Business lessons from Sesame Street
Question: I plan to set up my own business while I am still working. Hopefully, I can grow my business to a stable and sustainable level so that I can eventually quit my job and focus on my business. Do you have any advice for a part-time entrepreneur?–Transitioning employee
Answer: I grew up watching the “Sesame Street.” But it wasn’t just me. There were lots of die-hard fans of this show, which schooled children through TV in a very entertaining way. Little did I know that some of the lessons from Sesame Street would be applicable even in my adult years, especially when it came to running a business.
Firstly, while setting up a business parallel to your employment early on is ideal, it should be done with much care. Many employers frown upon their employees moonlighting or setting up businesses on the side, and rightfully so. An employee who moonlights or manages a side business will be very distracted. Eventually, one will have to give, the employment or the second job/side business.
That is why if you want to set up a business, get somebody you trust to help run it first on a day-to-day basis. Perhaps when the business grows or when you retire, you can join the business full time.
Now assuming you found that perfect balance between being employed and having a business on the side run for you by a trusted partner, take the following lessons from Sesame Street to heart.
Do you know Cookie Monster? His one passion in life is to find and eat cookies. He even has a song that starts out with, “C is for cookie, that’s good enough for me…” So ask yourself what your passion in life is. Typically, that passion will be accompanied by an expertise that is unique to you. Nurture that expertise, profit from it and, most importantly, help others with it and you will see your passion fulfilled. And how about earning money? By helping others with your passion, you will also be providing them with what they need and are willing to pay for. Money will, therefore, just come as a byproduct. A chart that I “shared” on Facebook shows that you will achieve “bliss” if what you do well is what you love and at the same time what the world will pay for and is what the world needs.
An integral part of achieving that bliss is to know who your target customers are. In Sesame Street they would periodically sing a song titled, “Who are the people in your neighborhood?” The task is not just to know the names and jobs of your target customers but also their true needs and wants. Moreover, each target area is a neighborhood that may have wants and needs that are different from the other “neighborhoods” that you are targeting. In our training business for example, we have different styles of training for people from different walks of life. If we simply maintained one type of training, we would either bore the more advanced participants or talk over the heads of those who are just starting with personal finance. No one size fits all.
Before all of the hip vampire movies of today, there was the Count. The Count loved to count. That’s all he could do. He is just like the Cookie Monster who had nothing in mind but to eat cookies. In business, you need the ac-COUNT-ants who will provide you with the critical financial metrics with which to run your business. No less than the Balanced Scorecard takes note of financial figures as one of the pillars of strategic performance management.
In business, just like with personal finance, it is important to come up with a portfolio. With a business, it can be a portfolio of separate businesses across different industries or a portfolio of products within one company. Especially since diversification is implemented to optimize returns vis-à-vis the risk taken, you would need to constantly rationalize the existence of each business or product. This is where you sing the Sesame Street song that goes, “One of these things is not like the other. One of these things just doesn’t belong.”
You will need to continuously review your operations to see which business or product is not living up to expectations. If you catch the problem early, you may still have time to fix some bugs in the operational processes, marketing, financing or even manning. But if after serious efforts you still find a particular business or product failing to meet your expectations, it would be time to jettison that business or product and invest hard-earned money elsewhere.
In business, more profit is typically earned by taking the road less traveled; but not without the attendant risk. This path is not easy as you will many times feel like you’re crazy for being the only one taking the risk in espousing a new and untested strategy. Nevertheless, as drawn in another chart I “shared” on Facebook, the area outside your comfort zone is not only much, much larger. It is also where the magic happens. And to keep seeing the magic in trying times, recall your youth when nothing seemed impossible and do what Sesame Street’s the Amazing Mumford does. Say to yourself, “A la peanut butter sandwiches!”
If you want to know more about entrepreneurship as well as effective personal cash, debt, risk and wealth management, attend the EnRich training scheduled on Aug. 14, 2012. There are limited seats being given away to HR practitioners. Visit www.personalfinance.ph, e-mail [email protected] or call (632) 216-1541/(632) 359-3094 for more details.
Go ahead and search for that sunny day where the clouds are all swept away and the air is sweet. Go find that bliss in your business.
(Efren Ll. Cruz is a registered financial planner of RFP Philippines, personal finance coach, seasoned investment adviser and best-selling author. Questions about the article may be sent by SMS to 0917-5050709 or e-mailed to [email protected]. To learn more about the RFP program, visit www.rfp.ph or e-mail [email protected].)
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