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| Good morning Monday! |
A couple of years ago I attended a business seminar for work. There was this fascinating, goodlooking young woman flown in from London talking about her company that she had founded. She was tired of the poor coffe in London, so she launched Britains first US inspired coffee bar Coffee Republic. She made it sound simple. She had a need for better coffe, saw a gap in the market, and founded her own business. Her name is Sahar Hashemi, and she later sold Coffee Republic for an obscene amount of money and got an OBE from the British Queen. Today she gives lectures for entrepreneurs on how to succeed in business, and also how to bring this thinking into bigger companies to employees. Remembering this inspiring seminar I was happy to find Sahar Hashemi interviewed in SvD this weekend. Sahar Hashemi has written the hugely popular book with the promising name "Anyone can do it - building Coffee Republic from our kitchen table" and her recent book "Switched On", where she summons her best advices for entrepreneurs. Having listened to this interesting woman myself I thought I´d share some of her advices with you. According to Sahar Hashemi, the most important rule is to be your own customer. She lives as she learn, as with the poor coffee...
Sahar Hashemis eight rules
for entrepreneurs
1 Believing that anyone can do it
Let go of the ‘this isn’t me’ mental block.
2 Step into customers’ shoes
Becoming your own customer rather than just being the ‘seller’ will give you as huge competitive advantage.
3 Get out
Get out of the office, do some market research yourself by impersonating your customer and getting an insiders perspective of what your product or service is really like from the other side of the fence.
4 Become clueless
You can’t see and think in the old way expecting a new way to magically appear. Your skills, experience and ‘how we’ve always done it’ mentality will blind you from seeing new opportunities. Break from old habits, unlearn conventional practices, and open your mind, so you stumble on new ways of doing things.
5 Prototyping
The new opportunity you’ve spotted doesn’t come to life in a power point presentation or a spreadsheet. Prototyping is making your idea tangible.
6 Notch up on No’s
You need to change your attitude to ‘no’. In the entrepreneur’s world a ‘no’ is just a journey to finally getting a ‘yes’. New ways of doing things always meet with resistance.
7 Bootstrapping
Bootstrapping is about finding a way to make things happen however scarce your resources, restricted your channels, or limited your budget. Instead of being paralysed by limited resources it’s about being creative and making the most of what you’ve got.
8 Take 100% of Yourself to Work
Leave behind the traditional thinking that work and play are opposite words. There is a direct correlation between how much you enjoy your work and how well you do it. And you can’t enjoy your work if you are holding back.
What do you think? I think she has many good points. Like loose that mental block, get out of the office and maybe most important, become clueless, to get out of that old comfort zone and see new possibilities (this one could be applied in many areas of life, not only work life:). I also find the last rule interesting, since there has been a time where we "work hard, play hard" but not necessarily together. But I do think she´s on to something when saying that we can´t enjoy work if we are holding ourselves back.
Oh, HAPPY new week!
{Text source: SvD where you can read the whole interview}
