovators break free from the pack by staking out a new market, developing products or services for which there are no direct competitors. The idea … Read more
Great Small Business Ideas to Start: Selling online Selling online is a fast, flexible, and highly effective way to reach customers and increase revenues. Online sales are growing at a phenomenally fast rate—and yet the first online sale occurred as recently as 1994 in America. What are the lessons, and how can a business increase … Read more
Great Small Business Ideas to Start: Silo busting How do you get people to collaborate within an organization across business divisions? The answer is to focus on the thing that should unite you most—the need to serve customers—in five practical ways. The idea Many businesses have either failed or not realized their potential because they … Read more
Great Small Business Ideas to Start: Audacity How do you instill a bold, adventurous approach in employees? The most successful businesses are often those that are prepared to go further and take careful, calculated risks. This spirit of audacity can be developed, with insightful leadership. The idea “As South Africans, we weren’t really frightened of … Read more
Great Small Business Ideas to Start: Market segmentation Market segmentation involves analyzing groups of current and potential customers. It is valuable for understanding the organization and composition of the market, to improve the effectiveness of marketing plans, and to target potential customers. The idea A senior marketing colleague once remarked that he wanted to see … Read more
Great Small Business Ideas to Start: Developing a sales culture “Putting customers first” is a frequently heard business mantra, but what does it mean and how can it be achieved in practice? The idea The argument is simple. If you can get everyone in your organization to view their work from the point of view … Read more
Great Small Business Ideas to Start: The balanced scorecard In The Balanced Scorecard Robert Kaplan and David Norton highlight several ways entrepreneurs can increase the long-term value of their business. The balanced scorecard offers a measurement and management system that links strategic objectives to improved performance. The idea The balanced scorecard approach enables managers to … Read more
Great Small Business Ideas to Start: Emotional intelligence Emotional intelligence (EI) is a person’s ability to acquire and apply knowledge from their emotions and the emotions of others, in order to be more successful and lead a more fulfilling life. The idea Psychologist Daniel Goleman popularized his view of emotional intelligence in the 1995 bestseller … Read more
Great Small Business Ideas to Start: Building trust Trust is an essential aspect of business, notably when leading people, selling to customers, or building the long-term reputation and value of an enterprise. Trust is easily taken for granted, hard to define, and easy to undermine or destroy—but how can it be built? The idea Trust … Read more
Great Small Business Ideas to Start: Resource building The key to success lies in viewing the essentials of business (such as people, customers, cash, ideas, skills, reputation, and others) as resources that accumulate or decline. By taking a resource-based view you will make decisions that are dynamic and forward-focused, rather than historically based. The idea … Read more
