Running a Successful Business
An Entrepreneur’s Tips to Success
In April 1998, I took one of the largest leaps of my professional career and founded Cazarin Interactive. I knew that other companies were going to need websites.
This was my inspiration for Cazarin. I witnessed companies hiring programmers to perform, what I now recognize as, marketing tasks. The more I experienced, the more expectations I had for my project. My vision for my company continued to evolve from there.
As Cazarin grew rapidly, my team rose in numbers. We were running smoothly from the start but decided to expand our services in 2001 as the demand for our skillset grew. More and more companies gained an interest in what we had to offer.
We needed to include branding as a service, welcoming content writers and graphic designers to our ever-developing team.
Like many other companies at the time, the market collapse in 2008 hit us hard. This momentary obstacle slowed us down but didn’t take us out of the game. After enduring a lot of setbacks, our hard work prevailed, and we survived.
We took the opportunity to reinvent Cazarin, adding digital marketing to our expertise. With our new industry, we developed Marketing Fusion. By definition, fusion is the joining of two molecules to create energy. When your team joins with us as Marketing Fusion, we will create something incredible. Together, we want to offer you measurable, tangible results in a way that works for you.
The success of our Marketing Fusion service has thrown our agency right at the forefront of the field. From there, our company continued to thrive, providing sophisticated websites, branding, and digital marketing services.
My Turning Point
Fast forward to 2017. One of my connections let me in on the exclusive Goldman Sachs 10,000 small business program.
Goldman Sachs 10,000 assists entrepreneurs in their business growth through a 20-week program split between online seminars and some time at Babson College in Boston.
This invaluable experience was a turning point for me as a business leader. I truly believe that it helped build up our team for future success and offered a conceptual foundation to stand on.
There are some things I would like to share with you after attending the #1 business school in the country.
As entrepreneurs, our jobs are to put all the pieces together and manage those pieces. We need to be able to take a step back and remember, we are not the business. We are the head of a team, a leader of countless working parts trying to operate a machine.
There are several components to consider when we want something to run smoothly:
- Finance: Be prepared. Always have enough funding at your disposal for at least 6 months of business (in case a crisis was to arise).
- Operations: Make sure to have a capable individual helping you manage the following departments; Human Resources, Accounting, Office Management, Inventory (if product), and Production.
- Sales: Organize yourself to have a process to generate and manage sales
- Marketing: This process is crucial for any good business to run. A good business is useless if no one knows about it. Create a campaign that spreads awareness and penetrates the market.
- Product or Service: Create something that is in demand in the marketplace and position it efficiently.
These pieces must be organized and well-developed if the business is going to run successfully for an extended period of time.
The marketplace changes, profit margins erode, new technologies come into play, and businesses must be prepared. In order to survive the ever-evolving environment, companies must learn to adapt or perish.
Resources :::::
Information about the Goldman Sachs 10,000 application
Questions :::::
- Do you believe a business has to change over time?
- Are different metrics of success?
- How do we educate ourselves continuously?