Work can be cool and, when you run your own business, you can dictate how cool. So many small business owners get bogged down and end up in a day-to-day routine because they don’t have cool customers. What being your own boss teaches you is that you don’t have to compromise anymore. In fact, you don’t have to deal with idiots either. Phew!

It’s an important point. People will advise you to go out and get as many customers as possible and quickly when you start up. That’s completely the wrong advice. Yes, take on lots of customers but make sure they are remarkable. You’ll know in your mind what a great customer is. These are the kinds of customers who add value to your business, make you work hard in the positive areas, push and challenge you, the point of running your own business. And, if they are truly remarkable, you’ll have a client list that will make your competitors go green.

As Janis Joplin said “Don’t compromise yourself, honey. You’re all you’ve got.” Resist the urge to rush and grow a huge customer list that’s eventually going to cost you money. It’s not the size of the list that matters but its credibility and reputation.

If you wanted to learn to ski jump (apart from being crazy) you’d find someone who had already done it. Because your health and, possibly, your life depended on it, you’d get the best. You’d make sure that you took advice and coaching from someone who had actually been through that terrifying feat several times. Known what it was like to hurtle down a steep run not knowing how they are going to land. You’d never ask a lawyer, or, a teacher, or, a bank manager unless they had been through the experience themselves of course.

Your business is a lot like this. Don’t ever take advice from someone who hasn’t been through the white knuckle ride of starting and running a business over the long haul. You are better surrounding yourself with people in business rather than accountants, bank managers, friends and relatives. Its easy to listen to their views, which are often the most subjective you will get and often not the best advice. Encircle yourself with high quality people who know what they are talking about and have the credibility and reputation to match it.

Thought you might find this post by Tom Peters interesting! Happy reading:

http://www.tompeters.com/entries.php?rss=1&note=http://www.tompeters.com/blogs/main/010840.php

It’s a blinding flash of the obvious but have you got a great idea that you can actually innovate with. If the market is flooded (and it probably is) with what you have to offer, you are going to have to think damn hard and creatively about how you communicate a better customer experience and develop more sophisticated marketing than your competitors.

If the products and services are the same, people will buy on price. If they are different, they will buy on experience. You have to ensure you are wholeheartedly in love with what you do. If you’re not, you, or the product offering will burn out and quick. Motivation in business over a sustained period is hard in any start up, particularly during the rough times, being in love with what you do certainly helps, actually, its critical.

The recent financial difficulties will inevitably create new vulnerabilities and new opportunities for business. I don’t think it’s so much about whether setting up a new business in the financial downturn is a good time, it’s whether the market/customers are ready for your products and services.

If the business you are starting is targeting customers who are looking for something new, are in the mood to change their supplier. Or, their circumstances have just changed such as the retired, people moving to a new area, someone in a new job….then you may be onto something. But only if you can demonstrate a difference. If you’re not different then you need to be cheaper!

People who are looking to change, read Fast Company magazine, have just bought a book about new ideas, are exploring new opportunities on a regular basis, are at the latest art gallery opening. These people are far more open to buying from you than people in traffic queues on their way to work! Find them, find the product and service to match them, then you may have a new business with potential. The economic downturn isn’t part of the equation really.

I’ve just come across these eight videos on the Orange website. They include Hiro Harjani, Angus Thirlwell, James Murray, Wilfred Emmanuel Jones, Will King and a few more. They are all talking about starting and running their own business. Useful, interesting and worth the time to watch….good stuff Orange. Link is below:

www.business.orange.co.uk/servlet/Satellite?pagename=Business&c=OUKPage&cid=1044136938032