GrowthBusiness.co.uk: Your gateway to entrepreneurial success

When I started my own company there were days when it just wasn’t happening.

I would drive into the car park and not want to go into the office to meet my team. Obviously I did, and I would always try to be confident and optimistic, regardless of what I was actually feeling deep down.

As a CEO, the key attributes you must have are confidence and dynamism. In tough market conditions, always appearing to be optimistic makes a massive difference to your employees. You must also combine this with energy.

Busy people are generally happy people, so even if there doesn’t appear to be a lot you can do, create something to keep people busy and interested. Also, make sure your diary is full as keeping yourself active and on the go is the best way to show your commitment to the business. You must have a passionate belief in your company and products and the confidence and energy to make it happen.

We all know that successful companies sell a lot to their established business base, but when was the last time your company had a meeting just to discuss how much more you could do for them? No doubt new sales opportunities have been mooted, but when did you last talk about your existing customers and how to improve the service they receive?

In the early days of Virgin Airways, Richard Branson had a suggestion book on board his planes and regularly urged customers to talk about their experience on his airline.

Being a stickler for quality falls into the same category as attention to detail. This can be a double-edged sword as you can miss out on new opportunities, but being absolutely on top of your numbers is a prerequisite for any successful CEO.

I wonder how many of us can reel off by heart our weekly cash balance, payroll costs, sales by major product line and the like. Not many I bet, but we ought to be able to. Allied to this is the importance of using your time effectively. Having support staff such as a driver or even a secretary seems a luxury in these more ascetic days, but if it really frees you up to squeeze that extra bit out of all the parts of your business, it may be worth it.

In the software sector, upfront licence fees used to be the norm, but there is now an increasing trend towards software-as-a-service where, apart from the technology aspect, licence fees are spread over a period of years.

The downside is a hit to short-term cash and profits; the upside is that it is cumulative and once critical mass is reached, highly profitable on a month-in, month-out basis.

From a product perspective, it is amazing what can happen to your business when you look at a product and decide on ways to slice and dice the offering to customers. This may involve analysing what has made you successful in your current market, and exploring how those strengths could be applied to new opportunities.

Also, look at your customers and have a think about your outliers – i.e. customers that don’t seem to fit into your normal pattern. I recently did this with one of my portfolio companies and we found that there was a small but very profitable niche market that we had completely ignored.