BUSINESS & SUCCESS

Garavagno Laura

                                                                                                                                                When we want to start a business, the most important thing is obviously to know what it is.

In a common way, businness is the activity of making, buying, selling goods or providing services in exchange for money. The definition is simple but the way to do it is not if you want to succeed in the area that you want. 

By this way, to my mind business and success are almost the same words.  Thus, the definition of business that for me is clothest to reality is this quote from Colin Powell : There are no secret to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work, and learning from failure. 

ONE BUSINESS : DIFFERENT STEPS

when starting a business, you have to prepare it carefully if you want a perfect launch. The best for this, is to follow 10 steps that will permit you to do not forget anything, to see all the aspects of your business in a thoughtful way and organize it in the good order to succeed.

The 10 steps before lauching your business:

1. Write a business plan

2. Get business assistance and training

3. Choose a business location

4. Finance your business

5. Determine the legal structure of your business

6. Register a business name

7. Get a tax identification number

8. Register for state and local taxes

9. Obtain business licenses and permit

10.Understand employer responsibilities

ABOVE ALL, BUSINESS IS ABOUT ..

- Mission : You have to follow a direction, a clear idea. It is the most important part of a business 

(what are you offering / your added value / To whom ? Why ? How ?)

- Innovation : You have to create something new, it will help the business to fulfil his mission and keep the customers. Customers are always looking for innovation and following it. Do you rather want to be an insider or outsider ? Be innovative.

- Leadership : Obviously, in a business, there is always a boss. He has to be flexible and open to propositions to improve his business with his partners. Everybody in the business can act like leader on some tasks. No matter who is doing what, the most important is to do it in the best way, see what has to be done, do it and take decisions.

We can say that business has a Roadmap, that is to say a circle of business of 4 keys which the first one is what is business. 

The three others keys of the American Business are :
Networking - Mentoring - and - Volunteering

I met American Business men and women who told me about it and their experiences. I chose some of them to illustrate these key points that made them famous for their success, authenticity and uniqueness.

In total I met 6 American Business olders in Chicago, and for all of them without exception, the most important in business, from far the essential key  to success is :

LOVE WHAT YOU DO

NETWORKING

Garavagno Laura

Networking is about building relationships to communicate with both customers and employees. We talk about internal networking and external networtking.

Internal networking is done with your team.You are listening to your team and she is listening to you, it permits to share ideas in the company : what people need, understand more the customers expectations. Your employees are people who are selling your products/ services so you have to communicate them a good image and make them feel important in the process. They are part of business and have to be conscious of it. When people know that what they do is important and that their point of view matter, they are always more efficient. 

External networking is meeting customers, communicate on your business through several ways, and achieve your goals by making people talk about you. You have to come to people to make you know and, you can use your mentor for example to help you in networking.

Mary Vallender

Mary Vallender is a real estate agent in Chicago. She is such a perfect example to talk about networking. She was working at the begining in a small agency but decided to change her life and build her own business in real estate. She started from scratch and learnt that in the US you have to be referred by other professionals when the business is already opened. That is to say that you have to find one's place in the area and make people trust in you more than in others. By this way, she knew that she had to build strong relationships with people who were doing the same job, partners, and customers. To achieve this goal, she firstly talk with her first boss who helped her to get her first contacts and customers. Then, she was actively participating to exhibitions, joined sessions like The River Norh group, participate to parties. Indeed, we can think that party is only about fun but it is not at all. That is a way to meet new people, Mary Vallender said that you have to go to people that they know who you are, why you are here and you have to make them remember you. In that type of meeting, if you are shy, you loose. Getting to people in the number one thing you have to do, and to make your conversation even more efficient, make sure that you have always with you a business card that will permit people who liked your personnality and projects to contact you and maybe work with you as partners or lot of  other options. Using these tools, Mary built herself the image she wanted, that is to say being associated with credibility and integrity. She will tell you that, getting to people is a fact, but keeping in touch with them is much more better and efficient both for you and for them. The more your network is large, the more people know you, talk about you, think of you when they need something, and talk about you to advice someone. The more you build relationships, the more relationships help you to build your business and reputation.

The Legacy @properties

Moreover, Mary understood that today it is essential to be active on social network to increase again and again your capacity of networking.

Social network like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Linkedin are nowaday used by almost all businesses mixed up together. So being in social network is not really a plus anymore but a new basis of business networking that you have to use. 
She also used newspapers, blog and webpages for networking.

MENTORING

Garavagno Laura

Having a mentor and being subsequently a mentee is really important in Business. In term of relations but also and above all in both learning and improving yourself in an especially area.

