In my previous post, Phobia for MBA Jargons, I mentioned about writing on ‘common sense’ later, so here it is.
Entrepreneurship is a lot of learning. A big portion of it is breaking of some of common-sensical myths. It would be a huge help to learn about them beforehand for entrepreneurs ,especially if he/she is getting into business without much of a background of it.
We observe a lot of patterns and rules in life, and after some time we start calling those as common sense (Usually, based on what we think is common. Anyway that’s a different point). Some examples:
- If you fill a bottle with water, it will fill up.
- If you drink it, it will get empty and your stomach will fill up.
- If you throw a ball up, it would come back down.
Ok, I’ll stop here lest I be labelled silly again. There are similar ones that a first timer business person would imagine to be just common sense and expect them to be true, but learns the hard way usually:
- If there is any extra work, there will be an extra pay/reward too.
- If you deliver what clients want and he approves it, you will get paid.
- When someone says, “We are looking to have a long term association with you“, he means it. (After some initial days we started having a good laugh when someone uttered this line, while bargaining).
- Finance guys will only take as many leaves as others. (This one is my favorite. People involved in payment collection would know how many times have they heard “Our finance guy is on leave today”).
- People will take email as proof of communication. (Oh yes, this is wrong too).
- Someone who wanted a thing very very urgently, gets it delivered in time, will also make payment in the same very very urgent fashion.
- You will be paid and valued for things which require mental work (I was once told work required in conceptualisation and graphic designing in brochure printing was like chutney along with Idli and should be free).
And then I came across this classical quote: Just because you are vegetarian, it doesn’t mean a lion will not eat you. And it cleared up a lot of things. A lot of things which were not making sense to me earlier, started making sense. And now all of those learnings I mentioned above are just – common sense 🙂
Intention is not to dissuade a budding entrepreneur. It is just meant to make him/her aware of what is to come, and reducing the surprises. These are usual issues that all businesses face (Especially in India. More about that later though), and most of them get through. So get yourself prepared, and just go get it.
My points have been mostly on payments, as it is all about business and business is a lot about money. There are other points too, but these were on top of my head. Will add more when I remember them.
Meanwhile if you have been an entrepreneur, or are currently now, please feel free to add your “common sense items” below in the comments.
