8 Disciplines for Transforming Ideas Into Businesses

Entrepreneurs are people who dream up new ideas, and then commercialize them into new businesses. Most people believe that the hard part is coming up with the idea, and the easy part is turning it into a business. Yet, in my experience as a mentor to entrepreneurs, the majority of failures I see are related to starting and growing the business, not developing the solution.

This has been particularly surprising to me, since building a business is not rocket science. Every country has scores of good business schools, there are thousands of books on the subject, and at the basic level, the disciplines to build all business are essentially the same, no matter what the domain. In fact, I can condense the sum of my business experiences into eight key disciplines:

1. Start with a total and ongoing customer focus. One of the quickest ways to fail in business is to allow your passion for a solution to convince you that everyone will want one. Don’t assume anything until you have done market research and listened to real customers. Then assume the customers will change over time, so never stop listening.

2. Formulate and adopt a specific and detailed business plan. A successful business requires focus – define the customer need with a specific solution for a specific price and cost. Normally the goal is to make enough money to be sustainable and provide a return on the investment of constituents. A written plan is helpful for communication to others

3. Assemble a team with the right skills and experience. Most experts agree that a great team is more important than a great product. The ideal team includes at least one expert on the solution, and at least one experienced business person. Together they set the standard for collaboration and culture that will make or break the company.

4. Treat every business dollar as a personal one. New business owners are often quick to spend outside investment funding, and quick to delegate money management to accountants in the business. Successful entrepreneurs are more likely to bootstrap their own business, and use the discipline of personally validating and approving every check.

5. Learn to communicate effectively to insiders and outsiders. People can’t work for you if they don’t know what you expect, and the message has to be updated daily. Customers and partners won’t find you or buy from you if you can’t tell them why, how, and what they need, and what you offer. Communication must be proactive, not reactive.

6. Demonstrate an ongoing sense of urgency. In today’s world, the market evolves even faster than the technology. Time is of the essence in everything you do. The business race is not a sprint – there is no finish line, beyond which your team can relax and enjoy. Learn and incent your team to enjoy the journey as well as the destination.

7. Manage the business with metrics and goals. Working hard is necessary, but not sufficient for success. Business objectives need to be quantified and measured to assess progress and positioning against competition. Metrics drive a results-oriented culture that leads to continuous quality improvements, required pivots, and recognition of success.

8. Cultivate mental toughness and resilience. Every business encounters unanticipated obstacles due to economic conditions, natural disasters, and competitor challenges, so start practicing resilience early. One of the most common reasons I see for startup failure is that the entrepreneur gives up too early, rather than fight through these challenges.

I have no doubt that starting and growing a business is hard, at least as difficult as developing an innovative solution. The difference is that developing a new solution typically requires specialized skills, creative thinking, and strong passion, while starting a business is more about planning, disciplined actions, and problem solving. Don’t lose the race halfway to the finish line.

Marty Zwilling

*** First published on Inc.com on 01/17/2017 ***

7 Rules for Providing Exceptional Customer Service

Customer service has traditionally been a support function to respond to customer initiated requests, meaning someone waits for the phone to ring or for a website support request form. Today’s customers definition of service is the sum total of their “experience,” covering all aspects of their relationship, including the shopping and buying process, as well as ongoing assistance.

In my role as an advisor to you as an entrepreneur, I always recommend that you move to a more proactive customer service strategy, to include interactive social media campaigns, self-service options on your website, and personalized handling of unique requests. Here is my list of seven key principles to follow in setting up up your customer service policies and organizations today:

1. Provide customers with choices in every interaction. The old days of routing a customer to a single phone queue for any request will quickly kill any brand loyalty or advocate referral. The best businesses provide a direct chat box on their website, Twitter and Facebook requests addresses, as well as email, phone and website alternatives.

2. Think “pull” marketing rather than “push” for all services. This means providing such delightful and personalized service that the customer is pulled in for upsells and becomes an advocate. Pushing customers with special sales, repeated marketing jargon, and promotions will quickly weaken brand loyalty and increase churn.

