Wednesday, 31st July 2019 | Management
The one element you need to achieve business success (it’s not what you think)
Michele Romanow, a TV star on Dragon’s Den and Co-founder of Clearbanc, was a keynote speaker at deBanked CONNECT Toronto on July 25th. Read about what she feels in the one element you need to achieve business success.
Have you ever looked at an enterprise and asked yourself, Why didn’t I think of that? Some business ideas seem perfect right out the gate. The truth is, any idea that connects with an audience is the result of planning, luck, and one other attribute—something Dragon’s Den panellist Michele Romanow characterizes as being “scrappy”, or the can-do attitude that makes things happen. Every business, no matter how big or small, goes through changes. The best not only take them in stride, but see them as part and parcel of their success. Read on to learn why iteration might just be the secret to your prosperity.
In its simplest form, iteration means repetition. It’s implementation, and then implementation again. Of course, the idea is not to simply plod away over and over but to harness each change in service of the next great idea. This involves weathering changes and making mistakes, and using their lessons to create the next iteration.
On the power of iteration, Romanow spoke from her experiences as an entrepreneur and a financier at the recent deBanked Connect gathering in Toronto, Ontario, and iCapital was in attendance. For her, “good unit economics” (a high enough profit margin) is the business base, and beyond that, 90% of a business person’s energy should be put into execution. Doing and making—and the lessons of what works and what doesn’t—is what makes a business succeed.
Let’s look at an example: You may not know the name Guy Laliberté, but you are definitely familiar with his work. As a young busker in Montreal, Laliberté was on the first iteration of his career in show business. In 1984, along with a small group of co-founders and with the help of a government grant, he created a modern circus. Right off the bat it was clear that he did not want to use live animals—among other things, a full 70% of circus production costs go to their training and minding. Laliberté’s work as a street entertainer was invaluable as he put together a team of human performers and got to work. Over time, he learned that the more performers the better the show, and that costumes and then music greatly enhanced the audience experience. Today, Laliberté is worth nearly half a billion dollars, and Cirque du Soleil is the largest theatrical producer in the world. The entire enterprise exists because of iteration.
In the world of sales, much is made of the power of failure. Each no, the saying goes, is one step closer to a yes. People who work in sales learn to welcome rejections, but the process can be difficult for those in the business world where success and failure are measured on a macro level. What we’ve learned is that successful business people can conceptualize their idea as flexible and mutable, and carry on with creative energy. Business owners should strive for the patience, flexibility, and drive to continue through iterations to reach an idea that works. That’s scrappy, and it’s just good business sense.
Read Also