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Thread: Born to do business

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    Silver Member league_of_ordinary_men's Avatar
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    Born to do business

    Okay in business we meet allot of different business owners and some of them look like there trying while others just look like there born to do business,has anyone experienced the same thing? And when looking at people that started and have massive businesses like Richard Branson with virgin,I think it takes a special mind to be able to get a business that big and be able to keep it successful,what do you think?

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    Oh yes fully agree - I admire the man

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    I think that being successful in business requires so many skills that one cannot be born to be good at it as such. You must keep in mind that Richard Branson is a hustler who started wheeling and dealing at 16. You must also remember that he made his first real money by screwingover Mike Oldfied with the recording of Tubular Bells. What sets Richard Branson apart is that he keeps on trying even though he fails more often than he wins, by the way, Bill Gates is the same. There are many many failed Microsoft projects. You must keep in mind that one only needs to have one project hit the big time for everybody to forget all your failures. The average guy tries nothing and gets nothing or attempts one thing and if it doesnt work out simply gives up, the winners keep on trying multiple things until someting pays off, Henry Ford was dead broke 2 or 3 times before he slowly built a business that became successfull based on the idea of the assembly line..

    We tend to see successful people through the perspective of their successes rather than taking a balanced view of comparing their success rate to their failure rate.

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    I have been doing this for a long time, people always say wow I want to run my own business and "make lots of money", if only they knew. Some people do make lots of money with little effort but I can assure you the percentage is very small. I never had a vision of me running as business for over 20 years, it was more like, screw everyone who told me I will be a nothing in my life as I walked out the class room at the beginning of std 9. All I wanted to do was prove them wrong. That's why I no longer have the desire to run a business, I have proved my point, unfortunately now it is just a survival thing, if I don't make it work I cant pay bills, the only difference between myself and a person working for a company, they don't have to lick someone backside to get paid, or wait 60 - 90 - 120 days for their money.

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    You are so right Ian's.

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    Diamond Member Justloadit's Avatar
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    There is also being at the right place at the right time with the right idea. Quite a few variables to come together at once, just like winning the loto, but if you don't buy the ticket, you don't get a chance to win.

    I have hundreds of ideas which I have made products, and my success rate has been 2 to 3% hit rate.
    I have always found that marketing is the final key to make the product fly, accompanied by a big wad of cash to finance the marketing.

    The other problem is that in our changing technological world, the entry level is easier, simply because you can buy modules to make up what you want.

    It's not the technology that is the difficulty, but rather the marketing and acquiring sales of the said product with a big marketing budget that finally makes the product fly.
    Victor - Knowledge is a blessing or a curse, your current circumstances make you decide!
    Solar pumping, Solar Geyser & Solar Security lighting solutions - www.microsolve.co.za

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    Diamond Member wynn's Avatar
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    The other thing that guys like Branson do is allow investors to piggyback business ventures and he has an army of experts and staff to monitor everything.

    Someone approaches Branson with an idea he thinks may work, a shitload of investors are prepared to throw a shitload of money at it simply because he is interested in it, he doesn't put any or very little of his own personal money up.
    If the venture fails you never hear of it and he loses very little.
    If the idea wins, Branson takes a healthy cut, the investors make a healthy dividend and it appears on the front page of 'Forbes Magazine' again and more investors are prepared to throw more money at his next venture.
    The army of experts and staff are paid by these investors and a small fraction of what the successful ventures bring in leaving the lions share for Branson.

    We are stupid we try to do all the financing and work ourselves, as a result we stay teeny weeny.
    "Nobody who has succeeded has not failed along the way"
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    @ians - To me it was a matter of being totally disillusioned by getting f_cked over by the IT manager of the company that I worked for. I vowed never to work in a corporate again. I absolutely loved working in IT but that lot screwed very badly with my mind. I tried a couple of times to get back into IT but as one gets older, especially not having a degree, no company was willing to employ me. That is when I decided to turn my hobbies into a business. I am a hyper technical person and building a business has been a battle with a tremendous learning curve. It is still a battle but at least the learning curve is slowly tapering off.


    @Jusloadit - True

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    What business are you actually in Adrian ?

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    Take a look at my Facebook page.

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