“As a small business leader, what skills should I possess in order to better serve our clients, partners and employees?” – Karen Y., 1st-time entrepreneur
This week we are taking a break from the normal interview of an entrepreneur to answer a question we frequently get at The Rich Niche Group. While there are several ways to answer this question, we have boiled it down to 5 skills which we have seen lead to a more effective leader and company. The 5 skills are:
- A passion for providing an extraordinary customer experience and an understanding of your client’s and prospect’s problems.
- An unwavering focus on your core strengths and using those to solve your client’s and prospect’s problems.
- Being a source of innovation for your clients and partners and a leading innovator in your market.
- An understanding of finance and financial statements.
- Company culture plays a very important role in the success of your business.
Let’s examine each of these and look at some examples how possessing these skills have aided in a company’s growth.
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“Today, we have an unprecedented opportunity for entrepreneurship. With the advent of the Internet and all of the technologies that are associated, an idea can become a business quickly and efficiently.” Ara Bagdasarian, CEO and Co-founder of Omnilert, LLC.
The Rich Niche Group blog interviews and enables you to hear directly from successful entrepreneurs and product managers about the steps they took to grow their businesses/products and how they were able to create, penetrate, and/or dominate their niche. This week we interview Ara Bagdasarian:
Interviewee: Ara Bagdasarian, this is Ara’s second start-up.
Why Selected: Omnilert (www.omnilert.com) was one of the first companies in the unified mass notification systems business (urgent text messages) for colleges and universities. Ara and his partner started Omnilert in 2003 and have since become a leader in the space. I had the pleasure of working with Ara in the past and he is one of the most innovative and customer-focus individuals I know. In addition, he is very active in his community of Leesburg, Virginia serving on many non-profit boards and as the Chairman of the Town of Leesburg’s Economic Development Commission.
In the following interview, Ara takes us through the concept for Omnilert, how it changed based on feedback, and then managed the hyper-growth caused by the shootings at Virginia Tech in 2007. As you read the full interview, here are some points that stood out to me:
1. If your initial concept does not resonate with your target audience look for others where it might
2. Innovate in all areas of your company, not just with technology
3. Publicize every new client you get and get existing clients to tell your company story
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