Good evening, my name is Arthur Jones.
I'm very glad to have this opportunity to speak to you over the radio.
The host asked me to give a talk about my experience of starting my own business.
I can't say my business is successful but there are some things that I want to share with you which I think will be helpful if you want to start your own company.
I've talked to many young people and they told me that they are afraid of making mistakes when they start their business.
What I want to say is that mistakes are very common especially when you do something new.
Mistakes can actually show you where you need to improve so you can take actions about them and use the chance to learn new methods.
This is a very important attitude you should have.
Besides, most mistakes are not that fatal.
Don't be too anxious when they occur.
Next, I want to go on to talk about self-confidence which is quite important in achieving business success.
Being self-confident means that you can have faith in yourself and what you do.
Self-confidence can be gained through hard work, even playing sports.
However, sometimes self-confidence may make you ignore problems and even cause failure.
Business leaders should remain calm and not take impulsive actions.
I know that when people start their business they have confusions.
They don't know how they can be more professional.
They read business journals or watch related videos but these don't seem to help sometimes.
My suggestion is that instead of aimlessly trying many new things they should always be committed to their goal.
As long as they stick to it they will not be easily distracted or confused by other things and they are sure to get better.
We will all meet difficulties especially at the beginning.
We can't always rely on ourselves to solve all the problems.
I had a problem with marketing earlier this year.
Luckily I found an expert to help me deal with it.
There's always a way but we should know how and when to seek help from these people.
Business leaders have different kinds of styles.
Some are very good at public speaking.
Others are very down-to-earth and have strong executive skills.
But in general they should be able to win the respect from their employees so that they can carry out their orders more easily.
There are times when a company might face risks.
During such times leaders will need to take prompt actions and they can't always plan for distant future.
Leaders should analyze and deal with the risks with caution.
If they bear this in mind there is always a way out.
At the beginning of my business I experimented with quite a few strategies hoping to find out the best solution for my business.
At first my company wanted to work out prices for the products and make them realistic.
However prices are always changing so they can't be fixed.
Another thing I always keep in mind is that leaders must stay committed to their jobs.
Without enough commitment you may easily give up when problems happen.
I have some friends whose businesses didn't survive during difficult times.
It wasn't because they were stupid it was just a lack of commitment.
I can't always be sure that my products or services are better than my competitors but I pay attention to details and try to improve all the little things as they can actually make a big difference.
You might worry that you don't have a very clear and sophisticated business strategy.
Personally I don't think it's a problem because you will be changing them all the time anyway.
In terms of support at any stage we do need support from others to back up our business.
The support can really make a difference.
Before I started my business my family helped me a lot both financially and mentally.
There were also people who gave me advice on how to run businesses successfully.
However these advice and ideas were not so practical to me so I didn't really use them.
Looking back I felt lucky that I followed my own way of thinking.
Also I was short of funds back then and I loaned money from the bank to start my company.
That's what I want to share in today's program.
If you have any questions for me please send it to my email which is...
