Starting a Business? Let’s Do It.

Action with Prayer came as a thought after I attended the Truly Rich Club Wealth Summit last March 1,2 and 3, 2013. Inspired and awed by our Mentors sharing their struggles before making it big in the business world and in their chosen field of expertise fuelled my desire to pursue our planned business.

During the past two days of the Summit, acronym is often used by our mentors, and inspired by it, I made this acronym ACTION with PRAYER and scribbled on my phone. I always read this to remind myself of the things that I need to do.

Scrolling my phone, and reading it again this week, a thought came up of writing it up in full, and I wanted to share this with you. So, with lots of unfinished write ups stored on my PC, I decided to work on this first.

Starting up a business is not an easy thing to do or a walk in the park. Preparing and mastering yourself first is a must do and requires time, hard work and of course resources. Then, discovering your niche on what kind of business, service or product you’re going to venture with.

Since we will be pursuing our planned business, along with the wisdom and guidance of my mentors, ACTION with PRAYER were my personal guiding steps:

Here we go:

A – Aggressive.  

 Be aggressive more than enough, seek mentors and pick up their brain, ask questions, read books, attend seminars and implement into action what you learned. As what Dan Kennedy said in closing to his every email on quick start to Magnetic Marketing, “Today. Implement.”

Invest in learning’s. Every expert goes through the tremendous odds of learning, re-learning and learning again and again before they master their field of expertise. Be aggressive. With the right mentors to guide you, you can shortcut your way to success.  But humble yourself first that you need guidance and instruction.

What I do: I attended events, upgrade my membership in Truly Rich Club to Diamond EntrepCircle, purchased books from the likes of Bo Sanchez, Robert Kiyosaki, Dean Pax Lapid, Paulo Tibig, T. Harv Eker; any books that could help me, attend webinars, purchased online learning’s, I slowly do it one at a time, as long as my budget would fit-in. This has prepared me to exponentially expand my understanding and equipping myself to bring into fulfilment all the dreams that I listed and prayed with.

 So, after the Wealth Summit, when Bro. Bo Sanchez emailed about the Truly Rich Entrepreneurs Workshop by Dean Pax Lapid, I dived in, enrolled and gained another 3 Mentors. And this has fuelled me to convene my friend’s as business partner to start building our business.

Of course, all this happened for over a year. Learning takes time.

C – Creative and Competitive.

In every market, plenty of competitions were coming in and out. It may be Newbie’s and or those who stayed long enough overcoming the ups and down of the economy. May it be virtual or the traditional one. So, how do you stand out? What’s in you that customer’s would choose your service or product over a dozen more. Study, ask, learn, and know the heart of marketing. Be creative to magnet and hold loyal customers and be competitive professionally in order to get the respect of the business industry.

With my business partners, we meet every Friday to brainstorm our start-up, what would make us unique in the industry that we are going to enter. What is the norm that we are going to bend or break? Now, we are preparing for our first project to launch. This time we already know the pitfalls to avoid.

T – Timelines to Execute.

In every start-up business, timelines to execute is very important. If you don’t have this, any business planned out will bound to fail. How would you know when to launch your business if you don’t have a specific plan on what to do prior to its opening? How could you track your progress? Your Timelines depends on how ready you are. What kind of business that you are going to start? Your needs; like business permit and licenses, people, office space, equipment, etc. Your sources of fund or capital, how long will you be able to save? Or it is a loan from where? If you have the ready capital and enough resources, then your timelines can be easily firmed up. Just remember, don’t wait forever and a day before you start executing your plan. Attending the Truly Rich Entrepreneurs Workshop; and the guidelines it gave us, made me to prepare our business plan, submitted and presented at the workshop and critiqued by the mentors, whether the business is viable or not or need to be modified.

The advantage of having a trusted business partners is you can divide the workloads and assign a specific task to each other for easy execution of the timelines. In regular meetings, you can track your progress and evaluate what’s next.

I – Innovate.