3. Staff all customer interactions with experienced people. The people you select to interact with customers defines your brand credibility. Customers quickly detect intern usage or outsourcing to unfamiliar cultures, and will share their reactions through social media, rating sites, and personally. Lost growth can quickly exceed current savings.

4. Never say “no” or “dead-end” a customer request. Always provide a positive next step or a request for feedback, with active follow-up included. We have all received the “do-not-reply” email or been refused access to the real decision maker. If your company can’t satisfy their special request, be prepared to connect them to a competitor who can.

5. Use technology to personalize and expedite requests. How many times have you been asked to repeat information when you interact with multiple people at a company? With today’s technology, every business should know your name, phone number, and transaction history when they answer the phone and pass you to the right contact.

6. The customer’s view of usability is the one that counts. Usability means adapting to the user’s background, rather than the user adapting to your changes for efficiency. Changing the sequence of your online ordering process will frustrate and confuse current customers, so test on all constituents, with feedback, before making “improvements.”

7. Set up online forums for customers to help each other. Most people feel good if they can help someone else, and customers who are advocates usually give better answers than your technical people. The forum staff should always be watching, to initiate or supplement answers, implement solutions internally, and reward contributors.

Today bad customer experiences, whether unnoticed or resolved poorly, will jeopardizing your entire brand image. Consider the experiences of United Airlines a few years back in handling a broken guitar, or more recently Comcast’s handling of a service cancellation request. The solution is to set the norm with positive reviews and too many delighted customer stories to challenge.

Although the technology is getting better and better, there is no substitute for well-trained people with the passion, conviction, and authority to anticipate and resolve any situation. It’s time to take a hard look at what more you can do to build a positive emotional relationship with every customer, and entice them to pull everyone they know away from competitors.

Marty Zwilling

*** First published on Inc.com on 01/13/2017 ***

8 Ways to Cure the Procrastination Habit in Business

If you are a chronic procrastinator, or your work partner is one, there is never enough advance notice to get things done without a crisis. You can’t get things done on time unless you get started on time. Otherwise, your business and your career suffers, and you may never even see it coming. Luckily, this is a malady that can be cured if you are willing to make a few adjustments.

As a long-time business advisor and entrepreneur mentor, I see this problem all too often. The reality of running any business or startup is that there are always things you don’t enjoy doing, and it’s always tempting to focus more on items you have a passion for. Other things, like hiring and firing people, raising money, and building a strategic plan get pushed off until it’s too late.

The solution is to recognize that we all have bad habits, and ask for an honest assessment and recommendations from a business advisor you trust, before the pain is severe. It’s easier for an outsider to recognize the symptoms and guide you through a series of techniques, including the following, to get you back on track:

1. Plan your reward for completing a challenging task. It’s more fun to look forward to the reward rather than the work. For example, instead of dreading the necessary business plan creation, plan an afternoon trip to a ball game after finishing to look forward to. It’s important to reward every small success, rather than delay for a big reward later.

2. Maintain a bulletin board work list and prioritize it daily. The worst form of procrastination occurs when you pretend the work items don’t even exist, or you don’t remember the important items. Documenting your work list will help force you to prioritize and schedule it. Many people find great satisfaction in just checking off completed items.

3. Schedule a tough task as the first of the next day. Tackle your biggest challenges when you have the most energy, rather than starting with the easy things. If you get one priority thing done early, you will be more motivated all day to stay ahead of the game. You will find that you are never too tired to do the things which take no thinking.

4. Block out time in your schedule for priority work. Things happen in businesses that you can’t predict by name, but need to be resolved quickly. If your assistant books ahead every hour of your time for meetings and scheduled functions, you will tend to procrastinate and fail on late-arriving priority items. Be proactive rather than reactive.

5. Periodically do an audit on how your time was spent. If your procrastination is driven by being “too busy,” it often helps to look hard at how your time for a given day was actually spent. You may quickly recognize your tendency to work on the wrong things, or identify work that should be delegated to others, on contracted out to an expert.

6. Find a location where you can work without distractions. These days, it’s popular to schedule a work-from-home day per week to better focus your efforts on key strategic tasks, versus the chaos at the office. On the other hand, some people find that the home distractions of children, pets, and chores are worse than the office. Know yourself.