Indeed, having a mentor permits you to know from the beggining what will be the main difficulties and the goals of your work. A mentor will give you advices on what to do or not at the begining to be efficient and meet success without making mistakes. It can avoid you a lot of trouble and doubts that you may have. To meet a mentor you have to widen your relationships, be interesting in what the others do and not be focused only on your own. In USA people are happy to help you, they know that everybody need a little bit of help at the begining and that with mentoring they have good feedbacks and maybe new partners.

As an example, we can talk about Michelle and Nina, who are the women behind the amazing pastries of Sugar Path. We can say that their first mentors was their parents as their father teach them the importance of fresh food and healthy ingredients in life. Their mother teach them the love in cooking and the pleasure of sharing it. Thanks to them they find the concept that they wanted to create. A pastry which propose a wide range of products but always made with fresh ingredients and with their heart. On the first hand,this way to work made them different from other in term of concept, quality and taste. On the other hand, by choosing fresh products they are also helping small productors and encourage the healthy food that people are more and more looking for. Thus, they also answer better to the consumers expectations and meet more success.

Moreover, we can underline that they started their business in farm markets before to open their own store. They shouldn't have could open it so quickly and so easily without the help of a mentor. Indeed, to cook their pastries, they meet a girl who was the owner of a restaurant and asked her if they could use her restaurant kitchen during the nights when the restaurant was empty, to cook their cakes.The answer was yes. This woman not only lend her place, but also give them a lot of advices to win time, customers, to have a good communication.... Moreover, she proposed them to sell their pastries in her restaurant. It was an excellent promotion for them to get their firsts customers and have a first approach on how customers were reacting face to their work ( what they expected, what they were feeling). Today these 3 women are friends and always discussing, sharing ideas.

With that example, we clearly understand that being persevering and looking for contacts is more than helpful. You can't be afraid of asking people's help, especially if they are working in the same area that you want to. Mentoring permit as much for the mentor as the mentee to learn and improve himself. 

Mentoring is the key to avoid the first failures to make your firsts contacts and meet your first customers. The next logical step of mentoring is Networking.

VOLUNTEERING

Garavagno Laura

All businesses convey an image of them that will make people confident with their brand and make them like it. Volunteering is waiting by employees and very well seen by customers. It is always good both for your company and your consumer to see that you care about the others.

Pastries from Sugar Path

Moreover, like would say Michelle and Nina from Sugar Path : no matter what you give, you will always get back much more. Indeed, volunteering and giving, for example to association or group of teenagers for a campaign is a good thing. First of all, it will be helpful to promote your business and your image but also because you will be visible.Furthemore, it is a way to communicate and make you known from others. Volunteering can be a part of networking if it is done in a good way.

Thus, volunteering can be for business or just because you care. Obviously, it alo can be for both.

Honey from Sweet Begginings

Sweet beggining // Beelove

To talk about a an organization who does volunteering because she cares, I chose Sweet beginings a company of Chicago's West Side who extract honey from urban hive. This company allows people who have been in jail and for whom the reintegration in the working area is difficult, to follow a formation in honey production. They are seriously trained and coached, helping eachother in a peaceful atmosphere. They make honey, work with the bees and extract the honey. Moreover, they take care of the environement but also of the health and skin using  natural products. They are not only producing honey, they make soap with it, hand cream, body cream etc..

worker from Sweet Begginings

In fact, the Business owner of Sweet Begginings, Brenda Palms Barber, by volunteering, permits to ex-convicts to rebuilt their future and give them hope. Thanks to her, it will be easier for them to find a job and live in community as they  will be used to work in team. Furthermore, people who works for beelove don't recidive , that is the proof that volunteering can change lives but also people temselves, inside, their mind and make them someone better. That is good to know that companies like that exists and try to give the same chance to succeed to everybody. In Chicago especially, there is a lot of criminality, of poor neighborhood with people with poor education who doesn't have the same chance to succeed in school and work because of money or background.

Brenda Palms Barber

Brenda said :  “our jobs is to equip them, to work with them, help them, see who they are, help them to be undeniable.Volunteering - by definition - is to help people with your time or your money. You made this for love, because you believe in it."

Volunteering also permit to your employees to get involve in a charitable cause, that is a power to give happiness and  hope. Moreover, happy employees means happy customers. 

So, definetly, Volunteering brings people together whatever volunteering it is. People are always more attracted by companies who are doing volunteering and who care about it. And if you add to this the caring of health and nature, you have all the tools to attract the good customers, those who promote healthy food, healthy product, healthy life.. That is to say, in fact, all conscious people of this world.