Global Stats

Enigin: Success or Failure?

Like every other significant human endeavor, nothing happens without some preliminary behind-the-scenes work having been put in first. Orders don’t just happen and success doesn’t simply appear from thin air. ‘Flying by the seat of the pants’ is not the mark of the true entrepreneur. Creating a profitable asset based business comes from careful and consistent preparation - and that means planning.

It may be a cliché, but it’s still true that ‘failing to plan is tantamount to planning to fail’… we must first know where we are now, and then where we want to be in the future before we can move on to the critical step of considering the best way to get there to get there.

It is a truism that if you don’t know where you are going, how will you know when you arrive, never mind knowing the best route to take?

Successful people are those who identify where they are, decide on their destination and then look at the options available to them so that they can choose the best route to get there.

We may not, at the moment, be rich in financial terms, but we are all rich in terms of time - it comes free and we all have the same amount each day but it’s how we each choose to spend it that makes the difference between mediocrity on the one hand and success on the other.

An example of how we make the most of an opportunity take the example of two real life people who attended the same Enigin training programme at the end of last year and consider the different outcomes and attitudes toward the same opportunity: -

December Course 2008

Rob and Keith both attended Enigin distributor training in December 2008. It was apparent from the beginning of course the differences in attitude between these two partners.

Rob was extremely keen and very excited from the start. He had the right attitude, welcomed all opinions and constructive criticism and took full advantage of the help available to him during his time in the UK.

He listened intently and patiently and asked appropriate questions at relevant times. On the final day of the course Rob presented his business plan to the rest of the course delegates and the Enigin business development team. It was good!

His business plan was concise and it was clear he had taken everything into account that Enigin had advised. Rob got straight into the business on his return to the USA and any emails/phone calls we received were courteous and to the point. There were a number of hurdles Rob had to overcome along the way but he accepted help and advice from the team at Enigin constantly and to his advantage. Since then his business has become a resounding success as an Enigin Licensee.

Keith on the other hand acted in the exact opposite manner throughout the week. He seemed intent on trying to pick holes in the solution from day one and was obnoxious and abrasive about a number of things.

On the opening day of the Enigin training course he was extremely rude to the Office Manager regarding a hotel booking he insisted we paid for regardless of the fact it had been explained to him, in writing, that it was a delegates responsibility to finance their accommodation during training.

It was also noted by more than one member of staff that Keith favored ‘Solitaire’ during the training sessions! He paid little attention to the programme content as in his view he already new it all.

As soon as Keith returned home after the course he bombarded us with emails and phone calls – mostly with questions that had all been discussed on the course The development team spent considerable time on the phone with Keith’s IT guy, John who said that Keith did not know how anything works or where to find the information within the technical support extranet site Nucleus’, as he admitted he had not felt the need to pay attention during the sessions.

Every email and phone call from Keith and John was replied to and the Development Team put a lot of effort in helping Keith get his business off the ground but all to no avail.

All who were present on the course, including the aforementioned Rob, were privy to Keith’s rude and arrogant responses. Keith never did any business whatsoever even though Enigin supplied him with several quality business leads form client companies… needless to say in his eyes it was all our fault and he put his failure entirely down to others, rather that except any responsibility himself.

Starting a new business is not easy and requires a lot of dedication and commitment as is evidenced by the following example: -

Rowena attended training from the Philippines in February 09 and was extremely friendly and eager to learn throughout the course. However, her questions and comments did seem more frantic and panicky as the week went on and by Wednesday Rowena was in tears (literally) as the enormity of what she had to do to set her business up was realized. She had never been in business before.

I can honestly say that we were unsure whether we would hear from Rowena again once she had left the UK but I am pleased to say she surprised everyone.

Rowena stuck things out and readily asked for help to get her business off the ground. Although many of her earlier emails caused confusion, gradually the language barrier broke down, contact and support became easier and Rowena has since done a great job and well on her way to building up a valuable life-style business as an independent distributor.

She had proved herself to be a very determined lady – I believe even swimming to the bank during a monsoon to make a payment to us on one occasion!

