Never Give Up! Learn From The Ants

Do watch the ants next time when you see it. I have watched them at young age and have done this. You might have too. When you see ant, block its path. What does it do? It will go up, down, left, right, anywhere. But it doesn't quit. This is the most important lesson that we can learn from the Ants. If the small ant does not give up, then should we. I am not saying that you should not quit your path. No. If the path is not helping you to get to your goal, you need to look for other roads going towards your goal. So, you can quit your paths. But don't ever quit the final goal, the target which you want to reach. 

Of course there are other things which we can learn from the Ants. The most famous of them being the story of the Ant & the Grasshoppers. Yes, you got it. Ants think about the future, while the grasshoppers live in the present. While ants can go about enjoying, they think about the next season that would be coming and then work for it. While no body has highlighted it, I don't think the Ants might be working all the time and not enjoying at all. We must give time to stress busting and enjoying. After all, why do we do all that we do. 

But yes, the lesson for today must be 'Never Quit Your Goals'.

Cash Is King! Conserve It

Don't go by the word Cash. Due to the recent demonetization act, you might say that we should not hold cash. Otherwise, it might get harmful. By cash, I mean the surplus amount of reserves that you have in your account. Running a Business is no mean task. It is full of uncertainties. Especially in the last 4-5 years market had been moving up & down. In such circumstances, if you have cash reserves in your account, then you can be a King. Almost literally. 

When market falls, there are many a businesses which are in problem. People lower the rates of the products so that at least there is some sale and the expenses can be taken care of. Now, imagine if you have quite good amount of money in such a market. You can buy any material, which can be used for long, at dirt cheap rates. For example, you have a factory where the utensils are going at cheap rate. You can just buy them at may be 25-30 % discount. Sometimes even 50 %. It really depends on what type of material you are dealing in or person you are dealing with. Sometimes, the real estate rates are also down in the market. 

In essence, you can literally be King. If you show the intent to buy and the party is too desperate then you can negotiate to good amount. And if you get it at such big discounts, and try to sell it even for 6 months, then also your recovery & returns will be big. So, you should not try to be extravagant as soon as you get some good cash, but should just wait till the cash reserves are built up.

Outsourcing! Focus On Core Activities.

Business soars when you focus on your core activities. If you are not as big enough to keep a person for all the things - account, HR, Canteen, etc, then you need to outsource those jobs. There are many consultants available who will handle your accounts for you, they will handle marketing for you, they will handle HR activities like PF, salary and those things. You just need to contact them. I will give an example. 

Milk. Is it really necessary that we take care of buffalo or cow just because we require milk. We have to do so many things to get milk. Other way to give example is Tea. If we need very small quantities of tea or snacks, then we do not need to keep a canteen. Instead giving the contract to someone near your office should be good. Similarly, it comes down to your other activities. Like you are into stamping of some sheets and you need some machining on it. It may be a good idea to outsource that to some other client, if you cannot give work to a full time person yourself. 

On the other, think of the person giving the service. The first one who keeps buffalo. He will take care of the buffalo or the cow and supply the milk to people like me & you. He will do that thing only and he is happy and we are happy. Same with tea & snacks. He can give service to the area he covers. There will be many takers and hence, it will be easy for them. Similarly, if we do not have the volumes to keep a guy for machining, it might work best to outsource it until your work volume increases. 

I like to give example of Bajaj in this respect. Earlier, it used to manufacture everything right from the handles to seats to other things needed in scooter. But now a days, it is only into assembling the line and managing to marketing & sale activities. It has identified its strength and it does maintain qualified and experienced people to take care of the quality of outsourced products. This aspect is very important when you outsource your activities.

Start To Finish! How To Finish Things That You Start Up

There are things in your life that you want to do. Even if your main work/profession is different, you do have your own pet hobbies or small projects which you want to do. Many a times you do start doing it, but leave it in between. For example, you are good at music. You buy an instrument and play it. But down the line you just forget to play the instrument because your life gets busy due to the increased work load or the stresses that come with work.

You might be a good artist and used to do some drawings & paintings earlier. But your work has taken a toll. You are not doing any painting nowadays. There are similar things.  In same things, you might start up some project. But then you do not find time to complete it. You need to take out some time. I have met one person who is very good at drawings. He has turned his hobby into a habit. After coming home from office, he has a habit. He draws at least something. He showed us some drawings which were made of thousands of dot. He made it by putting some dots daily. The drawing was not made in a day, but may be a few weeks. But for that you need to do it daily.

