All coaches are entrepreneurs says Mark Amin, ICA student and successful marketing  consultant and now coach!

At the intersection of these work experiences, and after reflecting on his experiences and observations Mark created a guide for entrepreneurs called the 7 Cs of Entrepreneurship and road tested through his own coaching practice!

Here’s a taste of the 7 Cs explored in Mark’s new Notebook and Program of the same name:

1. Core Competence What’s yours?  Your core competence will be the greatest competitive advantage your business will ever have.  Imagine it to be the root system that holds your business up as well as stimulates growth.

2. Communication What’s your story?  Everybody loves a story.  All too often businesses get caught in the game of fancy and sexy taglines lacking in meaning.  A great story on the other hand can be captivating and inspiring.  It can be a compelling reason for clients/consumers to buy you.

3. Client / Consumer How well do you know them to engage them?  Different folks, different strokes.  Businesses tend to forget this.  Unless you have an up-close-and-personal insight of your clients/consumers, it is unlikely you will have an engagement model that sells.

4. Competition Why develop a competition eco-system?  By definition, eco-system suggests a collaborating and competing, both at the same time, to maintain a balance.  Businesses need to adopt this stance today in dealing with competition.  This C coaches entrepreneurs on how to treat competition in a way that benefits the eco-system in which it operates.

5. Creativity  Staying C.R.I.S.P. for growth.  It may sound ironical, but one of the victims of a successful business is creativity.  Ideas and innovations take a back seat as entrepreneurs get busy with the business of running a business – driving sales an bottom-line, managing clients and suppliers, motivating staff… the list goes on!  Unless the entrepreneur continues to create new tuff, the business will likely stagnate.  Staying C.R.I.S.P. is critical to the business’ future.  It is the responsibility of the entrepreneur to ensure this.

6. Cash Flow Managing your harvest: Fertilizing the soil.  Researcg has shown that entrepreneurs engage professional help in finance and accounting either for compliance purposes or when the end seems in sight.  We want to change this attitude.  Engaging a finance and accounting professional from the start can actually be liberating!

7. Coach Are you making use of your entrepreneur coach?  It is increasingly common to have a personal trainer or an image consultant.  They exist to make us feel, and hopefully look, good.  But who’s making sure we do good things with the business?  That’s the job of the entrepreneur coach.  He or she works with you to get you on your desired path, and helps ensure you get there!

With these Cs, you can sow the seeds of your entrepreneurship, says Mark, and “…yield a rich harvest soon!”

Mark-Amin is an entrepreneur coach and ICA student, based in Singapore and Perth, Australia.  He has created The 7Cs Notebook and Workshop Toolkit which helps businesses and coaches create and execute effective business plan.  www.potterandsower.com