Asking good questions gets great answers!

There are so many ways to develop a business and at times being an entrepreneur or business owner is quite isolated. When trying to get the best option, make the right decision, save time, conserve funds or any other business related matter that requires applied thinking it can be nerve wracking or potentially risky to take the next step.

One of the best ways to get ahead is to ask those who have gone before to give an answer to a question. If you are fortunate to have a collection of mentors, a business coach or a group of trusted business people around you or in your business it will be normal for you to ask them ‘How would you…..?’

How do you get the right answers?

There are lots of experienced business people who may have just the right answer or who may give you something else to consider which wasn’t in your thoughts and triggers a new direction, activity or opportunity to form new and better habits. Gary Lennon did this by entering a competition run by Virgin Media Pioneers who ran a competition to win a copy of Lara Morgan’s new book ‘More Balls Than Most: Juggle your way to success with proven company shortcuts‘.

His question  ’What is the best way to save time for new entrepreneurs in their first year?’ won him a copy!

Check out Lara Morgan’s answers in this video:

Lara answers the question with a video response, demonstrating a quick (24 hours later) response direct from her own experiences and she said she spent her most of early time only working on sales during the week and did admin on Saturdays and Sundays, to ensure she could build up a buffer of flexibility to enable her to invest and grow with others and accelerate her success.

You have to go in with your eyes open….cut out everything else except sales Monday to Friday

In summary….

What  a great answer! It seems that those who succeed know exactly what it takes and don’t hesitate to share it. So the lesson for anyone who is realistic about getting started in business must listen to the advice of those who’ve succeeded. Not everything is directly relevant for all aspiring business people but the context and gravitas honed through trying things out and making mistakes and passing forward advice to ‘short cut’ to better and more efficient ways of doing things should not be ignored.

Check out Lara Morgan’s great advice, tools and get your own KUTA (Kick up the Arse) too!

Ben Dyer – Altogether Company

Ben Dyer – Small Business Owner

John Wood – Serial Entrepreneur

John, who’s building another start up, Sprung Ltd, took an E-Scan and Entrepreneurial Review and saw the immediate benefit it had to him as a serial entrepreneur. John is a typical serial entrepreneur, being the sole driving force behind his business success with Sprung Ltd. He’s not afraid to make decisions and is willing to keep learning as he strives to build better businesses.

What did E-Scan do for John?

As with everyone who uses E-Scan, John became more self aware and recognised immediately how the benefits would affect his own entrepreneurial performance. As he states in his feedback, E-Scan helped John to identify where in his current business situation areas such as marketing awareness needed to be addressed. He prefers to use the ‘asking way’ rather than the ‘pain way’

See it for yourself:

View John Wood’s feedback on E-Scan

What’s happened after E-Scan?

Since using this E-Scan experience John’s business has taken off, all through his own endeavours and his changed relationships with his team. We look forward to watching the progress of Sprung Ltd as they move onwards and upwards. The next stage in the journey is new premises and new markets and from there an increased sales team – Brilliant entrepreneurship happening!

Examples of how E-Scan helped:

• Click here to see how E-Scan helped a start up entrepreneur, Waqas Baggia, who took an E-Scan and review as part of an entrepreneurs programme at University and his ‘entrepreneurial reaction’
• Click here to see how E-Scan helped a small business owner, Ben Dyer, who works with young entrepreneurs and is now integrating E-Scan into other areas of his business

How E-Scan helps Entrepreneurs

The entrepreneur is the pivot for the success of a business, whether it’s a start-up or a mature and thriving concern. Therefore having direct insight to one’s own inherent traits and characteristics will increase both understanding and opportunity to improve entrepreneurial competence. E-Scan helps entrepreneurs to gain an awareness of their strengths, weaknesses and predominant thinking styles, all of which affect entrepreneurial capability.

Most other psychometric profiling tools concentrate on leadership, management or ‘role’ qualities and characteristics and these have mostly been developed for large organisational needs, analysing whether people will ‘fit-in’ when being recruited or as part of strategic objectives. E-Scan was developed to focus on small business, or entrepreneurial team activity and is closely aligned to the culture and nature of this environment

What will it achieve?

The purpose of E-Scan is to establish the impact an entrepreneur will have on their own business success, which is a fundamental element to how the E-Scan can be applied. This in turn means entrepreneurs will increase their performance which will then convert into higher and faster business success.

The most unique aspect to E-Scan is it provides an insight to how the entrepreneur thinks and how this correlates to how they react to situations, issues and opportunities. This is a reflection of the Hermann analysis and looks at whether a person has a preference for reason or emotion, logic or intuition The overall score is reflected in four key Thinking Styles, Pioneer, Salesperson, Manager and Specialist.

The main benefits of E-Scan and an Entrepreneurial Review:

• An understanding of personal entrepreneurial strengths and weaknesses = awareness
• Self awareness and plan of action leads to quick and effective focus on behaviour and activity = empowerment
• Increased desire and determination to build understanding of entrepreneurship and own capability = better business performance

This can either be self development or with greater impact under the guidance of a business coach, mentor or as part of a development programme offered by a specialist training company, business academy or University.