George S. Chua
We all know what a brat is, right? What comes to mind is an annoying and difficult child or imma-ture adult. However, if we dig deeper as to why we would consider someone a brat, it is not al-ways necessarily negative. An example would be a highly inquisitive child who asks too many questions or an adult we might consider as difficult because they don’t agree with us. To increase our chances of success in business, we have to address difficult issues, different opinions and consider alternative ways of thinking much like having to deal with a brat, not necessarily a plea-sant experience but a necessary one nonetheless.
To help you increase your chances of success, also consider BRAT as an acronym for Burn Rate; Rainmaker; Assets; Technical Competence. These are the things that you will need to consider in order to improve your chances of success in business. First is the burn rate which is how much money you need to keep the business going. Of course, the objective is to keep it as low as poss-ible without sacrificing mission critical expenditures. Most businesses need some developmental or ramp up time to get to a positive cash flow stage. Naturally, the lower your burn rate is, the eas-ier it would be to achieve that objective and it will also allow you keep the business going on a negative cash flow basis for a longer period of time.
You will definitely need a Rainmaker. A rainmaker is someone who brings in the new business, initiate progress and ensure success. These exceptional individuals focus on the bottom line re-sults and have the ability to make use of their extensive selling skills, expansive network and un-canny intuition in a synergistic way. A rainmaker may not work in a tradition fashion that may be a challenge to comprehend, and they can also be a pain in the neck but I have never seen an organ-ization succeed and thrive without at least one rainmaker.
Having the right Assets or resources is another essential requirement to help the business suc-ceed. This means having the right product or service to sell in the right location at the right price, using the proper distribution system to get to your customers with the proper resources to effec-tively execute your marketing and sales program. Many entrepreneurs with the right idea at the right time have not been able to achieve success because they did not have the assets or capital to fulfill their dream. While having enough resources does not guarantee success, there are more businesses that have been able to get off the ground because they were funded properly than those that did not have enough funding available.
Technical competence means that you know what you are doing and can do it in an efficient and competitive manner. You need to be able to have a product or provide a service that your custom-er wants and needs. You must also be capable of keeping up with improvements in technology,
materials, features, government regulations, global competition and availability. Technical compe-tence goes beyond the products and services that you offer but would also cover things like pack-aging, delivery and making your products available through the various channels of distribution such as internet buying sites.
While there could be other elements that helps secure the success of a business, the above fac-tors are necessary for you to succeed. Actually, I forgot to mention Luck, but that is another story. Till then, may Lady Luck smile on all of you.
(Comments may be sent to georgechuaph@yahoo.com)