lessons to become great entrepreneur

by

Arise Roby

LESSONS TO BECOMEGREAT ENTREPRENEURS

ARISE TRAINING & RESEARCH CENTER

INTRODUCTION

Every big company and large enterprise was once a startup. Like every startup, the bigger companies once went through lots of trials in their early days. But however, they went on to become very successful in their ventures by overcoming all the hurdles.


Gordon Segal on Salesmanship When Gordon Segal started his venture Crate and Barrel, a furniture retailing store, he was on a mission to offer the best service to his customers. Since the line of his business engaged in, required lots of persuasion, he urged his associates to give out their best and preached that they were in the business of selling, not distribution.

“This is a business built on personality. Personality and imaginative merchandising,” Segal told his floor staff, “You’re selling a candlelit dinner by poolside, not a piece of wax on a stick. You’re selling romance, not flatware.”


Cranium’s Founders on FocusRichard Tait and Whit Alexander, makers of the

famous party board game Cranium, were very successful in making their game more interesting and addictive and eventually the game gained its popularity. Unlike other party games, Cranium includes a wide variety of activities and is billed as "The Game for Your Whole Brain.To make their brand more popular they went on to create CHIFF, an acronym, which stands for Clever, High-quality, Innovative, Friendly, and Fun which conveys everything they stood for.“We’re so focused on our company’s success we could pee through a straw,” said Tait.


Frank Perdue on Why Advertising Isn’t a Cure-all

Frank Perdue, of Perdue Farms, is famous for his catchy and entertaining ads. His famous slogan on his product, “It takes a tough man to make tender chicken,” gained too much attention in the market. But despite such great and clever campaigns he went on to say that no company can survive on marketing alone and for every business to thrive in market must totally commit itself to quality.“Too many people take a mediocre product and fail. Eighty percent of all newly advertised products fail,” he said. “The manufacturer decides the consumer is a fool. That’s why it fails. They think advertising is a cure-all.”


Mary Kay Ash on Support from Friends and Family

Mary Kay Ash is one of the perfect examples that a women can very well run a business and that too sales in particular. She went on to prove all the naysayers wrong by starting her venture Mary Kay Cosmetics, which went on to become a bright-pink empire. Her venture encouraged other women to run their own small businesses. However, she was not alone her family and friends gave her the helping hand in her business.“I often say I started with nine people, friends of mine, really, who just didn’t have the nerve to say no. They didn’t intend to stay around, but they were going to help me get it started. They were very kind and sweet and last year one of them made $325,000,” says Mary Kay.


Ben and Jerry on the Limits of Social Entrepreneurship A valuable lesson that, "even a good product

can't sell itself" can be learnt from the experiences of Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield's ice-cream business. In their early nineties Ben and Jerry initiated their peace campaign but despite their Peace initiative, due to poor marketing strategies it left their venture in great trouble.

“We learned that a product doesn’t sell just because you’re trying to do good in the world. You still have to have a healthy distribution, a good marketing strategy, and price the product properly,” says Jerry.


Jerry Yang on Being Alone at the TopThere is always a buzz when a new startup

emerges in market; however, people tend to forget to recognize its founder who has put all his efforts in creating it. Such is the case of Yahoo's co-founder Jerry Yang who talks about how much people associate entrepreneurs with the companies they start and how odd it sometimes feels when they forget to recognize the founder.

“It’s strange being a founder. No headhunters call me. They call everyone else in the company, but not me.”


The King of Time Management The founder of Franklin

International Institute knows something about time management. Hyrum W. Smith created his signature product, the Franklin Day Planner.

According to him time is very valuable and time management is a matter of prioritizing. He adds on to that saying "If you don’t set to accomplish specific goals, day-to-day and long-term alike, they won’t get done."


Bill Gates daily routine at homeBill Gates has showed true passion for software’s. Gates has successfully turned his company Microsoft to one of the biggest Software giants in the world. However, Bill Gates is still a hard-core tech geek at heart, even though the Harvard drop-out went on to become the world’s richest man he still goes home and sits before a computer.

“My house is full of microcomputer magazines, and I still come home every night to my IBM-PC. I don’t play the violin, you know,” says Gates


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