10 Tips to Supercharge YOUR Business

Simplify, simplify, simplify
Managing is hard. Don’t make it harder by making your management process mired in bureaucracy.

Learn to delegate tasks effectively. Let go of those tasks that others can do perfectly well on your behalf. Give people ownership over their tasks so that they take it more seriously, e.g. you will work harder on a job that only you are responsible for rather than one where you and ten other people are responsible for. And be sure to provide your staff with S.M.A.R.T. goals to work toward, i.e. specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and timely goals.

Time is precious, don’t waste it
As your business starts rolling, you will slowly find that your life seems to move faster than you’re comfortable with. When this happens, you’ll start to realize that every second counts.

For example, when you start drowning in emails, that’s the time to invest in a smart phone (I prefer my Blackberry). With a smartphone, you can reply to emails while walking to work, eating dinner on a first date, watching a horror movie, etc.

Face-to-face meetings are usually a waste of time; with phones, conference calls, instant messaging, emails, text, holograms, etc, there are plenty of different ways to keep in touch and keep things moving. Keep the in-person meetings to sensitive matters; otherwise, lavish your face-to-face time to with those people who really count: your customers.

View this interesting video for an alternate take on time management:

Be innovative in how you make your product or service
For those archetypal, DIY garage inventors, you can now download free design tools like Blender or Google’s SketchUp to create 3D renderings of their product, then purchase online the manufacturing equipment (which have fallen in price from the hundred thousands to a few thousand, e.g. MakerBot) you would need to build your products at home or in their rented space.

Be innovative in how you deliver your product or service
Why invest millions of dollars in owning manufacturing plants, warehouses, shipping fleets, etc, when one can organize online the outsourcing of a product’s complete production to foreign countries like China (e.g. Alibaba.com: business-to-business marketplace), have it stored in a nearby warehousing company, accept payments for products online (e.g. paypal.com), then deliver one’s products anywhere in the world (e.g. government or premium mail carriers)?

Network amongst your target market
Being an entrepreneur may seem like a lonely profession. But it doesn’t have to be. The more you put yourself out there, the more you will find like-minded individuals willing to support you.

Also, as your company grows, you will find it necessary to meet with your target market directly. If you are marketing your product to students, visit universities and be active with student clubs and organizations. If you’re marketing your service to fitness freaks, then partner with fitness clubs, table at fitness related conventions, etc. Be a part of the ecosystem of your target market and they may look at you as a natural part of their daily routine, enough to possibly buy your product or service.

Extra tip: base your business around a product or service that is either unique or needed.
If your product or service isn’t needed or unique, then it will simply cost more time, money and effort to promote and protect your company’s market share. This will immediately put you at a competitive disadvantage by saddling upon your company a kind of “competitive overhead cost.”

That concludes my humble rant about how to make it in the world of business. Note that these are but a few considerations one needs to note when starting a business. There are many more. Whatever your plans for world domination, be sure to do your research and keep my following quote in the back of your head: if you work hard, go after what you want and are kind to others, good things will happen.

ARB Team
Arbitrage Magazine
Business News with BITE

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