7. Enlist a confidant to keep you accountable. Most procrastinators keep their failures and slippages close to the vest, to minimize their embarrassment. If you share progress and commitments with a trusted partner, it can be motivating and helpful for both parties. For group projects, expectations need to be clearly delineated and communicated.

8. Be diligent on rest, health, and family balance time. Trying to cure procrastination by putting in more hours and skipping time off is counter-productive. It’s common for procrastination to spiral in the wrong direction when you are in a bad mood, overly tired, or sick. Maintain a positive attitude and maximum productivity to get things done on time.

Overall, many procrastinators are their own worst enemy, by insisting on perfectionism, putting obstacles in their own path, or fearing their own adequacy to get the job done. In all of these cases, it helps to work closely with trusted team members, and celebrate small successes to build momentum and confidence.

Remember that only you can change yourself, and you will always be the biggest beneficiary of all improvements. Secondarily but equally valuable, your business will improve, as will your relationship with all the others who are counting on you. Don’t procrastinate.

Marty Zwilling

*** First published on Inc.com on 01/09/2017 ***

7 Work Ethic Elements Will Get You Investor Funding

Starting and running a business is hard. Don’t believe the old myth that with a few hours of work a day and a great web site, you can get rich while you sleep. I have found that the most successful entrepreneurs and business executives have an impressive work ethic, and they surround themselves with a team of comparable commitment. Business is more about people than product.

As an angel investor in startups, I often find myself looking harder at the quality of the team and the leadership, than at the details of the product and business model. I’m a strong believer that a great team can achieve success with a less impressive product offering, while potentially disruptive technology often goes nowhere due to a team with an uninspired work ethic.

The challenge for you as a business professional and leader is to develop the work ethic you need to compete, and to recognize the essential elements in every partner or team member you associate with. In my experience, and from the thoughts of others who have “been there and done that,” here is my list of the top elements you should be looking for:

1. Focused on customers and team, rather than “me, myself, and I.” The best work ethic for business is all about serving others, or win-win relationships rather than win-lose deals. These will provide the competitive edge you need with customers and less-focused team members. You need team members who genuinely enjoy delighting others.

2. Demonstrates an ability to listen and learn. Investors don’t fund people with large egos, and your business won’t thrive with similar people on the team. No single person knows enough to solve every problem in a business, so the best business executives are always anxious to listen and learn from others, especially mentors and customers.

3. Dependably and reliably delivers on commitments. Never makes excuses. People who always take responsibility for their actions are a joy to work around, and are appreciated by other team members and customers alike. As an investor, you can rely on these business people to do everything possible to deliver, despite unusual challenges.

4. Consistently professional in business communication. This starts with responding to phone calls and emails in a timely and professional manner, and extends to thoughtful and unemotional exchanges in all discussions, business or personal. For your own business, the right time to address expected norms is during coaching and before hiring.

5. Treats everyone with respect, and expects it in return. This also includes showing an understanding of the value of customers, and honoring the line between work and play. Investors read this as being trustworthy of their investment, and an appropriate role model for all business constituents. Solid relationships are critical to every business.

6. Shows initiative and enjoys giving more than receiving. Initiative is all about giving now and assuming a payback later, rather than the other way around. Of course, leaders need to encourage this action by making their objectives clear and rewarding results rather than effort. People with this work ethic are seen as ambitious and dedicated.

7. Always display confidence and a positive attitude. No business thrives with people who can only see the negatives and risks, or don’t have the confidence to believe in themselves. The attitude that people display is most importantly the outward expression of internal views. You need positives to radiate to the team, partners, and customers.

While there are encouraging signs that the work ethic in many businesses is improving, the latest Gallup poll still reports that almost 50 percent of employees are "not engaged" and 16.5 percent are "actively disengaged." Your challenge is to rise above these statistics by smart hiring, effective training, and building a culture of customer, society, and team focus.

Google, for example, has been recognized for years as fostering a culture and work ethic that gives them record levels of productivity, high customer satisfaction, and employees who are known to be driven, talented and among the best of the best.

Through this approach they achieved the early investor funding they needed, but more importantly they continue to achieve a level of business success and satisfaction that every business envies. Match their focus on work ethic, and you too can join them.

