The Covid-19 pandemic has been devastating to all businesses but it has been particularly severe on micro, small, and medium businesses, raising concerns in the industry, particularly among young entrepreneurs. It is said that about 92% of young entrepreneurs have been negatively impacted by the shockwaves of the crisis due to the lockdown and the subsiding demand to broken supply chains.
However, contrary to the statistics, Alvin Poh, multi-millionaire entrepreneur and Founder of Super Scaling – an entrepreneurial coaching and advisory company, believes that there has not been a more promising time for businesses to scale. Driven by a surge in digital literacy amongst consumers, accelerated business digitalisation, increasingly connected supply chains, and government support in the billions – Alvin believes the time is ripe for enterprising businessmen.
In an interview with BusinessToday, Alvin shares his thoughts on the keys to business expansion in 2022 and advice to budding entrepreneurs starting out or bringing their company to the next level.
What are the digital strategies required of businesses during the endemic age, and how do you manage a hybrid workforce?
Digital strategies have now become an integral part of businesses. Prior to the endemic age, technology was mostly viewed as a cost-saving measure for businesses. With the advent of COVID, technology is now placed at the forefront of many businesses’ strategies because of its ability to deliver change, deliver results, and connect with your customers.
Digital strategies start to include digital tools and digital platforms that empower everything from communication, logistics, marketing, or fulfilment to complete end-to-end platforms.
With digital technologies, even the workforce has been transformed. Due to COVID restrictions and policies, businesses are forced to pivot to fully remote or hybrid workforces. This means that companies can no longer depend on face-to-face meetings or interactions. As a result, companies are forced to think deeper and be more intentional about team bonding or team building, and of company communications.
Doing things the way that they used to be done can no longer work with a hybrid workforce. Instead, companies need new strategies to align their vision with the people on their team, and to increase the interaction and familiarity they have with these individuals so that everyone can work smoothly together.
What should Malaysian entrepreneurs be looking out for in 2022?
The past 2 years have been difficult, and 2022 looks to be no different. However, the danger is that entrepreneurs start focusing the next shiny object because of the changes that COVID caused in their businesses. In fact, the opposite is true. This actually means that Malaysian entrepreneurs should go back and start re-focusing on what is fundamental to their businesses, instead of focusing on a complete shift in business.
What this means is that entrepreneurs must ask themselves what is the value that their businesses are creating for their customers. This is the reason why their businesses exist. Only after understanding that can they start to improve their business models. For example, theatres typically depended on a brick-and-mortar concept where customers would physically attend shows at a venue. However, with COVID, that is no longer possible. However, the real reason why customers do this is not necessarily because they want to be at a physical venue, but that they want entertainment for the evening. Knowing the real reason why customers attend shows opens up the possibility of pivoting the delivery method from a physical venue to an online/virtual alternative instead.
What is the key to business expansion in 2022 and moving forward?
A lot of my business coaching clients have this question, and I tell them that they have to understand their business fundamentals in order to expand successfully. We shouldn’t necessarily just expand based on what’s hot in the market right now, but rather, what is driving consumer needs and demands. Only when we do that can we create a business that’s sustainable and viable.
This means that businesses should look at clarifying their business vision, communicating it effectively to their teams, learning how to empower their teams, building out a solid management layer in their business, and creating efficient processes. These are the fundamentals to any successful business – people and processes.
What does it take to build a successful business from the perspective of someone who started young and sold his own business off at 33 for SGD 30 million?
People tend to think that creating a successful business is based on tactics and business ideas. However, after working on my own business for two decades, I realised that that’s only half of the story. The other half is really based on the entrepreneur.
Who I am today is different from who I was 10 years ago. The experiences and expertise that I have gained over the years have shaped my mindset as well as my actions.
This is why it took me so long to create my proprietary scaling framework – the 5E Scale Engine. The 5E Scale Engine is based on my own experiences, cementing what it took for me to scale up my business from $0 to $30 million.
Having coached close to 50 ventures valued at 6 to 7 figures, what are the common traits business leaders and entrepreneurs need to have to be successful?
Entrepreneurs need 4 traits in order to succeed:
- Customer-centricity: This is first and foremost the most important trait. If the entrepreneur is in it only to make money, the business will have a difficult time scaling up. Being customer-centric allows you to keep what’s important to your customers as the main reason behind all of your company’s efforts, allowing you to grow the business in the right manner. Otherwise, entrepreneurs will start realising that they’ll invest in the wrong areas and the wrong direction, dooming their business to an eventual failure.
