How to Be a Front Runner

As the founder of a business with a current turnover of R5 billion, Asher Bohbot takes his leadership role seriously. Here are his top ten rules on leading from the front.

1. Work hard. There are no shortcuts in life or in business.


2.  Be humble. Arrogance and a big ego will weigh heavily on you. Big egos need to be serviced and fed all the time and this requires time, effort and energy that is best spent elsewhere.


3. Hire people who are better than you. They will make you look good. The quality of a business is directly correlated with the skill and talent of the people in that business.


4. Give your people space. People need to have their own ‘patch’ or territory. This is particularly hard for an entrepreneur to do, but you have to let go and trust that you have hired the right people. You may be surprised at how well they deliver. Remember that you are not the only guy with ability.


5. Judge wisely. Develop the ability to judge people and tell those who are good for the business apart from the others. This is important when you bring people into the business, and when you are negotiating with people outside the business.


6. Know your financials. They are the yardstick for business. If this is not a skill that comes naturally or was part of your training, invest in acquiring it. You cannot run a business without having a good grip on the financials. And while employing an expert financial director is important, having this person on hand should not be an excuse for not understanding the financials yourself.


7. See your business as a calling. People will respond better to a cause than to the notion that they need to make money for you or your shareholders. Identify the broader purpose of your business and its importance in society and communicate this to your people.


8. Manage your business with a sound value system. You will need it as a compass. It’s something you need to stick to and not shift with changing circumstances. You also need to communicate it in a clear and uncompromising way.


9. Put yourself in the other guy’s shoes. The world looks very different from there. The ability to do this will not only make you more sensitive to people’s emotions, but it will also improve your judgement and ability to make decisions.


10. Lead with conviction. Be consistent, have a clear vision that you communicate clearly, and be certain of the way forward. If you are not clear on your direction, you will get pulled in different directions along the way, and no one else will know either.

By Juliet Pitman

Vital Stats

• Player: Asher Bohbot


• Company: EOH


• Turnover: R5 billion


• Contact: www.eoh.co.za

 

10 Success Principles We Often Forget

Identify your problems but give your power and energy to solutions. -Tony Robbins

Sometimes we find ourselves running in place, struggling to get ahead simply because we forget to address some of the basic success principles that govern our potential to make progress.  So here’s a quick reminder:

1. You are the only person responsible for your success.  The best part of your life will start on the day you decide your life is your own – no one to lean on, rely on, or blame.  You are in full control of your future.  Believe with all your heart that you will do what you were made to do.  It may be tough at times, but refuse to follow some preordained path.  Make your own rules and have your own game plan.  There is no happiness and success to be found by playing it safe and settling for a life that is less than the one you are capable of living.
   
   


2. You don’t have to invent the wheel.  Actually, to be successful you don’t have to invent anything at all.  Coming up with a new invention or idea is one way to achieve massive success, but it isn’t necessary. And it can be the most challenging roads to success there is. You see many people have found lots of success just by taking something that already existed and simply putting their own twist on it (their unique selling proposition).  Think about Apple for instance.  As Steve Jobs once said, “Good artists copy, great artist steal. Creativity is connecting things.” Connecting things means seeking inspiration from great ideas that already exist and adding your own useful twist.


3. There is no progress without action.  What is not started today is never finished tomorrow.  Some of the greatest ideas never made it.  Why?  Because the genius behind the idea failed to take action.  Just remember, no action always results in a 100% failure rate.  So get into action now, and begin to move in the right direction.  Once you get started every step afterwards gets easier and easier.  Until eventually, what had once been invisible, starts to become visible, and what once felt unattainable, starts to become a reality.


4. Persistence always wins.  As Winston Churchill once said, “Success is stumbling from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm.”  It may take more than one swing to compose an efficient hit, so make sure not to give up on strike #1.  And remember, a river cuts through rocks not because of its power at a given moment, but because of its persistence over time.


5. Focus is everything.  When you are too busy looking behind and around you, people are passing you.  If you never focus clearly on something, you will never be 100% efficient at anything.  Multi-tasking might seem to make you efficient at getting multiple tasks done at once, but it usually reduces your efficiency in dealing with each individual task.


6. Failure is necessary.  Don’t wake up at seventy-five years of age sighing over what you should have tried, but didn’t because you were afraid to fail.  Just do it, and be willing to fail and learn along the way.  Very few people get it right the first time.  In fact, most people fail to get it right the first 5 times.  If what you did today didn’t turn out as you hoped, tomorrow is a new opportunity to do it differently.  Interpret each failure as a lesson on the road to success.


7. Positivity fuels productivity.  Thoughts are like the steering wheel that moves our life in the right direction.  Success comes from positive energy.  You can choose to get caught up in the negativity surrounding you, or you can decide to do something positive about your situation.  You always have a choice.  Remember, happiness is an element of success, and the happiest people don’t necessarily have the best of everything, they use positive energy to make the best of what they have.


8. You must believe you can.  You must find the place inside yourself where anything is possible.  It starts with a dream.  Add confidence, and it becomes a belief.  Add commitment, and it becomes a goal in sight.  Add action, and it becomes a part of your life.  Add determination and time, and your dream becomes a reality.


9. Helping others is a big part of being successful.  Successful people constantly come up with new ideas, new projects, and new and innovative ways of helping others.  This means that your aims and objectives just benefit you, but also help benefit others as well.  Bottom line:  Your long-term success is directly tied to how well you serve your community.


10. Success is a journey of countless baby steps.  It’s a constant process of growth.  If you want to be successful, you must continue to hold yourself to a higher standard than anyone else, and strive to improve.  Oftentimes a person or organization will be successful, but then drop off.  A person may become lazy, and an organization may succumb to weaknesses or competition.  Sustained success means continually improving even if others may not see a need for it.  Remember, the great thing in the world is not so much where we stand at any given time, as in what direction we are moving.

by www.marcandangel.com

Isha Sesay speaks with the Cameroonian CEO of Yummy Spoonfuls

From the comfort of her kitchen, to a global scale of business! Meet the CEO of Yummy Spoonfuls – Agatha Achindu. This week on CNN‘s African Voices, Isha Sesay has a chat with this Cameroonian entrepreneur who is passionate about organic baby food. She speaks on her background and how her Nigerian mother always ensured they had fresh food growing up. That background has been the basis of Agatha Achindu’s business; having fed her own child freshly made food, she decided to spread the word to other mothers.

As a child, she wanted to be a chef; today she is feeding thousands of children and making sure they have a healthy alternative.

Watch the feature on this truly inspiring woman.

 

Part I

 

 

Part II

 

Part III