Marty Zwilling

*** First published on Inc.com on 01/05/2017 ***

8 Reasons To Promote Corporate Social Responsibility

Businesses are finding that being socially responsible can be great for the bottom line, as well as good for employee morale. Of course, a company still needs to make a profit to survive, but supporting a worthy cause can be the most profitable brand building you can do. Witness the growth and popularity of Patagonia in outdoor clothing, and Ben & Jerry’s ice cream.

Both of these are incorporated under the new structure of a Benefit Corporation (B-Corp), now offered by 30 states in the U.S. For example, Patagonia donates one percent of their sales to environmental charities, and Ben & Jerry’s awards five social change grants annually.

In fact, most of the advantages can accrue to any business type practicing corporate social responsibility (CSR). Zappos, owned by Amazon and selling shoes online, has dramatically enlarged their business by donating shoes to charitable organizations, and by fostering an exciting internal culture through a focus on the well-being of their employees.

As an advisor to many new businesses, I see a host of advantages for every new business by being socially responsible today:

1. Expands the potential customer target market size. Social contribution and sustainability are features that appeal to a whole new class of customers for any solution. These features are extremely important in penetrating customer sets in different cultures around the world, and more discerning customers in every geography.
   
   
2. Incents customers to pay a premium price. Sustainability and social responsibility are ways to extend your exclusivity and added value, thus lowering risk, improving profitability, and justifying a premium price. All stakeholders see this as an advantage, encouraging new investors and raising the valuation of your business.
   
   
3. Increases customer advocacy and loyalty in all markets. These days, existing customer advocacy is a key attractor of new customers. In addition, according to recent statistics, the cost of bringing a new customer to the same level of profitability as old ones is up to 16x more. Loyal customers post great reviews and bring in many new friends.
   
   
4. Is seen by customers as a competitive edge. Most millennials and customers of all ages these days strongly believe that all businesses must be socially responsible, and make that a top criteria for selecting a solution source. It’s a message that you can use both indirectly and directly in your brand positioning and marketing.
   
   
5. Improves your team motivation and productivity. Sponsoring social initiatives and providing time for employees to support their own initiatives builds loyalty, pride, and motivation among team members and disparate organizations within the company. This makes everyone in the company more engaged, more responsive, and more productive.
   
   
6. Improves employee retention and attracts better candidates. Company success is driven by the quality of the team members they can attract and retain. If your business is recognized as providing a socially responsible culture for employees, as well as comparable initiatives outside the business, the best and the brightest will join you.
   
   
7. Provides governance flexibility and financial grant opportunities. B-corps are given relief from the sole directive of maximizing shareholder profits, to reduce investor suits. With targeted social initiatives, they may also qualify for government grants, alternative energy rebates, and philanthropic initiatives in support of their efforts.
   
   
8. Makes your business more attractive to investors. Investors look for teams with real passion, integrity, and an attractive message. They see a commitment to social change as great positioning for the long-term, with sustainable value to customers and owners alike. They look for that balance between maximizing profit and expanding the market.
   

A potential offset to all these advantages is that balancing act that is required between social initiatives and the focus on making more money for survival. It takes a strong and adept business leader and entrepreneur to make the right tradeoffs. It’s time to take a hard look in the mirror to see if you are ready to take your business to the next level. The opportunities are endless.

Marty Zwilling

*** First published on Inc.com on 01/02/2017 ***

7 Steps To Kicking Your Selling Skills Up To The Top

A good entrepreneur is not necessarily born a good salesman. In fact, they are often the opposite, more focused on building things rather than selling them. Yet, in today’s world of information overload, marketing and selling skills are critical to the success of every startup.

The alternative “If we build it, they will come” approach has long been relegated to the field of dreams, after Kevin Costner’s movie by the same name. In my own effort to keep up with the times, I explored Julie Steelman’s classic book on selling, “The Effortless Yes: Demystifying the Selling Process.” Julie is known as the entrepreneur’s selling mentor, for both men and women.

