The following lecturer was the least successful and most questionable of the workshop's guests. The lecture was entitled "Eyes wide open" and was about the dangers of dealing in business. It was interesting because it was delivered with a view that business is very difficult and you need to be aware of everything that could go wrong which was a different approach to the others. He pointed out that you always need to be aware of the following:
Financial risks - Spending money on anything is a gamble and may not always get you more money than you've spent.
Competition - Other competition in the area needs to be taken seriously and you need to aim to attract their customers to gain a high percentage of sales in the market.
Target audience - It's important to know who you are selling to and if that might change.
Business opportunities - Always be on the lookout for business opportunities and consider them very carefully.
Financial changes - If you're not meeting your financial forecast, don't shrug it off.
How well you are doing - Look at how you are operating within the business and ask others how they see you.
What staff are doing - Check that staff are working efficiently.
After giving us this advice, he revealed that he had 2 failed businesses and was returning to work at the University as he needed more money. This was a little worrying after taking on board all of his business advice but I realise that there is a lot to be learnt about where he went wrong and admired him for taking that honest approach. He had a lot of good points about running a business in general. I feel that although the message he was trying to deliver was that you need to be constantly alert and outdoing others in a business, this doesn't always apply to every business model. For example, Sally Reah didn't take this approach and was successful.
Personally, I feel that the important things he said to keep on board were to keep focused on customers and finances as if you have happy customers and a healthy cash flow then there is no reason why the business can't succeed and grow from there.
Another useful thing I got from this was his list of costs that are easily forgotten about such as indemnity, accountancy, travel costs, pension, health care, computers, energy, phone, marketing costs, training and coaching.
One topic he covered, which the others didn't, is why even choose to own a business. The list we generated consisted of
Freedom from making money for employers
Satisfaction of proving you can run a business
Choose your own clients (if successful enough)
Potential to grow the business and earn more
Keep own copyrights
Not having to have a job with no satisfaction
Flexible working hours
Opportunity to get learn more skills.
I feel that not having much experience in the marketplace yet, most of these didn't apply to me. Those which I feel are important are the opportunity to learn new skills and getting job satisfaction.
Finally, he went on to talk about reasons the business might not survive. These included having bad motivations, the inability to tell if the business is being successful, inability to learn from mistakes. I feel that these would not affect me as much as they did him if I was started a business because I would have more of a personal interest in what I'm offering and I also always want to learn and improve.
In all, Marc Braddock didn't hide that he made lots of mistakes and held a grudge against the business world but he raised some very important points that are worth keeping in mind.
