Only through entrepreneurship can one truly enjoy self sufficiency.
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TELLING YOUR BUSINESS STORY: A strategy for building sustainable business relationships
Copyright @ June, 2009 -By Dr. T. Ndoro (DocNdoro) Founder – SLIPPA/CEO EDCTrainers, LLC & Mushaindoro Holding Company
In my capacity as the Regional Director of a small business development center, I was invited as the guest speaker at the New Jersey Association of Women Business Owners-Essex County Chapter Dinner & Board Officers Installation Ceremony. When the President asked me to be their guest speaker I confidently agree, because this is an organization that is a great collaborative partner for the Center. There were 47 women business owners present for the event. When I got there the Chapter President kept on telling me and everyone she introduced me to during the networking session what a great speaker I was. She intimated that I was such a draw for them as they have never had such a turn out. It was flattering, but it was also working my nerves into nervousness. I could tell the expectations were high. The fact that she told me they had just cut my talking time did not help. I was supposed to speak on “Managing Your Business” but somehow my intuition had been telling me that this was not an appropriate topic. Therefore I prepared a speech on “Strategies for The Small Business Soul” which also did not seem like the right presentation once I was in the room. I decided it was time to be pragmatic. I therefore decided to share testimonials of my business stories and how they save as a strategic way of building your business. This is what I share with the women.
Tell Me A Great Story:
I am here to talk about Managing A Business, but I am not going to talk about that because it is my belief that anyone who has a uterus knows how to manage! Women we are managing everything – our communities, our relationships, our families, our children, even our bodies – so we know how to manage a business! What I want to talks about are strategies to help you position your business. To rethink what you are doing right now in your business so that you can seize the opportunities in the environment and take it to the next revenue levels. But people are so distracted these days and unless you are telling your business story, to your customers, your employees, your strategic partners, you could be missing an opportunity to redefine yourself in the market place.
Most of us recall how we were raised on stories. Whether from the oral tradition of our grandparents and elders or when your parents or guardians read you bed time stories. We have already been trained since childhood to listen to and appreciate a good story. Most people I know love a good story. Therefore telling your business story is a great strategy for re-positioning, marketing, creating and maintaining your strategic relationships and ultimately building your business. The effect a good story has is that when you tell someone a great story, they are likely to remember you, when they remember you, then you have made a positive lasting impression. You have achieved one of the fundamental principles in marketing strategy – that is, help them remembered who you are the next time you meet them again. It also takes away the awkwardness of trying to remember who you are.
A good story engenders positive feelings toward you and your business, but a great story makes people like you and in business, people want to do business with people that they like. So tell your great story! Make it good, positive, funny short, sweet and relevant. You have achieved your sales proposition without them even realizing that you are telling them about who you are, how you do business, and why they should do business with you. Therefore, its not always about having a sales proposition as the end, its about cultivating a long term relationship, that may turn prospects into clients or help contacts refer clients/customers to you. (So I told them my own business story):
“I used to own a retail business where I designed, manufactured and sold contemporary African clothing. It was an opportunity I stumbled on out of necessity. When I started graduate school, I could not cope the work load of school and working fulltime so I had to leave my job. But my graduate fellowship was not enough to live on so I started designing cloths and doing fashion shows. I had never trained to be a fashion designer but as a young kid I always had to design my cloth and my mom made them for me. I knew how to saw because I had taken a high-school “domestic science” sawing class. I hated sawing. But because I needed to generate additional income, I had to saw. Well from designing, making and selling man’s dashiki shirts, I got more and more sophisticated that I was being invited to do fashion shows of my designs. Before I knew it I had opened a retail store and selling “INDATE DESIGNS” designer, custom fitted clothing for women. Who knew that the little domestic science sawing class would help me pay for graduate school? They liked this rages to riches story.”
My point in sharing this story with you is to illustrate that as women business owners we have skills that we can transport from one context to another, you just have to think and act strategically to know which skills can be applied when – if you plan your household budget you know how to do a business budget if you put your mind to it; if you know how to multi-task your children’s sports activities you know how to time manage, coordinate, delegate and conduct performance measurements in your business. Different contexts, same skills.
