Tuesday, May 05, 2015

Living a fulfilling life in learning to do business

How time flies.  It has been about 3 years or so since I start my own business to deal with Systems Integration.

And it has really been a humbling experience.  Learning the ropes of doing business; as well as managing myself as well as other related to my business.

In this short 3 years, I try to make the best out of the situations I am presented or got myself into.  One important trait I have learned is never to withdraw from a challenge.  One can learn a lot by stepping up to a challenge, overcoming it and in the end being a champion about it (even sometimes it seems you might has lost the challenge).  As long as you face the challenge without giving up, you have already succeeded mentally.  Learning the necessity to sometime take a step back which leads to moving 2 steps forward is a very important aspect in business that I learned.

In our line of work, doing Software Systems Integration for customers, I realized that my 'style' is to create a sustainable long-term relationship with my customers.  Hoping to find a common ground where we can have a long term partnership to provide our services continuously where they can grow in their own areas.

That said, this requires a lot of work, continuous unrelenting work; both technically (we are a tech company) as well as relationship building to find common ground to grow the business.  But satisfying work nonetheless.  In this current climate of business uncertainty, having some form of sustainability with customers is better than just having a transactional services attitude to customers, especially in our line.

One of the difficulties in our business (I am sure it is the same for most businesses) is that there are a lack of talented individuals who are willing to work together for a bigger picture.  There are talented people out there, and I have personally seen quite a lot of them in my line of work; but most of them (who are running their own business) would tend to operate within the bounds of their framework and would not easily entertain collaboration framework.

And there is the fact that you need to protect yourself against pitfalls and risks (both with the business as well as the people in the business).  This in itself is a great teacher to learn from; but yet be very careful not to fall too hard.

Most people would say that doing business is about making money.  It is not wrong; in fact, it is the hard truth.  To start a business, you need to have a routine that allows customers to pay you money.  With that hard truth faced, you can then look up and beyond to the fulfillment of ideology and ambition.  Even though there are programs out there that may allow you to elevate from the risks of business; but my personal take is that learning it the 'hard' way allows one to act upon business decisions with more maturity and learn to be wiser in the path of business.

I know I still have a lot to learn; and in truth, in business we are learning everyday.  The point that I hope I can share is that it is a cycle (learning  - acting upon - reflecting) that takes practice.

To all budding entrepreneurs,  lets keep the momentum going and do the best to our abilities.  In time, we can all be successful in our own way.