Before a business turns into a wealth creator, there are certain fundamentals that must be enforced. These are the same virtues that are the most common denominator in nearly all of the world’s top business personalities’ ventures. This week, we take a look at some of the key ingredients that world’s top money makers follow to ensure their ventures maintain their wealth creation statuses.
The business idea
Your business idea will stand a better chance of converting into a wealthy enterprise if it has a huge social impact. This is according to Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. In the same vein, Zuckerberg, whose real time wealth is currently quoted at $62.8 billion, says that you must explore widely before you commit your resources to one idea. For instance, Zuckerberg points out, he never set out to start Facebook as a company even though he had already acquired venture capital. “You should start with the problem that you’re trying to solve rather than deciding that you want to build a company,” he says. “The best companies that get built are things that are trying to drive some kind of social change, even if it’s just local in one place, more than starting out because you want to make a bunch of money, become an employer to many, or build a giant firm.”
The business process
According to Jeff Bezos, the founder and CEO of Amazon, you must always strive to prevent a succeeding business from becoming complacent. Apparently, according to the billionaire, once your business becomes complacent, it will quickly turn static and irrelevant. This will lead to decline in sales and profitability, and eventually death. In a letter to Amazon shareholders this year, Bezos notes that the only way to avoid this is by constantly investigating how the processes that run the business can be improved. Apparently, when business processes are never interrogated, it becomes common for those running the business to shrug shoulders that due processes were followed in conducting business despite poor outcomes. “The more appropriate thing is to investigate the process and improve it. The process is not the thing. It’s always worth asking, do we own the process or does the process own us?” he said in his 2017 letter to Amazon shareholders. Bezos was ranked third in the 2017 Forbes list of the richest people in the world and currently has a net worth of $83.2 billion.
The competitor or The customer?
Many in business will never realize the true potential of their enterprises because of obsessing over their competitors rather than their customers. According to Bezos, the customer must always be prioritized over the competitor. This is what Amazon did. Instead of waiting to see what other online retailers would launch and then attempt to go one better than with an almost identical product, Bezos built the Amazon Web Services (AWS) business which was aimed at providing solutions for the expensive in-house application hosting and open source products that at the time weren’t able to support rival large companies. Today, this business is worth over Ksh. 1 trillion.
Income streams
Whether you are in business or employment you must find ways to increase your income streams, says Grant Cardone, a self-made millionaire entrepreneur and New York Best Selling author. “You will never get wealthy without multiple flows of income. That starts with the income you’re currently earning. Increase it by adding multiple flows,” he says. However, you should not add disconnected income streams but instead find ways you can add income to the job you already have. “The person who does advertising for me started making advertisements for those connected to me. He didn’t start a doughnut shop,” says Cardone.
The success trap
Once your business breaks even, it will be easy for you to regale in your success. However, according to Bill Gates, the richest man in the world with a real-time wealth standing at $88.7 billion, learning from your successes in business is one of the booby traps you must avoid. “Success is a lousy teacher. It seduces smart people into thinking that they can’t lose,” he says. Instead, of using your successes to inform your business decision, he advises that you should focus on your unhappy customers. “These are the greatest source of learning,” Gates says.
