The Psychology Behind a Successful Business Owner

By Christian Fea in Business


Business owners have to do much more than offer a quality product or service today. With a market that continues to increase in competition, thanks to the global ramifications of the Internet, successful businesspeople will also be characterized by certain qualities that get them noticed in their industry.
If you thought psychology classes were strictly for the health care professionals, think again. There’s plenty of psychology that goes into the effective running of a business, particularly when joint venture marketing comes into play.

Relationship Building

Successful business owners must know how to form relationships both with potential customers and prospective JV marketing partners. Relationships with joint venture business partners must be professional, but they must also inspire trust and creativity between the two of you. When a JV marketing partnership is healthy and thriving, both businesses benefit.

Make sure your communication with your partner is used to build up rather than tear down the other individual. Offer positive feedback and show enthusiasm for your joint business venture. When you make others feel good about their contributions and their relationship with you, they are more likely to stick around for the long haul.

Networking

Networking is an important part of building a successful business, whether you are interacting with other business owners or potential customers. Networking events are an excellent place to meet other like-minded individuals who might be interested in building a JV partnership with you.
However, these occasions may cause shy individuals to shiver with anxiety and may even result in you missing out on valuable business opportunities because your fears prohibit you from attending. If social networking makes you nervous, take a class on interpersonal communication that can provide you with the skills you need to handle these events with confidence.

Team Playing


An effective business is a team of individuals, all working together toward a common goal. If you want your business to be successful, you will need to learn to play nicely with others. This includes other business owners in your field that might be lucrative JV partners, as well as those who work directly in your business with you. Cooperation, contribution and positive encouragement are all traits that make individuals effective team builders.

If you are lacking in any of these traits, team-building classes will show you how to work well with others. Learning specific techniques like active listening and group brainstorming can also show you how to make the most of the creativity and enthusiasm within your staff to make your business run more smoothly.

Psychology plays an important role in a successful business, whether you are forming JV partnerships with other business owners, working with your staff, or interacting with your customers.

If you feel your interpersonal skills are lacking, now is the time to get educated on the finer points of networking and team building. Professional classes are available in psychology, communication and interpersonal skills through community colleges and professional training forums. The money you invest in building your professional skills will go a long way in helping you run your business more effectively.

