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Success Through Collaboration is Short Sighted

Written on June 9, 2011 by George Krueger & Mary-Lynn Foster in Entrepreneurship

There are two ways to do almost anything: the hard way and the easy way.

We’re overselling that a little bit – BIGG success does not come easily. However, it can come easier.

BIGG success is life on your own terms. It’s about entrepreneuring your life – taking control to design and build the life of your dreams.

Hear George & Mary-Lynn discuss this post on The BIGG Success Show podcast. Click the player to listen.

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You may or may not be an entrepreneur in the traditional sense, but you and you alone own your life.

Feeling lonely, overwhelmed and strapped

Entrepreneurs and small business owners know that going it alone is hard.

You may feel overwhelmed at times.

There’s so much to do. And you have to make it all happen. You’re the driver, the only driver.

You may feel strapped on occasion: strapped for time as we just said or strapped for money. Money and time are two of the five elements of BIGG success.

They are your two resources and entrepreneurs know they have to make the most of the resources at their disposal.

So let’s talk about how to do that; let’s chat about an easier path to BIGG success.

Collaborate for success

Collaboration is one of the buzz words in business these days. Everyone is striving to get more done with the same resources (or even fewer). Entrepreneurs have always done it. Now big companies are doing it. Even government, at all levels, is struggling to learn how to do it.

Merriam-Webster’s definition for collaboration is “to work jointly with others or together especially in an intellectual endeavor.”

Stated simply, it’s working together to achieve a common goal. For example, you may work with someone on a specific project for a specific customer.

Collaborating with someone else brings resources to the table for both you and the party you collaborate with. You can focus on your strengths while they focus on theirs. You can work through a project more quickly and more cost-effectively.

So collaboration has a lot of advantages. But collaboration is often thought of as temporary. Like a project, it has a beginning and an end. Sure, you may collaborate on another project in the future. But it’s sort of an in-and-out kind of thing.

Which is perfect for today’s business environment. You can ramp up organizational capacity by bringing in your collaborators. When the need is no longer there, you each go your own separate ways until another project comes along.

So collaboration is an easier way to reach success. We suggest that you go beyond collaboration for BIGG success.

Coalitions lead to BIGG success

Think coalitions! Merriam-Webster says that a coalition is “the act of coalescing.” So what does it mean to coalesce? We love their definition: “to grow together.”

BIGG success is life on your own terms. While everyone else is looking to collaborate, we suggest you also think about a different term: coalition.

A coalition is a long-term strategic partnership with many participants. It’s collaboration on steroids without a due date.

For example, we talk with a lot of will-be entrepreneurs, small business owners, community banks and Chambers of Commerce every week. If we know what you offer, we may find customers for you.

In essence, we can be part of your sales force. And maybe you can do the same for us.

This is just one small part of a coalition that can be created to grow together. Maybe we can’t help each other but it never hurts to ask. Coalitions lead to BIGG success!

We’re looking to form a coalition. Would you like to join us? Let’s talk about how we might grow together. Send us an e-mail at bigginfo@biggsuccess.com or leave a voice message at 888.455.2444.

Thanks so much for reading our post today. Until next time, here’s to your BIGG success!

Direct link to The Bigg Success Show audio file | podcast:
http://traffic.libsyn.com/biggsuccess/00707-060911.mp3

Image in this post from nellart

Tags: audioblog, bigg success, Business, coalition, collaboration, entrepreneur, five elements, george krueger, mary-lynn foster, podcast, small business owners, the bigg success show, time and money

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Shape Shifting Leads to Bigg Success

Written on June 16, 2009 by George Krueger & Mary-Lynn Foster in Business

Last time, we discussed the two ways to create wealth: other people’s money and other people’s labor (i.e. their time and talent). Historically, there’s been more focus on other people’s money as the lever to riches. Now, other people’s labor holds more promise.

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Hear George & Mary-Lynn discuss shape shifting on The Bigg Success Show! Click the purple player to listen while you read: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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Today’s show extends that concept and is inspired by one of the characters from the HBO hit series, True Blood. Sam Merlotte, who owns the bar, is a shape-shifter. He can change forms – from human to dog and back.

So here’s a little behind the scenes here at Bigg Success: we often get asked how we get ideas for our shows. We’ve been thinking about this shape-shifting thing for some time as a possible fun topic. Then we saw a Harvard article about a new business strategy.

The words “a shape-shifting enterprise” leapt off the page. Voila … a show was born!

Back to the article – it discusses how many large companies are starting to outsource core activities in order to focus resources on solving customer problems.

The author postulates that the future value of companies will be the sum total of all their arrangements. Let’s emphasis that – using words we use more often here at Bigg Success – the future value of businesses, both large and small, will be in the total value of its relationships.

But a key thing to keep in mind is that businesses don’t have relationships; it’s the people in those businesses who have relationships.

You may have a relationship with a customer who has a problem. How many other customers like this customer have the same problem? With how many do you have relationships?

Once you’ve identified that, who in your network can best solve that problem? By becoming the customer’s go-to person (or company) – by delivering the right product or service at the right time for the right price, you’ll create value for your business.

The Harvard article we talked about references a Fortune article about how Chinese and Indian companies are structuring themselves. The answer: they’re positioning themselves to be shape-shifters!

Shape-shifting is a key for us, as entrepreneurs, to survive and thrive in all economic conditions. It extends well beyond outsourcing. It’s an even deeper relationship, which will create more opportunities for small businesses to work with large companies.

To become a shape-shifter:

Watch your operating leverage. The more fixed costs your business has relative to its total costs, the greater your degree of operating leverage. Just like with financial leverage, higher operating leverage can work against us if things take a downturn.

That’s one of the secrets to being able to be a shape-shifter. If you keep your fixed costs low, you can quickly maneuver your organization to take advantage of opportunities that may present themselves.

Seek out strategic alliances. Explore opportunities to collaborate or joint venture with other people and organizations. The do-it-all-yourself mindset is so yesterday. Focus on what you do best and work with people doing what they do best. This is another key to shape-shifting.

Work with anyone and everyone where it’s mutually beneficial, including your competitors. You may find ways to do more together than either of you can do on your own.

Sometimes you may take the lead; sometimes they may take it. You don’t care. You’re shape-shifting yourself to bigg success!

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