Steelman does a good job of outlining the key selling steps that separate great sales people from the rest of us. In my view, every entrepreneur has to be a great salesman to succeed (among the many other required skills), so you should take a hard look at these points:

1. Dust off your moxie. Don’t hope that a miracle will happen and your products and services will sell themselves. Be passionate about what you are selling, and get the latest tools you need to work more productively and manage your workflow from anywhere. Set aside fear and doubt, and stand tall with your message.

2. Claim your sweet spot. The sweet spot is the essence of your brand. The way to claim it is to name your expertise or specialty, describe for whom it’s meant and clearly state how it delivers on its promise (or what is called your unique payoff proposition). Make it real for your customers with professionally finished collateral and proposals.

3. Craft your irresistible pitch. An irresistible pitch is a clear and concise explanation of what you do best, benefits to your customers, an honest statement of why you do what you do, a question that pulls the listener in, and words and language that engage the hearts and mind of your ideal customer. Content marketing is vitally important to today’s businesses, Find out how to establish a content marketing strategy that will elevate your business.

4. Socialize your message. Generate leads using social media, but don’t rely on it alone to make sales. Use the media to initiate contact, highlight your human element, and communicate your specialty or expertise in a way that anticipates what your customers might be thinking about. Real time social media relationships are a great way to generate sales, but be sure to facilitate a transition to a private environment to close a sale.

5. Engage graciously. Always treat customers with respect, honesty, and warmth to make the selling process more enjoyable, fun and delightful. The goal is to deepen the relationship, and discover if their needs match your offer. Listen closely for what they are saying and expressing. Don’t forget to follow-up. Be willing to go the extra mile to engage your customers. Skip the cold calling – it’s just too cold.

6. Discover your signature selling style. Learn to sell in a way that matches your personality and your strengths, and differentiate your business with marketing materials and collateral that are unique to your style and voice. Check the definitions in Steelman’s book or other sources to see if you are the humanitarian, visionary, maverick, romantic, nurturer, mentor, or one of a dozen others. Tune your approach and you will find yourself enjoying the selling process.

7. Perfect your natural ask. As you go through the sales cycle with your customer, there comes a point when it’s natural for the transaction to conclude. Customers have a powerful positive response to honest, direct 1:1 interactions. Asking the customer for their decision demonstrates leadership on your part, shows you have confidence in your offering, and prompts them to make a final decision. You can’t win if you don’t ask.

I’m not suggesting that a startup founder has to do all the selling, and doesn’t need to find or hire people whose focus is marketing and sales. In a startup, everyone has to sell – you can’t afford to rely on specialists for everything.

Just recognize that if you are in business for yourself, you are in the business of selling. Selling well is about creating relevancy with customers and aligning your product suite with their needs.  That has to lead to a win-win close where the customer satisfies a need and you make money, or you don’t have a long-term business.  Are you comfortable with your selling skills?

Marty Zwilling

*** Published by Xerox Small Business Solutions on 01/12/2017 ***

8 Ways to Market to Customer Emotion as Well as Logic

The average business person fights a customer culture shift, rather than looking for it. For them, change means new risk and extra costs, but it also means new opportunity for growth. In fact, some of the best, including Steve Jobs, actually drove culture change rather than waiting for it to happen. What are the lessons that the rest of us need to learn to see and survive these shifts?

First of all, it is my experience that culture shifts these days are more often driven by emotion, rather than logic. For example, as a logical guy, I never would have envisioned the shift to texting versus voice, or the emergence of selfies as a whole new wave of photography. As a result, I might easily have been among the last to capitalize on these trends as a business.

Thus I recommend that the rest of us need to step outside our comfort zone, and start practicing some specific strategies to recognize cultural shifts, and maybe even start a few trends of our own:

1. Embrace online social interaction with customers. Believe it or not, nearly half of U.S. small businesses still don't even have a website. Many of the remainder don’t review or respond to customer feedback online, and don’t connect with the popular social networking channels, including Facebook and Twitter. You can’t see change if you don’t look.

2. Build a community of evangelists and listen. Social and cultural change is driven by people who are willing to speak out, pulling other people into a trend. Every business needs their own evangelists, as a powerful marketing force, and as an early warning for new opportunities. Court potential evangelists with special events and personal feedback.

