African Telecom millionaire worth $600 million, Strive Masiyiwa walked into a restaurant for a meal. As he sat down at his table, some waiters and customers approached him, asking for a selfie. After the selfie requests had died down, a few waiters approached him and asked:
“Mr Masiyiwa, we follow you on Facebook and we’re always inspired by what you write. We would like to be entrepreneurs. What advice can you give us?”
Strive Masiyiwa looked at them intently and responded:
“I want you to write down these 10 questions, and see if you can answer them next time I pass through here.
- How well is YOUR existing business doing?
- How much money did you do yesterday?
- What does it cost to run this business?
- This restaurant you work for — what would you do to make it more successful?
- Have you suggested any of these things to the owner?
- Which of these other restaurants (around you) is your most serious competitor?
- How many customers come and ask for you personally?
- Which waiter does the owner value the most?
- How much do you think it cost to set up and run this business?
- What do you do with your own money?”
At first glance these questions seem unrelated. Then I noticed that they fall into three important areas of a business – cashflow, marketing and a category that I call ‘ownership/initiative thinking.’
The cashflow questions are:
1. How well is YOUR existing business doing?
2. How much money did you do yesterday?
3. What does it cost to run this business?
10. What do you do with your own money?
The marketing questions are:
4. This restaurant you work for — what would you do to make it more successful?
6. Which of these other restaurants (around you) is your most serious competitor?
7. How many customers come and ask for you personally?
And lastly, the ‘ownership/initiative mentality’ are:
5. Have you suggested any of these things to the owner?
8. Which waiter does the owner value the most?
As I reviewed these questions, there were several cashflow and ownership/initiative questions that I had not looked into for a while. Time for me to look into these areas of RewardCamp more closely.
What areas of your business do you need to spend more time on?
If you find that cashflow and marketing aspects of your business needs more work, my software RewardCamp can help you improve both by increasing your customer loyalty and repeat order rate.
Sign up for a free trial at www.rewardcamp.com