The great American satirist Tom Lehner had a song that gave the secret of success in a single word. The example he used was academic promotion, but the same thing applies in writing, politics and anything that involves having ideas, mainly business. He even used the word 'plagiarise' and sang "let no one else's work evade your eyes, so don't shade your eyes but plagiarise..."
Where do people get ideas for new businesses? From other people. The best way to find your way out of a particular problem is to try and think of a business idea or work out how to get a new job. Look at how other people have done it before, make a note of their experiences and then adapt their ideas to suit yourself. This is one of the key lessons we were taught for our MBA course: Learn from other people's experience. We can do this in any way like watching various business talks on television, or reading about them. What worked for them might just work for us!
We need to know ourselves. With most of us, there is an embarrassing gap between our self-image and the way other people see us. We all dream of having the sort of contacts that we can ring up and hear them say: "Job?" We all know that it does not happen that easily. But what our friends or business acquaintances can do is give us a different angle on our own talents, strong points and weaknesses. What do they thing we are good at? They may have spotted sides of our personality that we haven't appreciated. A year back I spoke to a young woman who resides a few miles away from my University. She was running a very successful crystal business. She'd been trying to work out how she could use her skills as an accountant. And it was only when another friend pointed out to her how much she seemed to enjoy her crystal business that the Bid Idea hit her. Now, she's not only making more money than she was before, she's a lot happier too.
Friends don't only have ideas - they have friends too. It only takes one friend-of-a-friend speaking to a total stranger to say this and suddenly your new business has its first customer. So you gotta have friends but your best and biggest friend of all is the telephone. Get on it and make it work for you.
This is a cheering thought - We have more skills and talents than we know. Whatever experience it is that we think has taught us something. Sometimes, those extra skills that we don't even realise we possess can be the ones that generate business. So the final point is - let us think laterally.
Where do people get ideas for new businesses? From other people. The best way to find your way out of a particular problem is to try and think of a business idea or work out how to get a new job. Look at how other people have done it before, make a note of their experiences and then adapt their ideas to suit yourself. This is one of the key lessons we were taught for our MBA course: Learn from other people's experience. We can do this in any way like watching various business talks on television, or reading about them. What worked for them might just work for us!
We need to know ourselves. With most of us, there is an embarrassing gap between our self-image and the way other people see us. We all dream of having the sort of contacts that we can ring up and hear them say: "Job?" We all know that it does not happen that easily. But what our friends or business acquaintances can do is give us a different angle on our own talents, strong points and weaknesses. What do they thing we are good at? They may have spotted sides of our personality that we haven't appreciated. A year back I spoke to a young woman who resides a few miles away from my University. She was running a very successful crystal business. She'd been trying to work out how she could use her skills as an accountant. And it was only when another friend pointed out to her how much she seemed to enjoy her crystal business that the Bid Idea hit her. Now, she's not only making more money than she was before, she's a lot happier too.
Friends don't only have ideas - they have friends too. It only takes one friend-of-a-friend speaking to a total stranger to say this and suddenly your new business has its first customer. So you gotta have friends but your best and biggest friend of all is the telephone. Get on it and make it work for you.
This is a cheering thought - We have more skills and talents than we know. Whatever experience it is that we think has taught us something. Sometimes, those extra skills that we don't even realise we possess can be the ones that generate business. So the final point is - let us think laterally.
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