Running and managing your own business can be one of the most rewarding but exhausting and challenging situations you will find yourself in. It involves making tough decisions. It almost always involves failure before success is seen. It requires sacrifices that not everyone is willing to make, and often things like small business funding are difficult to get easy access to or come by at all.
Richard Branson said, “If you want to be in business 10 years down the line, you must have a deep understanding of your business, the market it operates in and a great team to support.”
If you don’t believe this, below is a long list of his successes and a few pointers on how to grow your business from the guy who is estimated to have a net worth of approximately £2.58 billion (US$4.2 billion), ranks 254 in the global list of billionaires and is the 5th richest person in the United Kingdom.
Richard Branson’s long list of successes:
Plan for the long term
“Mapping the risks and opportunities for your business early on can make all the difference. Setting some milestones for you and your team to work towards will keep you motivated and driven. There will be obstacles to growth you cannot foresee but having a roadmap in place from the get-go will help build structure and focus to decision-making.”
Stick to your founding principles
“Investing in your people and delegating out responsibility is another key ingredient to building a successful business. I learnt this from a very young age. There is little point recruiting great people if you don’t then give them the autonomy to take their role and run with it. It also frees you up as the founder to focus less on the day-to-day activities and more on the over-arching objectives laid out in your ten year roadmap.”
Get the right support
“From my experience the key to long-term growth is much more than just raising enough funds. You need support and mentoring from those who have been there and done it themselves, teaching you how best to use the funds and help you avoid any mistakes they may have made. I myself benefited hugely from the words of Sir Freddie Laker when starting Virgin Atlantic. He told me I could never compete with the big advertising budgets of the large airlines and would have to get out there and use myself to promote Virgin Atlantic.”
If you’re planning for the future and need the right support when it comes to small business financing Lulalend offers a quick, easy solution. We care for small businesses and want the words of Richard Branson to ring true for your business.
To help you plan for the long term we offer the support through business finance. The great news is our application process has 3 quick steps which are all done online. We offer small business funding up to R500 000, have no hidden fees, competitive fixed costs, and you can see the money in your account in 24 hours. We aim to take one of the most challenging hurdles out of the way – access to funding – so that your business doesn’t have to be open to the many failures that it’s can come up against.