- Hunger: Running a business is not easy, and it’s not an overnight thing. Entrepreneurs should see running a business as a marathon, not a sprint. The key thing that keeps them going throughout this journey is hunger. Without that, it’s difficult to maintain the levels of motivation and action necessary to build a successful business.
- Action-taker: Even though it’s a marathon, entrepreneurs cannot take their time on decisions. A lot of times, it’s a split-second decision that’s necessary. Entrepreneurs must be able to take action when times call for it, otherwise it’s going to be difficult to see progress in their business.
- Open to give and take: We don’t operate businesses in a void. What’s necessary is for entrepreneurs to be willing to not just take feedback and advice, but to also help others and coach people. This allows them to build up a solid team and a helpful network of business associates, which then helps the business scale up.
What are the key takeaways from Alvin’s book, Super Scaling: Systemise, Break Free, and Skyrocket Your Business to Millions?
The 5E Scale Engine strips away all that is unnecessary and focuses on the essentials – one of my core life philosophies. The components of the 5E Scale Engine are designed to create a steady flow of committed clients for you so that you can serve them to the best of your abilities.
1. 5E Scale Engine: Evolve
The fundamental concept that you have to agree on is this: What got you here, won’t get you there. We have to analyse what you’ve done, throw away limiting concepts that no longer work for you, and introduce new ones that will work for you.
As the leader of your business, you need to grow if you want your business to grow. Everything that affects you on a personal level must be optimised so that you can perform at your full potential.
Think about the drivers of racing cars or the jockeys of racing horses. To be the winners in their races, it’s not just a matter of the fastest cars or the fastest horses, isn’t it?
2. 5E Scale Engine: Envision
The second component that forms the foundation of the 5E Scale Engine is ENVISION. Entrepreneurs and business owners have always been told that marketing is a cold and ruthless game of numbers. The more numbers you have, the better.
FALSE! That’s not efficient. Think about it: I can send you 100,000 visitors to your ice cream business, but if they are all people who are lactose-intolerant, you’re going to find that you’re not going to get much, or any, sales (does this remind you of your recent Facebook ad campaigns?).
I don’t believe in transactional businesses. I know that businesses, just like everything we do, are run by people, and if that’s the case, then how we run our business should be no different from how we behave every day as individuals.
The power of ENVISIONING can connect you with people that love your message and product/service, and how this will translate into an insane level of results for your business.
3. 5E Scale Engine: Empower
The third component is EMPOWER. Scaling up a business in a sustainable manner requires that your team knows what you’re thinking, and acts together in a concerted effort.
How you find and attract the right talent to join you is the first step. You want A-players on your team. In this principle, I’ll show you the common fallacies of hiring, and get you to focus on a hiring process that will give you an A-star team.
After you have your A-star team, the next step is to empower them to perform not just at the best of their own individual abilities, but together as a team. When you can do that, you’ll harness exponentially more powerful growth as a result.
4. 5E Scale Engine: Engage
ENGAGE is the fourth pillar of the 5E Scale Engine. We’re talking about engagement with your customers and clients here. With any successful business, engagement is highly important.
Have you ever seen companies with great products that close down? I would bet that they didn’t spend as much time on their engagement with their customers. A lot of entrepreneurs suffer from the “build it, and they will come” syndrome. Unfortunately, it takes more than a great product to become a successful business.
You’ll need to plan out your customer journeys and ensure that you do things in the right sequence in order to engage your customers properly.
Proper engagement is the difference between your customers raving about your product, or nobody caring about you. When you do engagement well, your product sells by itself because your customers can’t wait to tell their friends all about your product.
5. 5E Scale Engine: Execute
Only after you’ve done the first three steps can you move on to the next step, which is EXECUTE. One of the worst things that I hate is excess and inefficiency. That’s why I’ve been absolutely ruthless in my businesses to optimise, delegate, eliminate, and automate processes whenever I can.
This increases your throughput and productivity, allowing you to scale up because you now no longer have the constraints that you used to have.
It’s like a sprinter who weighs 30kg extra. I give you the tools and know-how so that your business can shed all this extra fat. You’ll be able to train and perform at your optimal levels.
This transforms your business from something you work in into something you work on. Your business becomes a well-oiled machine, allowing you to focus on strategy and growth.
Do you have any general advice to budding entrepreneurs starting out or bringing their company to the next level?
Many of my coaching clients have discovered that a lot of the obstacles to their growth have got to be the limiting beliefs that they hold in their minds. This is difficult to overcome because we are blind to the things that we think is true, and we need someone else to help us out. As such, any entrepreneur needs to be highly aware of these fallacies and stop them before they cause more damage to their business.
