The title above is not a question in business theory,it’s a factual question you must answer in practice.Imagine you have to answer correctly fifty multiple choice questions in an exam and all these fifty questions have a single uniform answer?To pass or fail such an exam is ‘all or null’, you either get the single correct answer for these fifty questions and score 100% or fail to get that correct answer, you score 0%. Lobatan!
The answer to the question on what you must never do while building your business is like that single answer to many different questions and challenges you will face in your business. You get this answer right; your business survives, you get it wrong;bye-bye to your dream of achieving a successful business!
Now the answer to ‘What You Must Never Fail To Do?’ is so important because you are about to build a business or your business is already on a ‘stwong'(a tongue twist for pronouncing strong and wrong as a single not-so-funny word) foundation.
If I were you,I’ll learn,unlearn and learn myself as my business assumes a life of its own and for me to be sure that my business is standing on a solid foundation. I have personally experienced business hitches, failures and successes and consulted for businesses enough to know that my answer to this question in the title must be answered by me.
Now let’s consider this analogy.If a building project is next to your house and the builder spends just few days of man hours working on the building site with little quantity of building materials and no sooner completed the building foundation A,while opposite your house,another builder spends months of intensive man hours and huge material quantity to complete his building foundation B.Who between the two builders is building a skyscraper?
This is the same thing in building business empires and you are either building a hut or a skyscraper depending on how well and long you spend quality time and materials in building the foundation of your business.
If your business foundation is faulty or weak, you honestly don’t have a business and if you think you do, wait until you see the business crumble with time if you fail to address the missing element in your business foundation. I am not a prophet of doom and I guarantee you that I will be personally responsible to you with free business consulting service for not less than a year if after taking my advice and your business still fails irredeemably.
What is that single thing you must not fail to do when building your business?Hmm..
The answer is simple. You must “never forget to THINK VALUE“.
A personal value is an individual’s absolute or relative and ethical rules for making decisions, the assumption of which can be the basis for your actions.
A value system is a set of consistent values and measures you adopt in everything you do including business decisions. A principle value is a foundation upon which other values and measures of integrity are based.
Your customers, employees and business associates will not ignore your values when taking fundamental decisions that will make or mar your business.
Therefore,if you must build your business foundation and must never forget to THINK VALUE, like the Jains of India and Quakers I wrote about in https://sunkanmivaughan.com/?p=91 ,you must never miss any of these 7 stages of ‘Think Value” ;
a. create value.
b. deliver value.
c. exchange(buy and sell) value.
d. protect value.
e. promote value.
f. project value.
g. sustain value.
Each of these 7 steps has its significant roles played in solidifying your business foundation and in my subsequent blogposts, I will take you through each of them and how each stage is very relevant to your business startup and eventual survival.