Can you build a team?

Nowadays, it seems that everyone wants to be an entrepreneur. It doesn't help that governments seem to be fuelling this trend in order to justify their employment statistics either. What's happening though is that entrepreneurs don't want to work with others in many instances since they want to be the boss and not be accountable to anyone else. It's a recipe for disaster and failure.

There's a need for accountability, and that doesn't mean giving up control; though it may mean you don't exercise full ownership any longer. Here are some of the common thoughts being touted by many entrepreneurs - in raw unpolished form:

• They want the investors money but not their input; so the investor should put their money in and just disappear until it's near repayment time. 
• Staff don't need to be paid well, their work is not that valuable as running a business. Who gets the headaches at night trying to keep this business afloat?
• Customer better take what we're offering since the research shows they're getting a deal. No one else offers this product/service at this kind of price and value. Is this really how you wish to treat a customer? They may not complain....
• Look we have people who'd figure out the details. Who's the visionary here? That word, visionary, irks me personally. They always want to pull one over on everyone they meet. Personally I seldom wish to deal with anyone who has such a title. 

You get the idea. No one recognizes that to truly succeed you have to work in teams. Though the information's there, very few look to see that the successful entities have learnt the value of team and how to work with the skills and strengths of their various team members. 

No successful entity really does so without understanding the importance of having skill with people. Can you provide the following?

1. Clear direction 
2. Sound communication 
3. Create positive environments 
4. Be helpful without making others feel weak or useless
5. Empower others to utilize their skills and abilities 
6. A solutions oriented environment that solves virtually all problems because of clarity of focus

The list can go on but the message is clear. To succeed you have to be able to build teams. Too many still tout the cliched if you want it done well do it yourself type of thinking. 

The result is stress! 

Can you build teams with accountabilities in place? Are you willing to be accountable as well? If you're willing to learn team building then there are solutions available that will help you in realizing the success that you require. 

Here's what you can do. Read the books for yourself, take a course, hire a professional; all the while understanding that the process will be as quick or slow as you determine. In the realm of your plans, what time do you have realistically? In the scope of things, time can be even more valuable than money; so be careful how you invest your time. 

One thing is certain, whatever your decision, you can determine if you want fragmented dribblings of results or if you wish to really experience that feeling of loving it when a plan comes together. 

Take stock and revamp

When you're doing business for any length of time, it's easy for some things to fall through cracks. What do I mean?

• You deviate from your planned/established procedures
• Damaging behaviours creep in, especially when taken for granted that it's a one off experience 
• Your systems are not really systems, only an ad hoc set of behaviours clumped together 

What do you do?

• You will feel overwhelmed
• You will experience the frustration of not truly making progress 
• Stress levels will increase in all facets of your life - you get the picture 

STOP AND TAKE STOCK

• Examine what you're doing and the results you're getting 
• Identify where changes need to be made; get help if you need to
• Make the changes, and then evaluate to see if they're working 

Here's what you'll find

• You may become more organized achieving more in less time
• Your stress levels will decline
• You will feel more in control of what you're doing and what you wish to achieve 
• Ever so slight, you'll start to experience some successes 
• Stopping and taking stock often enough will even result in your becoming a bigger success than you've ever been

Don't take my word for it. Try it for yourselves. You owe it to yourselves, your family, and your business; whatever it may be. Begin to take steps today to improve the quality of your living. 

Mistakes - Life's greatest teachers

One thing's for certain. If you're in business long enough you will have some challenges. You may encounter professional and personal challenges, but they all affect some of the circumstances within your business.

How are you doing business wise / personally?

Often times we are caught up in the busyness of our business. This activity becomes so routine and automatic that planning goes out the window and oftentimes we feel like we're on the treadmill - lots of activity but not covering any real ground. Progress seems to be in the far distance and success still farther away.

Getting sick is not necessarily a bad thing. It forces you to stop and think. You question yourself about your current lot / place in life. Depending on who you are you'll have various questions that apply to you. After some pondering, you tend to decide on a course of action and take it.

You realize that you knew the answers all along. You just never had the opportunity to stop and address your personal situation as you were always busy taking care of others.

So what can you do so that you don't have to wait until you become sick to do evaluations?

1. Book appointments with yourself
2. Take time to improve your knowledge and skills 
3. Apply what you've learnt to take you closer to your goals. 