 Businesses stayed long for decades because they never stop to innovate. People always look for something new, and nice to have. Let them crave for more and look forward on what’s new that will add value to their lifestyle. Take your advantage. Learn, discover and innovate non-stop.

O – Order or Organize.

Develop a system for your business. Order is important. It will de-stress your busy days. This should be your bible or operation manual. As you plan record everything you do, then create a step by step process or workflow from it.

Example: Pastry Shop.

Make a detailed process on how to prepare cupcakes, in every flavour that is listed on the menu.  Every single detail put it in paper. When time comes that you need to branch out, you have a standard process to implement on the next branch. So it would be easy for a branch manager to manage because you have standard procedures, like; how to prepare this, how to receive or issue goods, how to conduct inventory count and so on, make a workflow. Then put control number on every processes of the documentation so that when you hire a branch manager, that person can take full responsibility in operating your branch. And when customer either go in branch 1 or branch 2, they are assured that they get the same taste, product quality and service. Don’t allow the customer to think that they would prefer the service of the main branch because it is much better than the second branch.

Operation Manual comes in handy too, to conduct operational audit within your business.

N – Navigate the market with a Champion Partner.

Let’s have to accept that “No Man is an Island”. Having a trusted partner in business would be much easier. Task and resources is being shared and let’s accept that sometimes two heads are better than none, opps…rather one. (wink) Take full control of the business at start-up.  Then, find ways to know the quirks of every customer. Knowing them would give you the greater advantage to know their needs and what you can add to offer. Know how to spot an opportunity and take action.

Now with…..

P – Prayer.

 Pray. Pray and Pray some more. It is always wise to seek guidance from our God. At the start of every meeting, make it a habit to pray. Before opening the business each day, develop a habit to pray with your staff. Before closing at the end of the day be grateful and pray. And don’t forget to always pray for your customers, be it internal or external customers.

R – Relentless.

 Develop a virtue of perseverance. Hardships and trials passed by; don’t let your focus get swayed by it.  Look back and identify the learning curves, once in a while we make mistakes, but don’t dwell on it for too long. Move on and keep trying until you master the in and out of the business, so even when you are not around, you confidently know what’s going on while you are away.  Don’t give up on your dream until it happen. Then, proceed to your bigger dreams.

A – Ask and Address Issues Right Away.

 Good days don’t happen at all times. May it be within the business, within your staff and business partners.  As the saying goes “Don’t let the sun go down without addressing the issues of the day.” Most of the time; it’s hard to confront the issues right away. Prayer plays an important role for guidance. It is still better to sit down and discuss what went wrong, listen and see every side of the story before deciding on what to do next.

Y – Yield.

 Surrender. There are uncontrollable things that may happen. In times like this, the best option is surrender to the infinite wisdom of God. Don’t easily give up because hard days were challenging your wits, strength, and faith. “Gold is tested by fire, and human character is tested by tribulation.” Sirach 2:5. There is always something good happens out of the impossible situation. Sometimes it takes a heart in order to see it.

E – Excited.

 Be excited. Every day declare that it is going to be a great day. Positive vibes get positive results. In Huna Philosophy it says “Bless that which you want.” So if you want great things to happen each day, attract great things to happen. It takes a change of attitude to fill your day with gladness and blessings.

R – Rapport.

 Build connection. Develop great relationship with your family, business partner, workers and customers. Connect with people. Met and talk with people who have the same passion with you. Join membership clubs and volunteer in communities. Enrol in classes that would add value to your business and the person that want to see in you. Discover something new with the people that surround you.

Action with Prayer – at the end of the day, it still all depend on you. No matter how many advises, seminars, trainings and books you read, if you are not willing to take massive action and commit yourself to bring into fulfilment that things the you wanted to do, nothing will  happen. So, when you are decided and ready to take the plunge, try to let your heart knows too.  It will make a big difference. Understand the whole concept of having a business, not just for profit. Japan legendary and revered business genius Kenosuke put it simply, “Business does not exist in order to make profit. It exists in order to benefit society. Profit is simply society’s reward for a job well done.” 

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