Tips for Running a Successful Business

Running a business can be one of the most satisfying undertakings a person can ever do. It can create financial freedom, generate personal wealth, give a person purpose, and provide an opportunity to make a difference to the world.
However, even the top students of the best business schools in the world will always take a little while to find their feet when they start out on their own. Entreprenuership has been described by some as a little like jumping off a cliff and building a parachute on the way down. Althought the physics in that phrase may not stand up to scrutiny, the metaphor certainly instills a vivid image of the struggle endured by many business people.
Whilst there is no substitute for hands on learning, here are some helpful tips to being successful in running your business.

Compassion and Understanding

It's often considered that you need to be a sociopath to make it to the very top, assuming a "win at all costs" attitude. That isn't the case, successful people need a strong team of people behind them, and this requires a strong leader. According to Greg Dinkin's eBook "All In", in which he discusses the traits that are needed to be successful in life, business and poker, leadership requires compassion and understanding. Rule number 1 in Greg's book is that successful people must be compassionate and be able to put themselves in the shoes of others, he argues that understanding how others think can give you an advantage in many situations.

Make a Decision

Make a decision, any decision. It is preferable to make the right one, but if you don’t make any decision your indecisiveness will definitely make the wrong one for you. Large organisations will spend a lot of time and money on research, understanding their market and the demographics that are contained within it. They’ll also spend a lot of resources developing their product and processes.

However, if you’re running a small business you might have to base some of your decisions on intuition, but that doesn’t mean they will be any less right than decisions based on research. As we’ll discuss in the next section, you should also be ready to change your decisions as new information becomes available.

Always be Willing to Change

In the wise words of Ross Geller: “Pivot! Pivot! Pivot!”. Whilst it is important to make a decision to make sure that you don’t get bogged down in endless discussion, it is equally important to recognise when the decision was not the right one, and that a better course of action can be taken.
Margaret Thatcher once said “the Lady is not for turning”, but you are not a politician, you won’t be ostracised for making a “u-turn”. In fact your customers (or potential customers) are probably screaming out for you to do it. Don’t be stubborn, would you rather be “right” or “successful”? The two are sometimes mutually exclusive.

Consider the Triple Bottom Line

Economic theory states that businesses have the sole objective of “maximising profit”. However, more modern business thinking is that a successful business should consider more than just its money. 

The theory of the “triple bottom line” has emerged, which examines the three pillars of sustainability:
• Planet - protecting the environment from the business’ operations.
• People - protecting the people that work for the business, it’s supply chain, and in the wider communities.
• Profit - ensuring that the business makes enough money in order to continue its operations.
There is even evidence to suggest that businesses that consider their sustainability in this way are more successful. S&P 500 companies with sustainability strategies more often outperform those without.
 

Have Fun

No matter what reason you start a business for, you should ensure that you enjoy it. Apple founder Steve Jobs once said that your work will take up a large proportion of your life, and that it is therefore important to love what you do. Without this, you will not be satisfied.

Steve certainly enjoyed what he did, and he makes a great case. If you don’t have a boss to force you to do the less enjoyable parts of your work, then you will need to find another way to motivate yourself. Money can certainly be a motivator, but for most people this wears off after a while as it simply becomes an empty pursuit of larger numbers with no real reason for it.

There is no right way to run a business, particularly because everyone has their own reasons for doing it. So you’ll likely learn most of your lessons “on the job”, but as long as you can adapt to changing conditions and are able to build and lead a strong team, you’ll have a fighting chance.