In smart company

I was privileged to meet some very smart award winners last week. MARCIA GRIFFIN

By Marcia Griffin

Last week I attended the second annual SmartCompany awards presentations for Australia’s fastest growing companies, and was once again totally impressed by the calibre of the people on the winners list.

As Amanda Gome, CEO of SmartCompany, pointed out with great humour, the venue reflected both the growth in SmartCompany and the prestige of the awards with the NAB as a sponsor – no more start-up wine!

Starting a new business myself, I fully understand how it takes time to persuade suppliers, the market and even one’s friends about the vision for the business.

There were some near-death stories, and interestingly those seemed to be about the companies that had become most successful – the risk and reward relationship.

I also noticed the balance of genders in the room, and even spread in age!

I had also attended earlier in the week a seminar on how the brain can change itself – entrepreneurs it seems to me have developed a way of thinking that enables them to be confident about taking calculated risks and succeeding.

At this seminar, a panel of psychiatrists and neuro scientists were demonstrating how it is possible to change brain patterns and therefore behaviour.

I think entrepreneurs understand this and have the capacity to persuade others to think in a new or different way about a business idea – who would have thought that Google would become a way of life for us, a word we all use and understand immediately. A couple of young guys dreamed up this global phenomenon, and changed our lives.

There were a lot of creative thinkers among this SmartCompany Awards room, full of entrepreneurs who not only had dreamed up new business ideas but backed those ideas with plans and actions.

It made me wonder why we don’t spend more time in our education system teaching the subject of thinking.

I once heard a statement that explained why many people don’t spend time thinking; that thinking is the hardest thing we have to do!

As I walked around the room I listened to the conversations of the group, explaining their businesses and what had brought them about. This was a group that had thought a lot!

There is little doubt that we are what we think – and the great news is according to the latest science about the brain, that we have the capacity to change our thought patterns – so perhaps one of the keys to success as an entrepreneur lies in thinking, how we think about new ideas, how we think about new ways to satisfy market needs, how we think about how that can be done through sound business planning.

Henry Ford said if you think you can, you can; and if you think you can’t, you can’t – either way you are right.

It was exciting to spend a couple of hours with a group of people who think they can!!

Congratulations to SmartCompany for promoting entrepreneurial thinking.

To read more Marcia Griffin blogs, click here.

High Heeled Success is Marcia Griffin’s latest book, and is a frank account of building a business from a solitary sales person to a multi-million dollar business with 4700 sales consultants around Australia and New Zealand. It recounts successes and failures along the way and was written to inspire entrepreneurs-particularly women to triumph in business.

High Heeled Success (Kerr Publishing) is available directly from Marcia (marcia_Griffin@msn.com.au) or Domain Books www.domainbooks.biz.