Now that Donald Trump has safely occupied the White House, and Oprah is no longer producing new episodes, you may be asking who the next business mogul will be. If you’re looking for some tips yourself to become the next global magnate, see below for a crash course in empire building.
Innovation
It almost goes without saying that you will need to contribute something to the world that is commercially viable in order to build an enduring business empire. However, the successful entrepreneur not only sees a gap in the market and responds with a solution, but will fill ‘gaps’ that didn’t even exist until they came along. For example, the Steve Jobs approach to technology and creation of products such as the iPod reinvented portable music on a highly successful large scale before the industry was demanding it. Similarly, the business empires of certain reality television stars are not built on selling particularly useful products or content, but appear to speak to a large amount of people and fulfil their needs for entertainment or mindless escapism. Find your niche, it can literally be anything.
Patents
Many start-ups are well aware that their intellectual property could someday be worth millions or even billions of dollars. Therefore, legally protecting the output of your enterprise is well worth the investment. These days you can file patent applications online or alternatively you may choose to engage the services of a patent attorney if you would like extra advice and assistance. So you know, patents can apply any device, substance, method or process that is ‘new, inventive and useful.’ IP Australia will have all the information you require so find them online.
Likewise, if you are looking to buy a business for sale, are there any proprietary technology, products or information that you will assume ownership of, or is it excluded or partially excluded from the sale?
Address and exceed competitors
It can be more convenient to stubbornly cling to the idea that your idea is the best, especially if you were one of the first to bring it to market. However, do some essential market research to analyse your competitor’s strengths and weaknesses. It can be initially easier to go for the ‘gap’ in the market and provide what they can’t yet do. But you should also have the mindset of what you can do to proactively contribute to your field. Whether you aim to improve on existing business practices or products or radically diverge from the rest within the same industry, the choice is yours. For the more risk averse, this could initially be done as a non-core activity such as a supplementary product line or additional service. Here you can road test more experimental business moves in a more contained fashion, until you’re ready to go bigger with them.
After all, once you have people copying you, you should be confident knowing that you are onto a good thing, so use it to motivate yourself and be better than all the rest.
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