Building a business from scratch is no doubt challenging. One way new entrepreneurs can increase their chances of success is through making great connections. Specifically, making great connections with the people that already work in their industry to help you shorten your learning curve.
I am currently reading The Knack by Norm Brodsky and Bo Burlingham. This is a book about how to build a business with street smarts and managing change. One story towards the beginning of the book that really has stuck out to me so far is a story about a woman who wanted to start her own day care center in New York. The woman had little to no business skills but was determined to get her business off the ground.
The smartest thing that I thought she did was call an experienced day care owner in another state and started asking for advice on how to get going and what types of things that she needed. Beyond getting a mentor up front, this was the smartest thing that she could have done. She made sure to call someone who didn’t compete in her market and was this able to have someone avaiable to her to help her avoid the pitfalls of starting a daycare.
As entrepreneurs, this is a critical action step that we can take. We often think that potential competitors would be unwilling to advise us on our business but that thinking couldn’t be farther from the truth. In many cases, others in our same industry, even in our same market, are willing to give advice and tips on getting started.
I have been able to have some success on getting some ideas for pricing structure as well as ideas for offerings from people in my industry. In a couple of cases I have built such a good relationship that we have actually referred each other business.
We have a lot of relationship potential waiting for us to utilize. It’s difficult to get a new business going especially because we don’t know what to expect. Building relationships with people in our industry is a great way to shorten your learning curve and get your company some traction much sooner by using this simple strategy.
Great advice. I can’t tell you how much I’ve learned by picking the brains of people who are in my same field. Specifically through asking advice from others I’ve learned how to structure a tele-workshop, how to make my blogs more effective (new blog coming in a week! yeah!) and ways to relationship build. When you said “We have a lot of relationshiop potential waiting for us to utilize”….I couldn’t agree more. Risking a bit of vulnerability can lead to to a relationship both personally and professionally.
Ann,
Thanks for sharing. When we open ourselves up to others, good things happen. Great to hear your story of success.