You will make mistakes along the way as you alter your actions. Don't be afraid to make them; mistakes are some of the greatest teachers. You'll see that once you take heed to your findings, your business environment will improve and your personal challenges will be eliminated in terms of that particular set of mistakes. 

Organizations with notable contributions to Small Business

In my years of business development, I have come across a number of entities that have given assistance to the development of SMEs over the years. However, I have found that they are some that stand out more than others not only for their assistance, but for their consistency of effort.

In this instance, I will focus on those that are located within the island of Barbados. I would hope that they will take note of this post and endeavor to continue to great work that they have done over the years. To explain the services of each one would result in a post that would probably bore the reader. Therefore, if you have any knowledge of their services or industries that they operate within you will know that they are exemplary in their offerings:

Telecommunications

• LIME - for all their services and packages

 Banking and Finance

• Scotiabank
• First Citizens Bank
• City of Bridgetown Cooperative Credit Union

Technical Assistance and Mentoring

•  The Barbados Investment and Development Corporation [BIDC]
• Caribbean Export
• The Barbados Youth Business Trust 
• The Youth Entrepreneurship Scheme
• Science and Technology

There was a time that a lot of support came from

• The Barbados Coalition of Service Industries [BCSI] 
• Republic Bank 
• CIBC First Caribbean International Bank

Conference and meeting facilities

• The Hilton Barbados
• The Barbados Yacht Club
• The Courtyard by Marriott
• The Accra Beach Hotel 
• The Coffee Bean [more for meetings] 

 Power

• The Barbados Light and Power 

Water

• The Barbados Water Authority 

Permissions

• The Town and Country Planning Office 

Ongoing Education

• The Samuel Jackman Prescod Polytechnic [SJPP]
• The Barbados Community College [BCC] 
• Barbados Institute of Management and Productivity [BIMAP] 
• The University of the West Indies [UWI] 

Incentive creation and positive functional taxation policies that facilitate economic growth

• The Government of Barbados with their Bright, Lucrative, Policies 

We want to take this opportunity to say thank you for your various contributions to SME development within Barbados.You will note that mentioning SMEs does not mean entrepreneurs, but small businesses that drive the tangible sustainability of the economy. Thank you for your outstanding efforts.

Overrating the Entrepreneur

There's a trend - Governments in order to boost their employment figures are turning to the entrepreneur and implementing programs that overlap that lead to an often dead end road where the entrepreneur can't get what they truly need to get their business off the ground at the end of their education - MONEY.

The programs being touted in the media about entrepreneurialism seem to suggest that everyone has what it takes to be an entrepreneur. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Yes there are some great ideas out there in the minds of those that would be great if they can ever get off the ground. These individuals have neither the experience, the connections, nor the financial backing to realize their "dreams".

It is therefore against, this backdrop that this post is being put so here are some things that you need as a prospective entrepreneur to consider:

1. You need to research your business well. Having just an idea without knowing at least how phase one will work isn't enough. Business is not an arena that you can "fly by the seat of your pants". You need to know your business inside out. You have to provide the information necessary to enable your team to make sound decisions. If you need to get aspects researched, then pay to do it. You'll save yourselves lots of time by finding out what you need to know.
2. Your professional team is necessary as they have more experience than you do. You won't go to the doctor and ask for the syringe to administer your medication that you should have no access to, don't expect that your professional team is going to hand over the tools of their trade for you to botch it up - and then blame them. Also while helping you to understand the guidelines of their expertise, they will not train you in their area of professionalism. 
3. FUNDS - Have funds to start your business or GO HOME. Trying to start a business on the back of others using their assets is just not going to cut it. You need to understand that others are not going to have the need in place more investment in your business than you are. Pay your professionals and other service providers well and STOP LOOKING FOR HANDOUTS! We have to pay to access the information that we then provide you with to make important decisions. 
4. Too many "entrepreneurs" want to behave as if they are the bosses of their professional team members. Respect the personal time of your professional team members. Calling them incessantly after hours and on weekends even when paying fees can create a challenge. All professionals need down time to adequately prepare for the next work wave so they can be on top of their game. This is necessary when we ask nicely. 
5. Follow the advice that you're given - sitting in meetings taking up time and then not following through on the outcomes from that meeting, only to turn up again with incomplete tasks is tantamount to Bovine Faeces - wasting time and energy of all involved. 

