Your present circumstances don't determine where you can go; they merely determine where you start
- Nido Qubein -

Building A Strong Business, Every Entrepreneur's dream!

Every organisation started small. Some grow into a strong business, others experience growing pains and struggle for years, many don't make it to 10 years! You, like me, know that it takes a lot more than a "good idea" to grow a business into a true success in any market. Running a business is hard work, a constant juggling act that wears down the passion we had for our idea and our brand in the first place.Whether you are selling products or services, to end consumers or to businesses, it is hard to keep enjoying the challenging ride to success. Operational hurdles, people issues, cash-flow hiccups, market crises stand in your way. You can end-up trying to do everything, stretching yourself beyond what you love doing and beyond your strength. Under too much pressure, you risk not making the best decisions, your work-life balance disappears, and sometimes your family life too.

So What Makes A Strong Business?

I believe that there are 2 vital ingredients in any one's recipe for creating enduring business strength: Its BRAND and its PEOPLE. And that applies for any type of business, for consultants and for their clients, solopreneurs, small partnerships and large teams. You will read many definitions of the word brand and they are mostly all true because a brand is/should be woven into everything a business does, everything its founder, owner, its team do. Building that brand from sound foundations (a clear vision, a well defined market with a set of real functional and emotional needs that the brand can meet better than anyone else) requires constant focus, diligence, commitment as well as creativity, smart thinking. Ongoing progress and success comes from getting the right people and empowering them to be brand champions within each of their roles and aligned behind common goals. The tools and systems will not create a strong business without the

A Consulting Professional Dream Come True

As a solo consultant I found my business limited by my specialty and passion: marketing. I had no desire to do anything else, nor had the skills to address by myself some of the issues that a business owner needs to address. Being a specialist is great: I prefer to focus on what I love doing; creating perfect matches between ideal customers and brands, building desire for those brands through communication and aligning everything a business does to grow healthy strong brands. To make this work well for my clients and for me, I need a “virtual team” of people both “like me” in a way and extending me. In a network like The Network Of Consulting Professionals I find exactly what I need: A group of highly experienced successful professionals who can bring the complementary backgrounds, knowledge and experience that allow us as a team to deliver the different facets of what my clients' brands need to thrive. Consistent with my branding passion, I try to look after my brand in every decision I make: as well as being able to trust their expertise, I know that the partners I select for a project also have values, attitudes, behaviours that “fit” with my brand. Our clients get extra value out of our close cooperation and open-minded alertness to their issues even if they are beyond our individual capabilities. The client satisfaction we deliver ensures that our respective brands are enhanced by this client-need-based partnership. As we define, source and create new solutions, we evolve the potential of our brands, individually and as a team, all along remaining true to the essence of our respective brands. That is what I call a perfect team to build strong businesses!

Françoise Garnier

To see more opinions, tips, articles from different perspectives on building a strong business, check the posts filed under Strengthen, Support and Succeed.