3. Become a visible and chief evangelist yourself. The days are gone when people accept a cartoon character or brand logo as a chief spokesman. As an entrepreneur, you are the brand, and with the pervasive Internet, you can’t hide behind a logo. People judge your company by the culture you portray, per Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Marc Benioff.

4. Be willing to stretch the imagination of your customers. Successful business people are always running experiments, and they failures as well as successes. Consider Uber’s recent foray into self-driving cars, and Amazon’s proposal of packages delivered via drones. Some initiatives cause change, and all give great feedback on the culture now.

5. Market to customer emotions as well as absolute logic. Many traditional companies still focus their message wholly on the logic of cost savings, higher productivity, and return on investment. These are still important, but many of today’s customers are beyond Maslow’s survival needs. Don’t miss emerging needs to feel good and be entertained.

6. Capitalize on consumer emotion from outside forces. Continually monitor and be prepared to capitalize on the emotion caused by changes in the economy, competitor missteps, and world events. Timing is very important. Businesses that have an internal culture of flexibility and rapid change are well positioned to match culture changes.

7. Integrate data analytics to look for culture shifts. Culture changes may be based on emotion, but often can be detected by an analytics mindset and modern digital data tools. Marketing with an analytics mindset is an internal culture needed to adjust in real time via small changes and the customer culture changes, rather than rely on the big-bang theory.

8. Build a highly engaged and accountable team. Teams with low accountability and low engagement don’t want change, and will ignore it if they see it. The best team members love to work with each other, and are deeply engaged with their customers. This requires hiring people with good business skills who are willing and eager to work collaboratively.

If all of these approaches seem intuitive, and are part of your internal company culture, they you are probably already driving change, rather than wondering what happened, and always trying to catch up. Otherwise, it’s time to stop fighting and start loving your customers. Your business and your legacy depends on it.

Marty Zwilling

*** First published on Inc.com on 12/26/2016 ***

7 Personal Work Principles Drive Your Business Luck

Don’t you wish you could be as lucky as Mark Zuckerberg or Elon Musk, who always seem to be in the right place at the right time for their business ideas to thrive? After many years of working in large companies as well as small, and watching the people that succeed, I’m convinced that luck has very little to do with it. I see instead a common set of principles that all these people live by.

Others argue that the harder they work, the luckier they get. In fact, there is no substitute for working hard, but I believe a bigger edge is working smart. We all know people who work twenty hours a day, and are always “too busy,” but never seem to get the results they dream about. My conviction is that working smart is the embodiment of the following business principles:

1. Plan to deliver more than you commit. Make your habit one of under-promising and over-delivering. Always give more than you get. The most successful business people avoid any feelings of entitlement, never keep score with peers, and never try to extract favors. They get more personal satisfaction from giving than from receiving.

2. Never seek excuses when things don’t work. To the best of the best, good luck is actually an excuse for something they didn’t anticipate, and makes success random. They accept responsibility for all actions and inactions, and never point the finger of blame at anyone or anything else. This forces them to prepare better for the next time.

3. Always treat failures as learning opportunities. There are no mistakes; only experiments that didn’t work. Every good entrepreneur learns to pivot, and learn from that experience, but never see failure. Mark Zuckerberg started Facemash as a dating site for Harvard elite, but found success only after morphing it to Facebook social media for all.

4. Never give up until you achieve your dream. Many experts believe that the single biggest cause of startup failure is entrepreneurs simply giving up just prior to success. Thomas Edison made his own luck by enduring over 1,000 failures before finding a light bulb filament that worked. He kept his energy focused and avoided naysayers.

5. Maintain self-confidence as well as respect for others. Confidence in yourself is key, but not to the extent of arrogance or distrust of others. The best entrepreneurs admit their own weaknesses, and build relationships and trust with people who can help them. The right relationships with the right people can be your greatest source of luck.

6. Be willing and able to work collaboratively. Products may be invented by a single person, but successful businesses require a team of people working together. That means everyone is willing to share what they know and share in successes. The results are greater than the sum of the parts. Luck is never seen as a required team member.