Lessons from Yuan

China's trade'>trade balance is on course for another bumper surplus this year. Meanwhile, concern about the health of the United States recovery continues to mount. Both developments suggest that China will be under renewed pressure to nudge its currency sharply upward.  The conflict with the US may well come to a head during Congressional hearings on the yuan this month, when many voices will urge the Obama administration to threaten punitive measures if Beijing does not act. Discussion of China's currency focuses on the need to shrink the country's trade'>trade surplus and correct global macroeconomic imbalances. With a less competitive currency, many analysts hope, China will export less and import more, making a positive contribution to the recovery of the US and other economies. In all this discussion, the yuan is viewed largely as a US-China issue, and the interests of poor countries get scarcely a hearing, even in multilateral fora.  Yet a noticeable rise in the yuan's value may have significant implications for developing countries. Whether they stand to gain or lose from a yuan revaluation, however, is hotly contested. On one side stands Arvind Subramanian, from the Peterson Institute and the Centre for Global Development. He argues that developing countries have suffered greatly from China's policy of undervaluing its currency, which has made it more difficult for them to compete with Chinese goods in world markets, retarded their industrialisation, and set back their growth.  If the yuan were to gain in value, poor countries' exports would become more competitive, and their economies would become better positioned to reap the benefits of globalisation. Hence, Mr Subramanian argues, poor countries must make common cause with the US and other advanced economies in pressuring China to alter its currency policies. On the other side stands Helmut Reisen and his colleagues at the OECD's Development Centre, who conclude that developing countries, and especially the poorest among them, would be hurt if the yuan were to rise sharply. Their reasoning is that currency appreciation would almost certainly slow China's growth, and that anything which does that must be bad news for other poor countries as well. They buttress their argument with empirical work that suggests that growth in developing countries has become progressively more dependent on China's economic performance. They estimate that a slowdown of 1 percentage point in China's annual growth rate would reduce the growth rates of low-income countries by 0.3 percentage point - almost a third as much. To make sense of these two contrasting perspectives, we need to step back and consider the fundamental drivers of growth. Strip away the technicalities, and the debate boils down to one fundamental question: what is the best, most sustainable growth model for low-income countries? Historically, poor regions of the world have often relied on what is called a 'vent-for-surplus' model. This model entails exporting to other parts of the world primary products and natural resources such as agricultural produce or minerals. This is how Argentina grew rich in the 19th century, and how oil states have become wealthy during the last 40 years. The rapid growth that many developing countries experienced prior to the crisis was largely the result of the same model. Countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, in particular, were propelled forward by the growing demand for their natural resources from other countries - China chief among them.  But this model suffers from two fatal weaknesses. First, it depends heavily on rapid growth in foreign demand. When such demand falters, developing countries find themselves with collapsing export prices, and, too often, a protracted domestic crisis. Second, it does not stimulate economic diversification. Economies hooked on this model find themselves excessively specialised in primary products that promise little productivity growth. Indeed, the central challenge of economic development is not foreign demand, but domestic structural change. The problem for poor countries is that they are not producing the right kinds of goods. They need to restructure away from traditional primary products to higher-productivity activities, mainly manufactures and modern services. The real exchange rate is of paramount importance here, as it determines the competitiveness and profitability of modern tradable activities. When developing nations are forced into overvalued currencies, entrepreneurship and investment in those activities are depressed. From this perspective, China's currency policies not only undercut the competitiveness of African and other poor regions' industries, but they also undermine those regions' fundamental growth engines. What poor nations get out of Chinese mercantilism is, at best, temporary growth of the wrong kind. Lest we blame China too much, though, we should remember that there is little that prevents developing countries from replicating the essentials of the Chinese model. They, too, could have used their exchange rates more actively in order to stimulate industrialisation and growth. True, all countries in the world cannot simultaneously undervalue their currencies. But poor nations could have shifted the 'burden' onto rich countries, where, economic logic suggests, it ought to be placed. Instead, too many developing countries have allowed their currencies to become overvalued, relying on booming commodity demand or financial inflows. And they have made little systematic use of explicit industrial policies that could act as a substitute for undervaluation. Given this, perhaps we should not hold China responsible for taking care of its own economic interests, even if it has aggravated in the process the costs of other countries' misguided currency policies.

What's With the Sudden Rise of YEN?

In Japan's case, it is almost two decades' worth of negligible or no economic growth!

And Now, while the economy is sinking, Japan's currency is skyrocketing. While at face value it may seem like a good thing, the rising yen is spelling doom for Japan's crucial export sector.

What is the yen doing to Japan's manufacturing sector? Well, it's just killing it.

According to a number of government-sponsored surveys, about 40% of Japanese manufacturers fear that, unless the yen stops rising, they might be forced to shift their production lines abroad where labor and facilities are cheaper at least.

Is there anything that can stop the yen?

Not much, other than pulling together a massive government stimulus package together with
similar in size and intention stimulus packages from other central banks.

Before the yen started its new rise to infamy, Japan had considerable trade surpluses and one of the highest domestic savings rates in the world. That made the country one of the few remaining providers of real capital in the world, not just printed paper money.

As a result, during the recession of 2008/2009, Japan's currency, along with the Swiss franc and the greenback, was considered a safe haven, to which many investors flocked.

Even the Chinese have started diversifying away from U.S. bonds and have been stocking up on Japanese bonds.

What on earth is pushing the yen so high all of a sudden?

Japan is getting older and fewer babies are born into that part of the world. At the same time, Japan is exporting more, because the domestic demand is shrinking. Adding to the pile is Japan's hoarding of
foreign assets, including bonds and equities, although recently Japan started repatriating some of the capital back into Japan.