Make it a point to give some time either in the morning or before going to bed or anytime during your work time (if it is possible). This daily work will move towards the completion of your project as well as towards taking stress out of your life.

How To Rake Up Funds Even Before You Take The Plunge

In one of my articles, I wrote about how you can work around your business even if you have lesser funds. It is true because people have done it. But the other truth is that you will need funds if you are getting into manufacturing business. There are many types of businesses which are quite capital intensive. Even if not very capital intensive still it will need sufficient capital so as to make it big. Funds when you start up can make you advantaged or disadvantaged. 

Having sufficient funds in your account means that even if your revenues do not pick up at the start, you can still live for a few more months. This initial period is very important. We make plans considering our revenues generate from third month or sixth month depending on project. But the truth is that you might need more time. Your machine arrival might be delayed, installation might give problems and you might take quite some time to get the quality right. This period goes without or very less revenue. And if you do not have ready customers, then this gestation period is long. 

Second thing is that if you have funds in the back up, you can put it to use in such a way that your gestation period is minimized. You can have multiple people working simultaneously, so your production/sale start at the earliest. For all these things, you need to have funds. Now, how do you generate funds?

If you are from affluent family, then this is not any question for you. But if you are not well off with money then it might be beneficial for you to start saving immediately after you take up some odd job. In initial years of your professional life, you are young and single. Take that opportunity and set aside as much money as is possible and invest it. Since age is on your side, I recommend investing in Equity Mutual Funds which are quite aggressive and will give you good returns. This compounded return will turn big in 4-6 years time when you will be ready to leave your job and start your dream project. 

Agreed that this might not be the case with all, but if you invest money in aggressive funds, they it will increase. When you invest before spending, then you have less money to spend and this will keep you disciplined. Whatever increments come, try to move all or at least 75 % of the increment in investments. This will not only build your corpus fast, but also keep your lifestyle down. This might help you in initial stages of your project.

No Funds!! How To Still Make It Happen?

Many of us dream to be entrepreneurs, but few actually make the cut & fewer are successful. If we make a list of things due to which people don't take the plunge, it will mainly be fear (of failure, of financial crunch/stability, etc) or the lack of fund. When we actually look at the lack of fund, it is basically a fund required to start up. But if you are really thinking that you cannot start up without fund, then you need to read one book. It is called $100 Startup. Yes. If you convert it into Rs., it will hardly be Rs 7000/-.

The book is an account of many such start ups who have started with less capital. The capital is not typically $100, but it is not too much also. It studies many businesses run all over US & other countries and it has taken a criteria of businesses touching almost $1 million. This effectively means that those firms that started with Rs. 7000 to Rs. 100000/- are making around Rs. Six Crores per year. And most of these companies are small companies run by small team. 

If you think, is it really possible then you need to study that book. The first story itself is of a person who has lost his job and has a family to support. He starts selling mattresses and soon becomes a master at it. There is also a coupon business. Most of this type of business are necessarily trading type or service type business. But who cares as long as you are successful. And yes, they have cut down many stories to make the book short.

I think those of you who have been thinking of taking the plunge, need to read that book.

Don't Try To Be Perfect At Launch

There are many ideas going on in mind. But it is very difficult to implement all of them. Over time the idea loses itself and you forget it. You do start some ideas, but wait to launch it till everything gets perfect. And if you are not concentrating fully on it, it may take days to make it perfect. And eventually, you may lose focus and put the idea into oblivion. It is very necessary that you start something and then along the way you just keep improving things.

For example, you think of launching a 5S campaign in your company or at your office. You just think of the enormous work that you need to do and you might be discouraged. Instead you need to focus on the result that would be visible once the 5S campaign is put in place. You need to start it step by step. You do not need to do all the improvement at once. But it is important that you are better than what you were yesterday. That's it. Once time flies by, you will move towards  perfection.

You have to take all your projects like that and need to launch them. You see that when you consider films, even the most successful films are not critics favorite. They are not perfect. Many a times, they do not pick up any awards too. But when you consider box office collection then they are at the top.