Rowena has so far successfully installed ACES and iMEC, and she has created some really tasty proposals and had a number of pleasing test results with excellent roll-out potential. It’s a pleasure to see her succeed.

It’s great when you watch winners like Rob and Rowena go through the course, take full advantage of what is offered to them then put it to good use and succeed. I look forward to many more partners/distributors following in their footsteps.

What do all successful people have in common? They appreciate we can all learn from each other - today, tomorrow, all the time. Only a fool believes he knows it all. We need to constantly maintain a positive attitude in this most exciting of professions. The kind of attitude we need to cultivate is one that tells us that no matter how good we are or we become, we can always be better.

A big thanks to Enigin for this contribution

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Previous contribution from Enigin regarding their statistics on their success and failure rates
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Business failure rates
As a business community site, here at global we do get asked about the failure rates of new businesses and ventures quite a lot. To help answer this, Enigin the energy saving company offered to write something about their personal experiences with failure and success. Here is what the Enigin people have to say:

Enigin Partners… What’s the Expected Failure Rate?

Enigin PLC offers individuals and companies the chance to start their own business as a partner and distributor for energy saving products but how many of them will succeed?

Firstly let me say that I have very few regrets about being in business for myself. Indeed I can categorically assure you that there is almost no circumstances under which I would ever accept a ‘regular job’ working for an employer, to me it ‘s a form of ‘slavery’. I have a number of business interests and I enjoy a ‘healthy’ income from all of them. It’s a comforting thought that I am earning money regardless of what I am doing - you won’t get that from an employer. The opportunities and rewards that come from owning your own business like an Enigin partnership (providing you can make it work) vastly outweigh the difficulties you will almost certainly experience. Building your own business is, without doubt, one of the supreme personal challenges. It’s one of the best decisions I ever made – but it‘s not for the faint hearted!

Regrettably, my expectation is that many people who start their own business will fail. Why? Because most people simply give up when they realize it’s harder than they think to make a business successful. Remember, the only way you, or anyone else for that matter can possibly succeed in business is to PERSIST… to just keep trying… Remember the very moment that you decide to throw in the towel you give up any chance of ever being successful. To the businessperson ‘persistence’ has a similar effect as carbon does on iron ore. Take basic iron ore; add a little carbon and you get mild steel. Persistence is undoubtedly one of those essential Critical Success Factors in this business - any business for that matter.

I have started many people on the road to success in the energy saving business - many of whom have enjoyed conspicuous success - but not everyone has realized their true potential. I hate it when I see the disappointment on people’s faces when they decide to give up, it will always matter to me because I care about people as individuals, however over the years I have come to realize that it is not my responsibility, nor is it my fault. There are scores of people making a success of their own business. Indeed I often find myself reassuring people; “There is success all around you – the only variable is YOU”.

The reality is that statistically every time someone embarks on the creation of their own business they are almost certain to find the reality much harder than they originally anticipated. This reality is a fact of life in business… and in most - if not all cases - there will be a time when it will seem like there is no way forward (I have been there, many, many times myself). I have built up a number of businesses, many unrelated to energy saving, during my ‘career’ as an entrepreneur and I have consistently found this to be the case. So it will come as no surprise to me when others inevitably face the same scenario. According to the U.S. Small Business Administration, “over 50% of small businesses fail in the first year.” Nobody said it was going to be easy.

Therefore…the level of success and the amount of profit you will be able to generate is based almost entirely on the level of focused activity within your new business.

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More thoughts 27/11/09

I re-read this post again the other day and have found myself thinking about it at length since then. I really like the point that it makes to take personal responsibility for your actions, but most importantly to take responsibility for your failures as well. In the end, every action that we go about during our lives and in business can only be down to us. At many points in my life I have been self-employed or run my own business. And looking back I remember many people giving me that same advice over and over ‘love what you do and you will be a success’, and after much deliberation I have made the decision that this is just untrue. I don’t think that love comes into it at all, I think what people need to know is believe in what you do and you will be a success. Because life isn’t always fun, but you will be amazed how hard you work if you believe that there is a point…