Buat bisnes ni bukannya senang. Macam – macam nak kena fikir. Banyak kos nak kena ambil kira. Silap hari bulan sebenarnya kita buat bisnes dalam keadaan yang rugi, bukannya untung.
Dalam buku The Art of Business Wars by David Brown, beliau ada beberapa tips untuk anda yang buat bisnes.
Saya ambil beberapa petikan yang menarik untuk belajar bersama.
Business is battle
“Move not unless you see an advantage; use not your troops unless there is something to be gained; fight not unless the position is critical” – Sun Tzu, The Art of War
Business is battle. There’s somebody else out there willing to do the same thing faster or cheaper or better than you can. Your rival is hungry, determined, scrappy as hell. How are you going to beat them?
“The longer you can look back, the farther you can look forward” – Winston Churchill
We all have our loyalties. Business battles aren’t cold, bloodless affairs. They are human stories about people with ideas, ideas which sometimes have the potential to change the world.
Entering the battlefield
“The general who wins a battle makes many calculations in his mind before that battle is fought” – Sun Tzu, The Art of War
Every great business begins in the same place: nowhere. Sparked by sudden insight or developed through years of research, a new business idea is just an objective, an X on the map. You still have to fight to capture that piece of ground – and win. The war begins when an entrepreneur takes the seed of and idea and makes it a reality.
Be skeptical when you read the myth-making autobiographies of famous entrepreneurs.
If you have a wild idea and a burning desire to make it a reality, never expect a warm welcome. Think ahead: Who are the key players? Who stands to lose if you gain?
Before you take a single step, map the battlefield thoroughly. Make sure you really understand the size of the fight you’re about to start. When you’re trying to get a new idea out, it makes sense to keep every element as simple as you possibly can.
Waging war
“In war, let your great object be victory, not lengthy campaigns.” – Sun Tzu, The Art of War
In business, slow and steady won’t win the race. The marketplace rewards boldness and aggression. But a company can’t be bold – only a leader can. Leaders can the ones who spot opportunities, conceive of audacious strategies, and rally others to the fight.
The idea of a “first – mover advantage” is simple: a company can capture an insurmountable lead by offering something new and valuable first. When you’re first, your brand becomes synonymous with the product. You can even lock customers in by making it hard to switch to alternatives as they become available.
To an entrepreneur, seeing the right idea with the wrong execution represents an ideal business opportunity. When someone else does you the favor of showing you a path forward and then stumbling along it themselves, you have an incredible opportunity to follow their lead (while picking your steps more carefully).
Enter the battlefield of business with strategy
You have to enter the battlefield strategically. The first products brought to market are often earliest only because their makers were too impatient to iterate.
The ground they capture is easily taken from them by those with the patience to swear the details. Likewise, charging into the marketplace before customers are really ready for what you have to offer leaves you vulnerable. Smart – or lucky – leaders enter the battlefield with a major new product when the product and its market are ready.
Domain knowledge is an entrepreneur’s most valuable resource. To innovate, you need to know your category inside and out.
A leader must get both the timing and the execution of a product right, not just once but over and over again. Each time one rival took the lead, it did so by giving customers what they wanted, when they wanted it.
Solve problems
Customers reward companies that solve their problems. They don’t care how you do it or who did something similar first. If you understand customers better than the first mover does, they’ll switch to your product.
If you keep solving their problems better than the competition, they’ll stick with you. When you think like your customers, when you really understand what they want, you will capture your slice of the market.
Sun Tzu tells us to act fast.
“Even if you are winning, if you continue for a long time it will dull your forces and blunt your edge” – Sun Tzu.
Go after each opportunity aggressively, but not until you’re truly ready to seize it. If you strike before you’re ready, you will forfeit your opportunity.
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Buat bisnes tak boleh sekadar suka – suka dan ikut – ikut orang. Nanti melingkup tak ke naya. Kita tak nak dah berpenat lelah dengan bisnes selama berbulan – bulan malah bertahun – tahun, tapi hasil pun tak ada.
Kalau kita buat bisnes sekarang, cuba tanya diri sendiri dan tengok balik nombor bisnes kita.
“Bisnes aku ni sebenarnya untung ke tak?”
Bina bisnes yang menguntungkan.
