The Four Business Success Pillars; and it is Never about the Idea or Capital.

Success is never easy as said. Not easy at all. Ask those you think are successful and surprisingly they will tell you they aren’t successful yet. If any will confess as successful, they will always tell you that it cost them sleepless nights, skipped meals, hard lifestyle and too many sacrifices.

I wish to inform you about my four top success principles I have discovered over time now. Let me warn you from the onset that it is not always about a unique idea nor is it about the guy who had the favor of largest cash; simply said, capital.

The Entrepreneur

The biggest pillar in business success is the entrepreneur. This is the brainchild, the driver and cornerstone behind any company that lasted. Having a great idea doesn’t qualify you to be successful, you will need the entrepreneurial part. Take the case of Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak as an example.

Steve Wozniak was the computer geek. On the other hand Steve Jobs was the hippie. The entrepreneur himself. When he was ousted from Apple, during the time when John Sculley had joined Apple and could not click well with Jobs, the business lost direction and almost came to its knees. They had to part business wise with Wozniak about that time too if the entrepreneurial tinge in him was going to work. Their visions of course were different.

At the end when Steve Jobs came back to Apple things changed completely because as the captain, he knew the initial direction of sail. The success of any business venture deeply depends on the entrepreneur. He drives the team, the vision, the ideology and brings the dream to life.

The entrepreneur is the never giving up person, the enthusiast, the optimist and the care taker of the idea both in good and bad times. He nurtures growth of the enterprise when starting up and sees it through recovery when things go wrong.

The team

The team is an important part of enterprise success. I remember attending a forum at the United States Embassy on Women in Entrepreneurship a few weeks ago and the presenter really stressed that a good team breeds success for a business.

The kind of people you will have in your team determine to a large extent the overall success of the business idea. It is a fact that if you have people in your team whom you don’t share a vision with, then doom is brewing up. As a fact too, there are those who will leave on the way, there are those who will remain but be irrelevant but most important are those who stay faithful to the course and walk the talk.

A great team is deeply motivated by the same causes and in most cases have a shared vision. They move in the same direction and are deeply passionate about the venture.

If this does not make sense to you, try having a great idea or even enough capital and then have a bad team. It were better if you have less capital and an average idea but with a fantastic team. Chances are it will always become a success in most cases. A great team is as important as electricity is to an electronic equipment. The equipment itself or wiring is not enough, it is the power in the wiring that matters to the functioning of the machine.

Will Power

Will power is that spark that keeps the team deeply motivated and makes them not lose grip of the idea even when things are not all a roller coaster. This is the thing deeply engraved in the entrepreneur to help them stand with the business through thick and thin. That thing that helps him or her to change, adapt and keep moving when all rationale and logical thinking demands a give up.

It can be best described as grit. That unique trait that explains why other people prevail to the end while others give up mid-way even though subjected to the same conditions. Grit above everything is very key for any success.

Will power, I have discovered is the thing that makes us be what we often think ourselves to be. We are deeply rooted in the belief to the extent that challenges motivate us instead of breaking us down. We are indeed the product of our thoughts courtesy of will power. It strengthens our mind to keep going even when all is faint and dim.

Core ideology

Core ideology is the dock that we have deeply anchored our faith on for deciding to follow a certain cause. The thing beyond the money that motivates us to wake up early in the morning without being forced and working tirelessly to make things happen.

Mark my word that it is beyond the money and we can work for free to see it achieved. This is the driving force of the entrepreneur. It is the thing other team members buy into and remain faithful to it for as long as they with the business venture.

The core ideology is the pillar of the vision and mission of the business and is what keeps it going even when the entrepreneur is gone having established a strong foundation. It forms the foundation of the culture that gets engraved in the team and hence transforms the working approach of the entire organization. That experience that a new employee feels and gets excited to be part of the team.

At the end of it all, the money becomes a reward for all the above. A great business is a product of the above combination and that is what turns what appears to be an average idea to a world class changing enterprise.

Don’t wait till you have the best idea or have it all figured out, if you can find the best of the above four pillars, you are set to go. Only time can bear witness. I wish you all the best as you join hands to build great organizations that will stand for centuries and be an inspiration to generations to come.

End.

Copyright @ 2018.