From Idea to Exit by Jeffrey Weber

Author:Jeffrey Weber
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780983302001
Publisher: Allworth Press
Published: 2013-10-02T16:00:00+00:00

PHASE III

AT THIS POINT, YOU HAVE completed the two hardest stages of your entrepreneurial journey. You have established an idea that satisfies the requirements of the E-Formula and thereby allows you to activate as an entrepreneur. After making the decision to go for it, you have adequately planned and prepared to start your company. You then assessed your desire against what you valued most in your Risk Box, and jumped in with both feet to make the business a viable success. As you reach the Running phase of the entrepreneurial journey, you have done far more than most of the people who have ever dreamed of starting their own business.

The fear of committing that you experienced in the Idea phase turns into a fear of failure in the Running phase of the business. In even the most successful businesses, entrepreneurs are constantly concerned with survival. This fear may rest in the back of your mind, but you can expect it to be always present as you grow and develop your business. Don’t think of that fear as immobilizing, however; instead, consider it your motivator to build and execute winning strategies for success. Now that you are fully engaged in the business and have proven its viability, your actions all must be targeted toward growth and innovation. Your efforts as an entrepreneur have paid off.

The set of rules you might have developed for the Startup phase of your business won’t necessarily work in the Running phase. Your company is becoming more responsive to customer demand, rather than generating it. You have to develop processes to run the business in a consistent and predictable way. Your role as an entrepreneur in the business also needs to change; at this point, your focus has to be on scaling, innovating, and leading.

As you move through this phase of your journey, you should get used to measuring success in accomplishments rather than in dollars. Money is merely a business metric, not a true measure of success. If you do your work effectively and grow your business according to your plans, your money metric should grow in kind. If you can maintain this perspective, you will come to regard even your failures as successes, because you will learn something invaluable from each experience. The popular Chicken Soup for the Soul book and subsequent series was reportedly rejected 77 times before HCI Books picked up the first title and went on to sell over 100 million copies. The success was not the 100 million books sold but the fact that the authors did not give up after continual rejection and failure.

Unfortunately, as many business owners grow to become successful, they begin to lose an understanding of why their customers buy their products or services. They focus more on the revenue coming in and less on measuring their marketing efforts. They may start to remove themselves from actively soliciting customer feedback. That’s a danger in the Running phase. Businesses get so focused on fulfilling demand that they simply stop listening to their customers.

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