Brilliant Manager, 3rd Edition

CHAPTER 7

Brilliant

business tips

M07_PEEL3231_03_SE_C07.indd 133 20/09/2010 14:44

M07_PEEL3231_03_SE_C07.indd 134 20/09/2010 14:44

Introduction

Y

our business acumen can make or break your team. You

can have all the best people skills in the world, but if you

can’t deliver your financial bottom line then the show may

well be over. Continually honing your business skills should

be a top priority and, for this reason, I want to devote a whole

chapter to this. Really I need a whole book to adequately cover

the business skills a front-line manager needs, but by looking at

four core business activities and pulling out the most important

brilliant tips in each, I can give you a very good head start. There

are lots of good books on more specific business skills such as

negotiations, selling, finances, presentations and the like, so I

will stick to four broad areas:

1 developing products and services;

2 marketing;

3 pitching;

4 business processes.

And finish the chapter with some important miscellaneous tips.

Products and services

Don’t believe anyone who says that marketing is more important

than your products and services. In fact, don’t believe anything

is more important than a brilliant product or service. A brilliant

M07_PEEL3231_03_SE_C07.indd 135 20/09/2010 14:44

136 brilliant manager

product isn’t a guarantee of success, but nothing (and I do mean

nothing) does more to ensure the success of your business.

brilliant

tip

Manage your passion

Having a great idea and then building it into a profitable business

isn’t rocket science, so why does it so often go wrong? In a word the

biggest danger is also the key to your success – passion. It is easy to

see why most businesses are founded on passion. Passion provides

the commitment, energy, enthusiasm and determination to drive

through the inevitable setbacks to ultimate success. Passion is so

important that many organisations will not pursue a new business

opportunity without a passionate leader to champion the product.

brilliant

tip

Wherever possible, be a cheapskate

Never be tempted to show your commitment by investing lots of

money. However convinced you are of your ultimate success, you

must spend money as if failure is the most likely outcome. Keeping

your costs under the tightest control has a double benefit: it makes

it easier to show a profit, and it also reduces the damage if you

have to abandon the business opportunity. It is usually better to

try a number of thrifty opportunities than risk everything on a big,

expensive gamble. Remember that Pareto’s 80:20 law means that

you can usually achieve a professional-looking job with only a

fraction of the expenditure that a gold-plated solution would cost

(you can get 80 per cent of the effect for 20 per cent of the cost).

The following tips will help you manage the downside of passion

– it can so easily blind you to the reality of a situation.

M07_PEEL3231_03_SE_C07.indd 136 20/09/2010 14:44

Brilliant business tips 137

A related tip.

A second reason for going reasonably slowly to start with can be

summed up in the following tip.

To help implement this tip you need to make sure you can incor-

porate changes . . .

brilliant

tip

Don’t try to run until you have shown you can walk

Try to minimise your investment until it is clear that the business is

breaking out of the ‘early adopter’ type of customer. The moment

you find you can easily increase your customer base is the time to

put the pedal to the metal.

brilliant

tip

Don’t be afraid to change your business proposition

One of the best things about passion is that it leads to activity,

and activity often leads to insight . . . so don’t be afraid to use

that insight. As you talk to potential customers, and get genuine

feedback about your proposition, you will often stumble across a

much better product or service to sell.

M07_PEEL3231_03_SE_C07.indd 137 20/09/2010 14:44