An entrepreneurs job is rather the most challenging but also the most interesting job on earth. Unlike other jobs where you have to specialize in one field, an entrepreneur has to specialize in all the departments needed for a successful business and at the same time be a master of none.
Often times as an entrepreneur, you are faced with the challenge of how to make your business stand out, often with intense competition in the markets worldwide. This is often called your Unique Selling Point (USP). The advantages of USP are quite enticing, as the title suggests, it differentiates you from the competition, may keep you ahead of the competition and may position you as better than the competition.
Building business for businesses is a concept that works with almost all forms of markets and is very viable even with digitization. Examples of businesses built for businesses are e-commerce sites, research firms, outsourcing firms etc. In fact you can build a business for businesses in all market segments.
How can I build a business for businesses?
It simply means building a business model that instead of catering for customers directly, would cater for other businesses who will naturally be your competition.
Lets take e-commerce sites for example.;E-commerce means electronic commerce, in other words, digital trading or buying and selling on the internet. This merely moves buying and selling from brick and mortar stores to the internet. The success of e-commerce today, most especially in Africa has been to serve as a platform for other merchants to sell. That is, instead of me to just sell only my products on my website, I open my website up so other merchants (competitors) can sell their own products via my website at a commissioned fee. This way, I just built a business that caters for my competition, I am unique and different from my competition and I am running a business for businesses. This concept has gained so much popularity in Africa that when most people hear eCommerce, they don't think of all companies that sell via internet, all they think of are websites where other merchants go to post their products for sale.
I was reading a book a while ago, John was a waiter at a popular fast food. They always had the challenge of sourcing for high quality imported rice at good prices. After a few years, John felt he had the expertise and decided to start his own fast food so he also could become a boss and make more money. While doing market research, he visited competing fast foods and discovered they all were facing this same rice challenge. The light turned on, he made a move, he contacted a rice supplier and made a deal to buy large quantities of that rice at a much cheaper rate and began supplying other fast foods, including the one he was previously working in. Demand became so high, john was making so much profit, john was happy, his supplier was happy, his initial competition were happy, everybody was happy.
John had built a business for businesses.
To build a business for businesses from John's experience, you need to understand the market, your competition and your business properly. You need to know the elements for success in that business, elements for failure as well, challenges and risks of venturing in that business. When all this has been properly determined with intensive research, build a business model around your findings that would place you ahead of your competition, make you profit, make your competition profit and make everyone willing to do business with you. Everyone is happy.
Greatness is a choice, only losers plan to be lucky.
Have a great week ahead.
Think WITTEE! Think Intelligence
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