Business Change Management

If you are an emerging entrepreneur searching for a big idea or a budding business owner building your new enterprise, you are probably great at seeing things with fresh eyes. You know that people are waiting for new solutions to their recurring problems.

Maybe they are struggling with a problem for which they have still not found the right answer. Maybe your partners and suppliers have pain points dealing with your processes and systems. Or, maybe your own employees might be struggling with company practices that aren’t working. 

Whatever the situation, people need some great entrepreneur to see things with fresh eyes—and bring them the help they need! 

It isn't more of the same, cheaper.

Whether it is the needs of a new customer you want to serve, or the challenges of your staff with your business model design, or the irritated supplier who wants you to get it right, you have some work to do.

But before you can solve your customers' and employees' issues and improve the situation, you need to know how they really “feel.” What are their thoughts? Their opinions? What changes do they hope to see? Which of your products or services do they wish were different? How do they solve their problems now? Do they decide to use competitors' products?

To answer all these questions, you need to go to the source. Please don't just ask them! Go Exploring!

As you already know if you've read any of my blogs, I am a corporate anthropologist who launched Simon Associates Management Consultants almost two decades ago to help organizations change using the theory, methods, and tools of anthropology. Before that, I was a tenured professor and then an executive in banking and healthcare—always focused on change.

My husband, Andrew Simon (Andy), joined SAMC several years ago after many decades as a successful entrepreneur. Since he was not an anthropologist, our positioning was not going to be an easy one to fit him into. And yet, the more we thought about it, he fit the modus operandi perfectly, as I describe in a recent article I wrote for Home Business Magazine, which you can read here.

The challenge for us was: How could Andy take his expertise and apply it in ways that worked within our company’s market positioning? We knew he was a great innovator and knew how to grow businesses at all stages of their development — from start-ups and early-stage companies to mid-market companies ready to expand their scope and shape. And when you think about it, growing is all about change.

SAMC is all about helping businesses change but we realized we had to change, too.

Can you continue to be a valuable contributor to society after you've passed your 50th (or 60th or even 70th) birthday? Can you still be a startup entrepreneur? Yes! Because guess what? I'm doing it.

In a recent article I wrote for Home Business Magazine, I talk about the exhilaration as well as the pitfalls of re-entering the marketplace after you have retired, or if you never left it in the first place. Below are highlights from the article. To read it in full, click here.

The value of being “over 50”

1. Experience counts

Don’t discount your experiences. While you might not have skills associated with fast-moving new technologies, you do know how to deal with people. These make you very valuable. You just need to know how to sell what you know.

Entrepreneurship isn’t reserved for the 20-something-year-old who quit college to write code in their parent’s garage. In fact, according to Shopify, the highest rate of entrepreneurship in the U.S. has been among 55 to 64 years old with people over 55 twice as likely to launch successful new companies than those in the 20-34 age group.

Fifty years is far from old. It’s a good decade and a half away from retirement age. Did you know that celebrities such as Naomi Watts, Will Smith, Lucy Liu, Ashley Judd, LL Cool J, and Rachel Ray are turning 50 years old this 2018? And when you realize that, you can appreciate that 50 and up may be the ideal age to leave the rat race, start a business, and be your own boss.

Read more: A Powerful Checklist for Entrepreneurial Success

Here are some of the best business ideas for the over 50 aspiring entrepreneur: