TOP TIPS FOR NEW ENTREPRENEURS
By: Stevie Thomas
Tags: Leadership Development, Leadership, London, Tips, Entrepreneurship

THE ONLY SHIPS THAT DON’T SAIL ARE PARTNERSHIPS

If you’re an entrepreneur, you will easily recall this scene. We’ve all been there before; huddled in a corner, pens across the desk, sketches ideas and fireworks of creativity being shot all over the room. You and your friends have just stumbled across ‘the next big thing,’ and its going to make you all a fortune.

It all makes sense, the idea is fantastic, you’re five G&T’s down, you’re all friends, you’ve known each other for years — what could go wrong!?

Well, I’m sorry to burst the bubble, everything, everything will go wrong. Without repeating the title, but I’m afraid it needs it; the only ships that do not sail, are partner-ships. It is an age old saying that just doesn’t tire simply because it is true.

Only in very rare cases do partnerships in businesses (with more than 3 Directors who are friends) succeed. Human instincts for competition, errors, personalities — whatever you want to call it, never melt together well after a certain amount of time. Especially when there is money, power and pressure involved. It will almost always blow up in your faces, ego, especially with men will become a factor. Starting a business will peel the layers back of your character, it will change you from the inside out, and friendships will be test ubeyond measure.

If you are headstrong in starting a business with your friends take this advice’ ‘sort the divorce out, before the marriage’ — In your shareholders agreement, make sure you make note of what happens if it all goes wrong. What if you disagree on next years budget, who gets that final decision — this is in the voting rights. So that you can always refer back to ‘your bible’.

Another good practice is to draw up a chart of ‘Corporate Governance,’ this document states everyone’s role and responsibility throughout the Company, from upper to lower, from the Board of Director’s to Management.

Not only does kick start you thoroughly writing your employee’s job descriptions; it will ensure that between directors, all parties know what part of the business they are covering. Overlapping responsibilities is a quick way to failure. Clashing opinions will confuse employees, waste time and distract away from drawing in new business.

IF YOU DON’T CONTROL THE MONEY, YOU ARE OUT OF CONTROL

As an entrepreneur, you have a duty to understand all aspects of your business — to know how and why every penny got into your till. Squeezing margins to scrape more profit from your takings will slowly become a part of your everyday habits.

One obvious, but key part is the control of the money. It is all too easy to trust your team, your accountant, your friend. In business, you must trust no one. You must always give out trust, but deep down, you must need to know that anyone, at any time could try and take advance of your green wings.

Always. Be in control.

Do not allow any spending without your approval.

Create airtight systems and procedures between staff and accounts team.

Have a paper trail — no trail, no payments.

Arrange weekly finance meetings on the phone with accounts.

Arrange monthly sit down meetings for over 2 hours to go through figures.

Question every out going. Be ruthless. This is your money going in and out of the account, make sure you understand the flows back and forth. Find the anomaly and act fast if you see something odd.

The act of constantly checking, the routine of it all, even when you feel things are ticking over nicely — must become a staple of your working week. It will give confidence to your accountants you are on it, that you care — and with that, they will give you a better service, communication and you will learn a lot faster about finances.

KNOWING YOUR STRENGTHS

Maturity is knowing when to take a step back and letting a true professional do their job. Knowing when a certain skill has surpassed your common knowledge threshold and it is time to make that call.

You are not an octopus, signing, writing and playing the theme tune. You as boss are the architect, the conductor. Lead, direct but do not meddle. Employee positions that will improve the business, that will save you time and make you more efficient.

We all start off our careers, or life I guess, thinking we can do it all. That with a few short youtube tutorials, we can put up that shelf, fix the mower or put together that table with the drawers. But this is business; and no matter the business, you will be employing someone to do a job — let them do that job. You are paying them real money, you have presented them with their roles, their responsibilities and their targets. It is in black and white. You know what you want, you have communicated it — if your staff cannot deliver this, then it is time for them to leave.

EVERYTHING WILL GO WRONG. EVERYTHING.

At one point or another, something catastrophic in every department of your business will happen. It will feel like the end of the world on a weekly basis and every day will feel like an episode of ‘the apprentice.’ As a new leader you have the worlds responsibilities on your shoulders, your new world being the business. The be all and end all. With this kind of focus you will see problems arising before they happen, constantly talking to your heads of departments will open up conversations to solve problems faster than if you were unavailable or out of touch with the happenings of your teams.

You must be prepared for almost any eventuality. Which on paper is easy to do, but in practise impossible. You cannot be everywhere at every time. So the advice is to always stay calm, always take a moment to think before any action. Strategy in times of panic is the way forward, rather than knee jerk decisions.

Most of the time, rash decisions end up costing you more money that the original problem would have taken to fix in the first place. Remember to stay calm, the storm always passes, and ship stays on course with a strong, focused Captain at the wheel.

BE PASSIONATE.

Never forget why you got into your business in the first place. It will get tough, you will be tested on the daily. The passion to achieve what you set out to do should be your fuel, that gets you up in the morning, willing to take on another day.

Passion for your project is infectious. When you truly believe in what you are doing that energy magnetises others towards you. Try and keep that energy up, and let your staff see your passion come through. Spend time on the floor, shadowing the team, give advice and tell stories; break the office day and get to know your team — hopefully you’ll have a chance to retell your journey of how you got to where you are, potentially inspiring your workforce and reenergising your passion.

Whenever things get on top of you or the inbox is overflowing, taking an hours break away from the office, a walk, fresh air, will hopefully clear your head. Every day should be a reminder of your of journey, every inch forward is a moment closer to your goal — and when you get there the success will be ever so sweet as you will deserve it.