Turning threats into opportunities:
Most small businesses conduct strategy in their businesses, but they are just not consciously organized and deliberate in planning what class of strategic actions they end up engaged in – is your strategic focus on Managerial leadership? Knowledge capital? Resources? Operational fit? Or your business Environment? In most small businesses strategic decisions and actions are usually the process of crisis management. If you understand that strategy is the ability to for the business to manage opportunities and threats in the environment. But sometimes the wisdom is in the ability to turn your threats into opportunities. To illustrate how a threat can turn into an opportunity, I will share with you a story that happened to me recently with Mushaindoro, a bed and breakfast facility I own here in Essex County.
“Recently I had to let one of my housekeeping employees in the Bed & Breakfast go. But she made it easy for me. I had been unhappy with her performance for a while but I did not have the heart to fire her – given that this is a time of the recession. So the last Saturday in May as she was leaving, I told her I had to travel the following weekend and would like her to arrange to stay overnight while I was out of town. Thats when she told me she would not be able to come to work that Monday the 1st of June – she needed some time off to do something. I had just given her a week off the beginning of the month so I did not understand where she was coming from. I asked her if she was quitting her job and she said not she was just taking some time off, she would be back in July. At that point I wanted to tell her she was fired, but I just told her to leave and take her time off.
At first I thought this is a threat to my business, my guests, my household and all my meeting plans for the month. But as the days went by I realized I was coping without her help; I realized I did not need her! Strategically, I realized that what may have seemed as a threat in the beginning was actually turning into an opportunity to restructure my HR needs, I could also reallocate her salary for the month to other projects pending for Mushaindoro. Then I decided to fire her.”
In a nutshell, give yourself time to reevaluate what’s going on inside and outside of your business environment. As women we have the gift of intuition and trust it. Threats sometimes makes room for opportunities to manifest. As small businesses we are agile, quick to adapt and respond to threats at less cost and seized opportunities in the environment.
Elements of Strategic Success:
In closing I share with you that for your strategy to succeed there are other elements that need to be in place and they play a significant role in whether your strategy results are great or average.
1. Leadership – be present in your business
2. Know your company’s DNA
3. Know your business environments
4. Know your customers
5. Have a strategic consciousness
6. Act deliberately and boldly.
Use your business story as a strategy to build your business relationships. A great story makes people like you and people do business with people they like.
In my capacity as the Regional Director of a small business development center, I was invited as the guest speaker at the New Jersey Association of Women Business Owners-Essex County Chapter Dinner & Board Officers Installation Ceremony. When the President asked me to be their guest speaker I confidently agree, because this is an organization that is a great collaborative partner for the Center. There were 47 women business owners present for the event. When I got there the Chapter President kept on telling me and everyone she introduced me to during the networking session what a great speaker I was. She intimated that I was such a draw for them as they have never had such a turn out. It was flattering, but it was also working my nerves into nervousness. I could tell the expectations were high. The fact that she told me they had just cut my talking time did not help. I was supposed to speak on “Managing Your Business” but somehow my intuition had been telling me that this was not an appropriate topic. Therefore I prepared a speech on “Strategies for The Small Business Soul” which also did not seem like the right presentation once I was in the room. I decided it was time to be pragmatic. I therefore decided to share testimonials of my business stories and how they save as a strategic way of building your business. This is what I share with the women.
Tell Me A Great Story:
I am here to talk about Managing A Business, but I am not going to talk about that because it is my belief that anyone who has a uterus knows how to manage! Women we are managing everything – our communities, our relationships, our families, our children, even our bodies – so we know how to manage a business! What I want to talks about are strategies to help you position your business. To rethink what you are doing right now in your business so that you can seize the opportunities in the environment and take it to the next revenue levels. But people are so distracted these days and unless you are telling your business story, to your customers, your employees, your strategic partners, you could be missing an opportunity to redefine yourself in the market place.
Most of us recall how we were raised on stories. Whether from the oral tradition of our grandparents and elders or when your parents or guardians read you bed time stories. We have already been trained since childhood to listen to and appreciate a good story. Most people I know love a good story. Therefore telling your business story is a great strategy for re-positioning, marketing, creating and maintaining your strategic relationships and ultimately building your business. The effect a good story has is that when you tell someone a great story, they are likely to remember you, when they remember you, then you have made a positive lasting impression. You have achieved one of the fundamental principles in marketing strategy – that is, help them remembered who you are the next time you meet them again. It also takes away the awkwardness of trying to remember who you are.
