Being successful, just exploit opportunity and being interested in other people's crap.... Seriously

So, how did someone like Lord Alan Sugar make his money?
Hard work and seeing opportunities.

Lord Alan Sugar and Rolls Royce

Did he go to University?  No, only the University of life.

So how did he get successful? Well, in the start by observing two key drivers for success, he saw opportunity and he was interested in other people's crap.

He saw someone throwing away rag and asked them why, so he then saw an opportunity to take their crap away and sell it. Opportunity and crap = money. Like they say in Yorkshire, 'Where there's muck, there's brass.'

But beyond that, he got successful by being in the right place at the right time, namely building products that fed consumer need.

The Amstrad Music centre with obligatory ABBA Album, both 1970's icons

In the 1970's, the new upwardly mobile class of people was forming, successful in post-war Britain (strikes allowing), an age when television was in a golden age and business was changing. The old fogeys who were in charge were retiring and giving way to the younger generation who had new ideas.

A prediction of what the home computer could look like....

How wrong could they get it!

The real game changer was the possibility that a computer could be built small and be something that you could have at home. Electronics was shrinking the size of devices and also increasing functionality in the opposite direction.

The AMSTRAD CPC64, the face of early home computing

What Alan Sugar could forsee with the shrinking of electronic machines was that the computer could be made small enough to be a home use product.

His vision was for a computer that could be used for practical work use, as an educational tool and as a tool to learn to program on.

The beauty was that this product was affordable and worked. Although the machine may be very primitive by today's standards, we can see that thirty some years on how technology has advanced greatly looking back.

Success is all about making the right connections to the right opportunities. And seeing the right opportunities. And that extends to seeing how you can profit from other people's crap!

Business owners and managers who are clueless along with many so-called 'business consultants' who are rubbish at it

A successful company is the ultimate business leader's aim, like this one

It is interesting  as an employee to watch over the years how many managers and leaders have run their companies, some have been very good and some have shown a level of competence that is astounding in its stupidity. Here are some of my experiences.

Examples range from a business or more than one I have worked for that refused to advertise and wonder why they are not making any money, because no one knows who you are!

One person with a degree in economics used to buy on a whim, not try the product in their chain of shops in a small quantity first, but commit to a container load. This was a small company so the risk was large.

The most important asset a company has is their staff, yet the number of times that my skills and experience have been ignored or supressed are staggering, surely a company that has the chance to use the skills an employee has is lucky?

Seemingly not, this can be for a number of reasons, someone is inadequate usually and you outshine them.

A manager that thinks they are in charge and right when they are neither.

A manager that turns down good business opportunities because they have no vision.

A manager that thinks because they have rank that they are right and are mostly not

People that block simple things like marketing visuals of product information and wonder why sales are not good. Or no one knows what you do or what your products do.

People who fail to see viable revenue streams when you can and fail see it even when you explain it in terms that a two year old could grasp. Better.

People who think that the sector of customers they want to aim at will create sales growth, when your analysis based on real information is that another customer sector will, which the other person chooses too ignore is the correct way to go

People who tell you that you are on the wrong page, when they are on the wrong planet let alone the wrong fucking book.

Business consultants that think they know what they are doing when it is apparent after 2 minutes in their company listening to their bullshitting wank, they don't, but the Managing Director never sees this even after 2 years

Business consultants who live in the richest area of the UK, who drive 200 miles to advise a small business in the middle of nowhere, because they are otherwise unemployable, which is why they became a business consultant in the first place. They don't get it.

Health and safety consultants who miss more potential safety issues than they advise about and they get paid for this crap?

Business consultants that tell sales people to smile into a mirror. No, I am being serious.

Business consultants that make you think that Alan Partridge was somebody that actually existed and this is not a bad dream and you are going to wake up, no, this is actually happening. This is probably the biggest idiot you are ever going to have to meet in your life. And has similar members of the species active,out there too.

And when you come up with a suggestion and it is disregarded and a manager then makes the same suggestion a week later and takes the credit for it. And thinks they are clever.

Or worse still disregard an idea of yours because in most cases they hadn't thought of it, giving you the chance to take it to someone who will invest in it. Thankfully.

When a supposedly educated person can't grasp a simple concept that they are giving away intellectual property, supply chain information and control of the situation. And they were privately educated?? The sort of people that after a few minutes would leave Lord Alan Sugar shaking his head in disbelief.

And the so-called business consultants, not the ones that know what they are doing, but the useless pillocks who don't. But just think they do. The ones that need psychiatric help because they think they are right.

The sort of business consultants that make David Brent seem credible, but only just.

Business consultants that need to study the late Sir John Harvey Jones in action because he did know what the heck he was doing when advising people.

I thought one business consultant was going to have a stand up fight with me once because I called him into question. And he was wrong. And he didn't have a Scooby.

The worst thing is going to a bad interview, like I had once, the 'manager' looked about 12 and was late and hadn't read the CV or researched two things on the CV which would have taken him all of a minute.

I didn't get the job obviously because he was about as bright as a 40 watt lightbulb in the winter. And I had taken the trouble to research about the company and the products, none of which he asked me but asked me a load of stupid questions from some vapid checklist that the company used, hardly showing imagination, is it?

How do these clueless people get into management? Often because they are useless. Or don't rock the boat.

Life is like a box of chocolates, yeah, but be careful some of them are actually turds in disguise.