What do you think a successful business person is?

Business: What do you think of the 4P's that encompass the variables, Purpose, Practice, Person and Process when comes to a highly innovative startup that has to develop a segment?

• Answer:

  BUSINESS IS BUSINESS Revise the Ps, dust them off ... You forgot profit, the most important P on the list. The fifth P - profit - applies across the board. It applies equally whether you are selling clubs to stone-age babies or warp drives to the Federation. The basics are constant, so let's start with the most basic P of all -- the one-and-only law of business: profit = revenue -expenses! Revenue: You need to bring money in the door somehow, don't you? That means you need to have something to sell (product), somewhere to sell it (place) and some way to let people know your poduct or service exists on this planet (promotion). No one will pay for something that is not of net value to them (basic economics); customers need to perceive they benefit from the transaction. This means they will not pay more than your product or service than it is worth (price). There you go: The sum of the 4 traditional Ps adds up to the fifth, forgotten P.......how ironic. Expenses: The only question you need to ask now is how can you achieve the most cost-effective setup for your business. Let's examine how the 4 Ps provide a tried-and-true method for designing a workable marketing plan, particularly one in which the Ps are executed in a low-cost manner, thus making it easier to generate a profit. Purpose -- What the <bleep> is the purpose of starting a business if not to make a profit, and we already know how to do that (see the traditional 4 Ps). Person -- What humans (excluding assets) are necessary to accomplish your purpose, and why waste your <bleep>ing time and money on employees whose role is to figure out stuff that is clearly laid out in the traditional 4 Ps? Process -- If the process is broken, you don't have a good grasp on the traditional 4 Ps, making it imperative to find out how the <bleep> are you going to fix a broken process. (hint: 2+2 [more of the same] does not equal 5). Practice -- Practicing a broken process with clueless, purposeless employees is costly and pointless! Profit: The "new" 4 Ps are so expensive compared to their revenue-generating capability that it is impossible to make a profit. Even worse, since you are lost in the wilderness -- far from any sign of profit -- you know that you not using the traditional Ps. At this point, you need to bring in a short-term management consultant, like a rent-a-CEO for instance, but not one who will recommend even more fancy buzzwords to fix your broken practice, process, people and purpose ... Since you are not making a profit, you have not done so.