Magic Johnson is best known as a famous American basketball player as well as an entrepreneur after he retired from professional sport. However, he also helps small businesses with his company Magic Johnson Enterprises (MJE).

MJE helps small businesses in a variety of ways, covering all the bases from connecting them with suppliers, getting approval for building construction, and helping with marketing. MJE knows the importance of having a thriving small business, especially in urban areas that are affected by poverty.

MJE is all about making for a diverse and competitive marketplace that helps to defeat the monopolisation of industries. It also helps by providing employment for many people who would otherwise not have employment.

MJE cares about using strategic partnerships to form key alliances between different businesses. The goal is to create a small business landscape that is as ethnically diverse as possible.

Small business owners in other countries can learn a lot from MJE. The most important lesson is that cooperation can sometimes be more lucrative than being overly competitive, and being smart about partnerships can yield fantastic results.

MJE also shows the importance of giving back and being a part of the community. People like to do business with brands that are a genuine part of the community and aren’t just a faceless corporate presence.

One of the best things any small business owner can do to help themselves is lean into the marketing benefits of being a small business and using this to their advantage. Daring to be different is an important and attractive feature of many of the most successful small business enterprises.

As you can see, MJE does a lot to help small business, and a lot can be learned from the work that is done, no matter what industry you are in.

The coronavirus pandemic precipitated The Great Shutdown, which has had detrimental impacts on the global economy. Large corporations have struggled to survive, and the Virgin Group is one of the most publicised. Virgin Australia went into voluntary administration in April 2020 and have been searching for a financial lifeline in the process. It now appears that this lifeline may have emerged in the form of two private American companies – Bain Capital and Cyrus Capital.

What does this mean for you?

If Virgin is bailed out by both/either companies, the airline will likely remain operational in Australia. However, there are a few conditions, and it certainly won’t be the same airline as before. The average consumer can expect Virgin Australia to likely strip the airline back and re-brand the entity as a mid-market offering. In the past, Virgin had competed directly with Qantas and have struggled significantly, having incurred a horrendous amount of debt before the pandemic had even begun (around $7 billion).

In other words, if Virgin is given a second chance, you can expect it to become a more low-budget airline. Cyrus Capital has links to the Virgin Group, while Bain Capital has a reported $149 billion AUD in assets, meaning they could put down several hundred million for a significant stake in the company. While this is hopeful news for Virgin Group workers, tourists and travellers shouldn’t be getting ahead of themselves. With the restructuring of the company, there’s a good chance that flight paths and coverage will be scaled back massively, which could hurt a lot of regional areas.

Jeff Bezos is the richest businessperson in the world and for a good reason. As the founder of Amazon, they have had massive success due to the simple tactics they employed. Jeff Bezos is someone that should be admired by anyone seeking to start any kind of business.

Learning important business lessons is essential for getting a good start no matter what industry you happen to be in. If you are trying to get into an industry, you want to come equipped with the best knowledge possible so that you can avoid the mistakes that others have made when they take their first steps.

The following will list some of the best lessons to get from Amazon founder Jeff Bezos about small business.

You can start from anywhere

Many people think you need to do a lot of preparation to start a business, but Jeff Bezos started Amazon out of his parent’s garage. He knew that as long as he could get the business running from bare scraps that he could start optimising it. By starting with this humble setup, he was able to keep costs low and expand as needed, keeping overheads to a minimum.

Focusing on the core values of the consumer base

Amazon is successful because it focuses on the core things that the consumers want from a business like it. It focuses on fast delivery and low prices, and always strives to meet those ends. By consistently doing this is has not allowed competitors to overtake it. This is one of the best tactics Jeff Bezos has employed for making Amazon great.

Always improve

Jeff Bezos has never been complacent with the running of Amazon and always seems switched on. This makes the company superior to competitors in a number of ways.