A Piece Of Business Advice I Was Given

[workid1]

An acquaintance of mine who owns a rapidly growing business in property gave me some advice a few months ago seeing as though i am a keen entrepreneur and at 22 i have a property website up a running. He told me that a vital part of becoming successful in business is to know everything about the sector first. He told me to find out what i want to do in terms of my own business, get a job doing just that, work your way up and learn the people and the trade. Then and only then once you have acquired capital, go it alone. It just seems that every successful business owner i speak to has already worked in their sector prior to working for themselves. Is this the case with most of you?

Would be interesting to know.

[Eric Mc]

Good advice.

And my advice - learn to use capital letters properly

[Siscar]

I worked in my sector for three companies over eight years before starting my own. I'd say it is borderline essential, just learning how to start and build a business is hard enough without learning the sector you are going to be in.

[Justin Cyder]

When I was a student, Julian Richer of Richer Sounds came to give a talk & pass on the benefit of his experience. Amongst the gems he passed on was one that stayed with me - stick to the knitting, as he put it. In other words, you'll succeed best if you stick to what you know, which I suppose is prosaic & a truism but still good advice.

I spent twenty years in my industry before striking out on my own & it was only then that I realised how little I actually knew. It's been a steep learning curve but ten years in, I think I'm getting the hang of it.

[Frimley111R]

Justin Cyder said:

I spent twenty years in my industry before striking out on my own & it was only then that I realised how little I actually knew. It's been a steep learning curve but ten years in, I think I'm getting the hang of it.

Did the same although I'd add that sitting inside a business is hugely different to sitting outside it. In a business you can 'ride the wave of its success' but outside it can be a cold, hard world. You can't always just start doing the same and be a success.

[ChasW]

Absolutely agree. I once had an entrepreneur boss whose mantra was if he could not understand how a business worked he would not touch it. Another piece of advice along the same lines is that "unless you understand the detail you can't do the strategy". This was borne out when I was working in a large IT company in the 90s and they bought one of the big four consultancy firms in to "help". Some of the business improvement recommendations were embarrassing in their naivety. The 26 year old consultants they dumped on us were lost and eventually the firm was fired and replaced by one of their competitors whose consultants typically had some grey hair; generally a good sign. It was a pleasure working with the second firm and I learned a lot.

[workid1]

Good advice! Thank you. I had forgotten that my iMac didn't make your I's capital automatically!

[Dixy]

Eric Mc said:

Good advice.

And my advice - learn to use capital letters properly

I have a friend with a hot air balloon that thinks he met you.

Lord Sugar and Sir Richard Branson are 2 of the best examples of that advice being wrong, their is a world of difference between being good at what you know and being an entrepreneur.

[Hoofy]

Problem is that for every Sugar and Branson there are 1000 failed entrepreneurs of the same age still living at home with their parents.

[Eric Mc]

Exactly - they are exceptions rather than the norm and therefore poor examples.

The vast bulk of people who go on to do well running their own businesses are people who know and understand that business sector intimately.

[bazza white]

You don't have to be an expert to spot a weakness in your competition or to spot an opportunity.

People start and are successful at business for all different reasons.

[Eric Mc]

Just because you spot a weakness or opportunity does not mean you have the skill and knowledge to be able to exploit that weakness or opportunity.

It's a bit like being a TV or film critic - it's easy to spot where someone has gone wrong but it's not so easy to actually do it better yourself.

[Monkeylegend]

Good advice, worked well for me.

[southendpier]

Better to shoot for the moon, even if you miss, you may catch a couple of stars.

[daemon]

southendpier said:

Better to shoot for the moon, even if you miss, you may catch a couple of stars.

But more likely you'll crash and burn like a space shuttle.

[DSLiverpool]

Where this theory fails is if you are a web marketing person or say a really good website maker / SEO person. You can then sell almost anything and can build a business on the back of your sales expertise as you "own" the online sector. You of course need money to do this but not a stupid amount depending on what you sell.

[daemon]

DSLiverpool said:

Where this theory fails is if you are a web marketing person or say a really good website maker / SEO person. You can then sell almost anything and can build a business on the back of your sales expertise as you "own" the online sector. You of course need money to do this but not a stupid amount depending on what you sell.

I dont agree.

You still need to know your market, your customers and be sourcing and reselling the right product at the right price.

A website is a product you buy to help facilitate sales.

Edited by daemon on Friday 11th April 15:05

[DSLiverpool]

daemon said:

DSLiverpool said:

Where this theory fails is if you are a web marketing person or say a really good website maker / SEO person. You can then sell almost anything and can build a business on the back of your sales expertise as you "own" the online sector. You of course need money to do this but not a stupid amount depending on what you sell.

Thats like saying i can design a really nice shop, therefore i can build any business?

You still need to know your market, your customers and be sourcing and reselling the right product at the right price.

Wouldn't work in a shop but if you HOG the web traffic for a sector / item then you will get the sales, its a new and unique scenario. Then on the back of your traffic and sales you can buy big confident you are getting the web visits for people who want to buy gizmos. I have seen it done from nothing to £10m t/o in 7 years

[Gaspode]

Justin Cyder said:

When I was a student, Julian Richer of Richer Sounds came to give a talk & pass on the benefit of his experience. Amongst the gems he passed on was one that stayed with me - stick to the knitting, as he put it. In other words, you'll succeed best if you stick to what you know, which I suppose is prosaic & a truism but still good advice.

I spent twenty years in my industry before striking out on my own & it was only then that I realised how little I actually knew. It's been a steep learning curve but ten years in, I think I'm getting the hang of it.

Funnily enough, I had the exact same advice (but not from Julian Richer) : stick to your knitting.

I too spent twenty years in a job before going it alone, but that's because I'm extremely risk averse and wanted a pension behind me before I risked a lot. But like Justin, I think I've learned as much in the last 8 years of being a freelance consultant as I learned in the previous 20 as an employee.

[daemon]

DSLiverpool said:

daemon said:

DSLiverpool said:

Where this theory fails is if you are a web marketing person or say a really good website maker / SEO person. You can then sell almost anything and can build a business on the back of your sales expertise as you "own" the online sector. You of course need money to do this but not a stupid amount depending on what you sell.

Thats like saying i can design a really nice shop, therefore i can build any business?

You still need to know your market, your customers and be sourcing and reselling the right product at the right price.

Wouldn't work in a shop but if you HOG the web traffic for a sector / item then you will get the sales, its a new and unique scenario. Then on the back of your traffic and sales you can buy big confident you are getting the web visits for people who want to buy gizmos. I have seen it done from nothing to £10m t/o in 7 years

Yes, there are always ways to short circuit any particular theory, business or otherwise, but to say "the answer" is to say for example "i am going to sell horse saddles and how i am going to do that is to entirely control the web traffic for horse saddles so people predominantly come to me. Then i will buy horse saddles to meet that demand." seems a little cart before the horse (no pun intended)