7. Show up for more opportunities. When you are dealing with all the unknowns of new and untested business ventures, success follows the laws of probabilities. Many people set their scope of interest too narrowly, or look for “sure things” before they start a new venture. Elon Musk found initial success with PayPal, but has since pursued dozens of initiatives, including SpaceX, Tesla Motors, Solar City, and Hyperloop; not all thriving yet.

With these principles, I’m convinced that you will find working smart in business a lot more productive than working hard, and your luck will improve as well. Of course, an even better way to improve your luck is to work harder and smarter. It also helps to come to the table with a can-do mindset, and the lucky-attitude traits of humility, perpetual curiosity, and optimism.

If you are still feeling particularly unlucky in your business, maybe it’s time to take a hard look in the mirror. You may be your own worst enemy. Are you doing the right smart work today to get lucky in your business tomorrow?

Marty Zwilling

*** First published on Inc.com on 12/20/2016 ***

9 Steps To Increasing Your Street Smarts In Business

People who are good at solving problems for other people make great entrepreneurs. That’s what a business gets paid to do. The challenge is not the same as inventing a new technology, or finding things that make you feel good, and assuming that everyone will want one. In business, the ability to solve problems is called “street smarts,” and it’s more valuable than “book smarts.”

In my role as a new business advisor, I sometimes see people who are very intelligent and well-educated, but not adept at problem solving. Yet I’m convinced that this trait can be learned by discipline and practice. If you want to improve your strength in this area, or need to coach your team along these lines, I recommend the following steps:

1. Approach every problem as a positive business opportunity. At worst, it’s a learning opportunity for you and your team, which can lead to providing a better customer solution or experience. At best, you may find a new revenue stream providing a product or service that eliminates a painful problem for both you and your customers. Look first for positives.

2. Step back and collect the facts, without emotion. Entrepreneurs are often too passionate and impatient. It’s not effective to attack a problem you don’t understand, and jump to conclusions in the heat of a crisis. All too often, a small problem will become a big one if you let emotion get the best of you. In all cases, get clarity and plan your attack.

3. Enlist help and advice from the right people. When you have a problem to solve, it’s not smart to just grab the least-busy person on your team for help. These individuals may not have the skills or mindset you need, and can delay the solution or instigate a bigger problem. Problems are best solved by open-minded team members who know the ropes.

4. Identify all potential sources of the problem. It’s easy to jump to conclusions. For example, what looks like a sales revenue problem may actually be a new competitor offering, a marketing decline, or a lag in receivables. Attacking the wrong source only delays the solution, antagonizes people, and increases costs. Check all the angles.

5. Perform a root cause analysis. Problems don’t get solved by treating the symptoms. The best approach to get to the root of a problem is to iteratively question the source of each symptom until all answers point to the same source. By eliminating that source, you won’t waste time fixing symptoms or chasing the same problem with different symptoms.

6. Identify and prioritize alternative solutions. There are always multiple ways to fix a problem, so don’t jump too quickly on the first alternative that surfaces. Identify several, then prioritize based on cost, time, and risk. In business, an acceptable solution, done quickly, is usually superior to the perfect solution that will take more time and money.

7. Select a solution, and initiate immediate action. Some people find it hard to make a decision, even when all the necessary information in on the table. Don’t let costs escalate, or customers escape for lack of action. An important step is to communicate the problem and solution to all constituents, along with your action plan. Initiate action.

8. Clearly assign solution implementation and follow-up. The best entrepreneurs drive responsibility down to the relevant person, rather than trying to orchestrate all activities and tracking personally. Assignments should be documented and communicated, rather than assumed. Don’t allow confusion or multiple people to be set as responsible.

9. Establish metrics to assure solution and prevent recurrence. Problems have the positive impact of suggesting that something needs to be measured. Define the required metrics, including a check for side effects and follow-on problems. Often, the removal of one constraint in a system leads to other problems further down in the process.

If you are not a great problem solver yourself, it pays to surround yourself with people who are. You can learn from these people, and rely on them to keep your business running smoothly. Look for problem solving examples in the resumes of every new team member, and ask some hard questions in your interviews.

The best of the best will highlight their street smarts as well as their book smarts. You and your business need both to win.

Marty Zwilling

*** First published on Inc.com on 12/16/2016 ***