“Opportunity doesn’t make appointments, you have to be ready when it arrives.” – Tim Fargo

Being able to take advantage of opportunities is about preparation, as the entrepreneur, investor and author, Tim Fargo, says. Or, to put it another way, in the words of Roman philosopher, Lucius Annaeus Seneca, “Luck is when preparation meets opportunity.”

Without looking at your business and its strategy in terms of what opportunities might look like, how you might address them and, most importantly, having a leadership mindset that is constantly inquiring, looking for new information, you will likely miss opportunities that arise.

A parallel here is among job seekers. Too often, job seekers suddenly start creating new contacts and updating their profile on LinkedIn, for example, when they need to urgently find a new job, but this is an approach that won’t give the best results. It’s far better for them to continually seek out new contacts, keep their profile updated with pertinent information and posts that illustrate their skills and successes. They’ll not only find a wider array of potential openings when they do start looking, but companies might even approach them first.

Companies need to adopt the same approach. Board meetings should evaluate strategy, opportunities and potential risks at every session (remember, a strong board is an effective board – no matter what size your business is). The leadership team should similarly be looking at market trends, listening to customers and suppliers and encouraging open staff feedback on what they’re seeing and hearing. And the flow of information on the company, focused around thought-leadership, should be consistent and pertinent, giving it an authoritative voice.

With this in place, the board will also need to address the questions of whether the company has the resources, skills, time, team and real commitment to take on new opportunities, for without these, any attempts will fail.

And bear in mind, that business ownership is one of the greatest sources of financial success in the world as this report shows, with almost 68% of the world’s “ultra-high net worth” individuals (those with a net worth of $30 million, or more) having made it themselves. Just 8.5% had inherited it, while the remaining 23.7% achieved this wealth through a combination of inheritance and self-creation.

So, having a culture of being ready for, and alert to, opportunities is sound business sense. It will not only increase the value of your business but ensure it can ride through the inevitable market changes, too. A lack of preparedness for change is a recipe for failure.

#BusinessFitness #Boards #Disruption #Entrepreneur #Growth #Opportunity #Planning #Resilience #Strategy #Success #QOTW

Some of my other posts on planning for growth and opportunity include:

• • “Success breed complacency. Complacency breeds failure. Only the paranoid survive.” – Andy Grove
  • Is This the Most Important Leadership Skill for Success?
  • “Never change things by fighting the existing reality…to change something build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.” – R. Buckminster Fuller
  • Is Your Business Ready for Growth This Year?
  • Boards Accelerate Success & Increase Value for Small Companies, Too
  • Is Your Business Set Up to Be Unstoppable?
  • Is Your Strategy Fit for Purpose?
  • Why Even Small Companies Need Regular Board Meetings