Pinoy Business Coach

Perspective
Written by PETER BREGMAN
Monday, 20 July 2009 01:36

Every time I ask a roomful of executives to list the five moments their careers leapt forward, a story of failure always makes the cut. For some this involved the loss of a job. For others it was the failure of a larger system, like an economic downturn, that required them to step up. Yet most of us spend tremendous effort trying to avoid situations that could lead to failure.

According to Stanford University professor Carol Dweck, we have a mind-set problem. She has done extensive research in order to understand why certain people give up in the face of adversity—or evade it altogether—while others strive to overcome it.

If you believe that your talents are inborn or fixed, then you will try to avoid failure at all costs because setbacks are proof of your limitations. People with fixed mind-sets like to solve the same problems over and over again. Children with fixed mind-sets would rather redo an easy jigsaw puzzle than try a harder one.

But if you believe your talent can grow with persistence and effort, then you seek out failure as an opportunity to improve. People with a growth mind-set feel smart when they’re learning, not when they’re flawless.

Michael Jordan has a growth mind-set. Most successful people do. In high school he was cut from the basketball team, yet he learned how to leverage failure in order to succeed: “I’ve missed more than 9,000 shots in my career; I’ve lost almost 300 games. Twenty-six times I’ve been trusted to take the game-wining shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”

A growth mind-set is the secret to maximizing potential. Want to develop your staff’s skills? Give them tasks above their ability. Tell them you expect them to struggle, that it will take more time than their familiar responsibilities, and that you expect they’ll make some mistakes along the way. But you know they can do it.

Want to increase your own performance? Set high goals that you only have a 50 to 70 percent chance of attaining. Then, when you fail, figure out what you should do differently and try again. That’s practice. And according to recent studies, 10,000 hours of practice will make you an expert at anything—no matter where you start.

*A very interesting article which is related to building your own business, your failure threshold which is part of your emotional make-up is one of the key factors within the mind that you can develop. Click Here to Read More...

One day, me and my business class members identified 3 essential things that a New Entrepreneur needs to have:

1. The Skill to Sell- in one of my previous articles, I mentioned that Selling is the primary skill that one needs to have to succeed in business. "Nothing happens in a business unless someone sells something." Selling includes profiling your customer and which segment you might want to target for your given product.

2. An Understanding of the Market- this includes knowing who your customers are, who is the competition, what are your advantages over the competition and your key selling points. Understanding the market also includes picking the right product or service to sell. Being a micro entrepreneur, you may want to sell a product or service that already HAS demand. Or in other words, find a SELF-SELLER. If you notice that most of the businesses that our Chinese brethren are under the roof of living 'essentials'--Food, Medicine, Hardware supplies etc., these are all high demand products. It does not mean finding a business with self seller products will guarantee success, all I am saying is that the chances of success increases when there is already high demand for those products that you carry.

3. An Understanding of Financial Statements- Yes, even a carinderia needs a financial statement and needs to keep good records. It is not as difficult as you think, algebra and calculus were more difficult subjects than financial ratios. Income statements, Cash flow statements and Balance sheets are minimum requirements for the Entrepreneur. Click Here to Read More...

The first skill that an Entrepreneur needs to develop is that of SELLING. "Nothing happens in a business unless someone sells something.", quotes one author. Selling is both an art and science that needs practice and constant exposure to.

One of the reasons why Selling is tough-- facing REJECTIONS. Amid our so called 'polite' culture lies the inability to say things as they are for fear of being labeled 'not nice.' We are a people who dare not say feedback that has potential to offend people. So when others tell it to our faces, we often find it rude and improper. That makes Selling doubly difficult, when we are all smiles and we get slammed or shouted at isn't really emotionally-heaven for the average Filipino.

Selling, like business is composed of 90% EMOTIONS and 10% SKILL. Selling is learned by doing on a constant basis. When one overcomes the fear of rejection and knows how to handle rejection, the world opens up.

This is the primary skill that one needs to become a good business person. There are a lot of business training seminars or short courses that are being offered with regards to developing and mastering this skill. Click Here to Read More...