A good story engenders positive feelings toward you and your business, but a great story makes people like you and in business, people want to do business with people that they like. So tell your great story! Make it good, positive, funny short, sweet and relevant. You have achieved your sales proposition without them even realizing that you are telling them about who you are, how you do business, and why they should do business with you. Therefore, its not always about having a sales proposition as the end, its about cultivating a long term relationship, that may turn prospects into clients or help contacts refer clients/customers to you. (So I told them my own business story):
“I used to own a retail business where I designed, manufactured and sold contemporary African clothing. It was an opportunity I stumbled on out of necessity. When I started graduate school, I could not cope the work load of school and working fulltime so I had to leave my job. But my graduate fellowship was not enough to live on so I started designing cloths and doing fashion shows. I had never trained to be a fashion designer but as a young kid I always had to design my cloth and my mom made them for me. I knew how to saw because I had taken a high-school “domestic science” sawing class. I hated sawing. But because I needed to generate additional income, I had to saw. Well from designing, making and selling man’s dashiki shirts, I got more and more sophisticated that I was being invited to do fashion shows of my designs. Before I knew it I had opened a retail store and selling “INDATE DESIGNS” designer, custom fitted clothing for women. Who knew that the little domestic science sawing class would help me pay for graduate school? They liked this rages to riches story.”
My point in sharing this story with you is to illustrate that as women business owners we have skills that we can transport from one context to another, you just have to think and act strategically to know which skills can be applied when – if you plan your household budget you know how to do a business budget if you put your mind to it; if you know how to multi-task your children’s sports activities you know how to time manage, coordinate, delegate and conduct performance measurements in your business. Different contexts, same skills.
Turning threats into opportunities:
Most small businesses conduct strategy in their businesses, but they are just not consciously organized and deliberate in planning what class of strategic actions they end up engaged in – is your strategic focus on Managerial leadership? Knowledge capital? Resources? Operational fit? Or your business Environment? In most small businesses strategic decisions and actions are usually the process of crisis management. If you understand that strategy is the ability to for the business to manage opportunities and threats in the environment. But sometimes the wisdom is in the ability to turn your threats into opportunities. To illustrate how a threat can turn into an opportunity, I will share with you a story that happened to me recently with Mushaindoro, a bed and breakfast facility I own here in Essex County.
“Recently I had to let one of my housekeeping employees in the Bed & Breakfast go. But she made it easy for me. I had been unhappy with her performance for a while but I did not have the heart to fire her – given that this is a time of the recession. So the last Saturday in May as she was leaving, I told her I had to travel the following weekend and would like her to arrange to stay overnight while I was out of town. Thats when she told me she would not be able to come to work that Monday the 1st of June – she needed some time off to do something. I had just given her a week off the beginning of the month so I did not understand where she was coming from. I asked her if she was quitting her job and she said not she was just taking some time off, she would be back in July. At that point I wanted to tell her she was fired, but I just told her to leave and take her time off.
At first I thought this is a threat to my business, my guests, my household and all my meeting plans for the month. But as the days went by I realized I was coping without her help; I realized I did not need her! Strategically, I realized that what may have seemed as a threat in the beginning was actually turning into an opportunity to restructure my HR needs, I could also reallocate her salary for the month to other projects pending for Mushaindoro. Then I decided to fire her.”
In a nutshell, give yourself time to reevaluate what’s going on inside and outside of your business environment. As women we have the gift of intuition and trust it. Threats sometimes makes room for opportunities to manifest. As small businesses we are agile, quick to adapt and respond to threats at less cost and seized opportunities in the environment.
Elements of Strategic Success:
In closing I share with you that for your strategy to succeed there are other elements that need to be in place and they play a significant role in whether your strategy results are great or average.
1. Leadership – be present in your business
2. Know your company’s DNA
3. Know your business environments
4. Know your customers
5. Have a strategic consciousness
6. Act deliberately and boldly.
Use your business story as a strategy to build your business relationships. A great story makes people like you and people do business with people they like.
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