Following these five (5) suggestions will go a long way in helping you build a strong and profitable business and in this instance is given freely. If you are lacking in these areas and are thinking about entrepreneurship there are agencies to help you get prepared in the areas you are lacking the resources. Go there first! 

Many professionals discuss these areas among themselves, it's time that you also know so that you can adjust your "business practices". Don't become another statistic just because they're overrating the entrepreneur as an employment solution. 

Greed to the Extreme = Chaos

Taxation has its place in any economy. It's what is needed in order for the nation to survive. However when taken to the extreme, it hinders rather than helps what the government of the day is trying to achieve. Politics has proven by way of the results, though packaged differently, that virtually are all parties seem to be the same - undeliverable promises made to capture votes.

There's something when the populous raises alarms that go unheeded. When the pain of a people is being heard and yet ignored. When people who are thought of as peaceful seem to be continually trampled by decisions that off ill effect. What is being put forward by the governments of the day seems to be win/lose rather than win/win. Macro economic policy seems to be decided upon by micro economic situations - hair extension brands, rims for vehicles, how much money small businesses make like hairdressers etc.

In short, government policies can help or hinder business development. There must be strategy to allowing businesses to develop and thrive so that collections can be made from profitable, sustainable businesses. Business owners must be allowed to have money so that they can make decisions that positively influence their businesses and the community within which it operates.

Caribbean businesses have not yet developed a profit mindset. The lack of strategies speak to this when one meets with the entity's decision makers and discuss the "methods" used to develop their business' model. Most businesses seem to adopt the "for me to succeed, you must fail" thinking. Yet others seem to have a need to spend when money is received to reset their accounts to pre revenue levels. Very few businesses have a plan as to what they need to do with any surplus cash - the result is then wastage.

When taxes can get to the level that they surpass the price of the service / product offered [see regional airline tickets] then we know we are really living in troubled times. Though it has not happened yet, the result over time can be chaos, when people are pushed to their limits and finally exceed their breaking points. We need to take heed and do so quickly.

[image was found on the internet] 

Why Work?

Lately, it appears that there's a toss up between getting a job or starting a business. The thing is starting a business is becoming so academic that there are now definitions as to who is / isn't an entrepreneur. The discussions are now spinning out as to if the business is designed for growth / just the lifetime of the owner complete with further drilling down of all the surrounding factors.

The various analyses have lead me to a question that I don't believe many people seriously ask themselves. I say seriously since the default answer regardless of whether they are looking at working for themselves / someone else seems to stem from being able to pay bills.

I have been alive long enough to see the spending power of currency shrink. Once upon a time, $x would have enabled you to take 2 or more trolleys to the check out counter of most supermarkets. Nowadays, that same $x would allow you to look through the trolley of goods and see the floor beneath. In other words, the trolley would not even be half full and the money's already gone. May I hasten to add that you still would not have been able to purchase everything that you needed.

So why work? 

• Is it enough to say we want to be able to pay our bills or should we be able to have at least some discretionary income? Governments don't seem to think so as they think of taxes of every type to acquire our often hard earned money with nary an incentive to encourage spending that would result in money making opportunities. Not everyone wishes to engage in squandermania. 
• Will we ever break the cycle of more month than money? 
• What are we doing to build our financial IQ so that we can spot and capitalize on opportunities?
• The days of one job and employment loyalty are a quickly fading memory of the past. Everyone's tuned into the station WIIFM [what's in it for me]. Yet the biographies of the rich and laden with stories of how much they give, and the fact that the more they give the more they get. 
• Athletes and entertainers are paid lots of money for doing one thing well. Yet many of us try to do many different things often unsuccessfully. When will we learn the power of focus. 
• What do we gain from work? Do we work because we want to or because we have to? The difference in answer will assist in determining our attitudes towards our work. 
• Is it only about the money? Many people are going to work so numb nowadays, seldom giving any serious thought to their work unless they hear that it, work, is threatened with cessation. 
• Is owning a business better than working for someone? The answer for this all depends on you. I have met people who have been quite successful in both situations. Their success stems in a large part from their attitudes. 

Various people have different reasons as to why they should work. For the others who are unsure, identify why you do work, decide if this is what you want to do with regards to making your contribution. Then make the adjustments in your life to find your true calling. Once you've take these steps you'll be crystal clear in your mind as to why you should work. Today find your Why for Working!