In today’s fast-paced world, it seems we’ve created a new competition for survival of the fittest. This time, however, mere evolutionary processes won’t help you win. This race is run in the business arena and the only way to emerge victorious is with good service, innovation, and focused marketing.
That may sound simple enough but there’s a lot more to it. The business world has now evolved into an entrepreneurial haven with endless possibilities and excellent competition. However, not all who enter the race will be winners and not all winners are playing fairly. To win, you need thick skin, perseverance, and patience, but most importantly, you need to learn to play!
If you’re an entrepreneur aiming at starting your own business, there’s no better time than the present. But first, be sure you’re prepared to make the jump; let us help. Here are some solid steps to help you unleash your entrepreneurial abilities and put you in a better position to win.
Learn as much as you can about your business
First off, it’s impossible to start something new and know everything about it. Nobody becomes an expert by reading articles, studying textbooks, or watching tutorials. People become experts by working hard at something, and ironically, failing. Some of my most important business lessons have come from missing the mark and flopping.
That being said, you shouldn’t jump into something blindly either; it’s always better to familiarize yourself with the basics of your industry. It’s even a good idea to seek out a mentor who has already encountered and even beaten some of the major challenges that affect your business or industry. Learning as much as you can from their mistakes will put you in a position to be successful, FASTER!
Stay focused and passionate about your business
With a new business budding up every second, it is important for you to be consistent. It’s rare to open your doors for the first time and have lines of people waiting to give you money. Instead, do the best you can to create some sort of hype around your business and use your passion and desire as the major fuel source that drives you on a daily basis. Talk to everybody you know about your business; leverage every single relationship you have and explore what type of partnerships you can make to propel you into a more profitable state.
This will only happen if a lot of thought is put into it. Instead of starting up a vague venture, have clear goals of what you want to do and what you want to achieve. Also, be wary of general or broad ideas for your business. For example, if you are opening a little café, decide what you want it to be known for. Sure, you may be able to serve various types of drinks but focus your marketing and promotion on a specific niche and get patrons through the door that way.
Focus! Start small and expand. Do it daily and do it passionately!
Consider multiple solutions to every problem
How comfortable were those one-size-fits-all sneakers you bought last month? Were they the finest pieces of footwear you’d ever put on?
Clearly, there’s no such thing as one-size-fits-all shoes, because they don’t work! Everybody’s feet are different and much like feet, the problems we encounter in our businesses are very unique to their industry, location, and even political environment.
Taking the example of the café, maybe both of your businesses need more people to try your product. Both businesses have the same problem but the solution is probably completely different. Maybe you’re an online, used children’s book store. What’s considered a good solution for the café, like local mailers, flyering, and geo-targeting on Facebook may be completely useless for your online store.
In addition, there are many situations that require multiple solutions. Take that book store for example. If they don’t have the sales they need after two months in business, perhaps the solution is to try several different types of marketing instead of just Google Ads (for example). Perhaps they need to work Craigslist, Facebook, and influencer marketing.
The point here is simple: identify your problem and research solutions but be open to multiple options when aiming to fix your business woes.
Keep a positive mindset-always
Now, I’m no Deepak Chopra by any stretch of the imagination, but I can’t even begin to stress the importance of keeping a positive mindset. No matter what happens in your business, keep your mind positive and focused. The reason for this stems way beyond what we all learned from “The Secret”.
Staying positive puts your mind and body in a position to analyze situations from a logical and unemotional perspective. Emotion may be a cornerstone in the human experience, but it’s the Achilles heel of the average businessman. Positivity on your part will also instill positivity in your employees and the overall atmosphere of your workplace. This will help your team feel and work better.
Learn your strengths and weaknesses (80-20 Rule)
It’s very important to know what you’re good at, but more importantly, what you’re not. This doesn’t mean you’re less of a business person if you acknowledge something you can’t do yourself. On the contrary. Knowing where your strengths lie is the first step towards outsourcing anything you do slowly or simply hate doing. Outsource the nonsense and focus on the part of your business that you enjoy; focus on the part that only you can do and you’ll see huge rewards over time.
Have you ever heard of the 80/20 rule? We’ll get into that in detail in future articles but for now, let’s just become acquainted with it. This basically states that 80% of the effect generally comes from 20% of the cause. So basically, 20% of your effort, if focused properly and passionately could result in 80% of your results.
With this logic, it’s safe to say that you should only do the tasks you are good at and outsource everything else. Why? Because if you could focus your attention on the few effective tasks that will move your business along (the 20%), and if you do them passionately, you’ll have achieved a massive amount of progress (the 80%).
Focus and consistency will always serve as huge sources of momentum.
Make decisions and execute them
Good ideas mean nothing without good leadership and execution. Sometimes, the hardest person to lead isn’t even your employees or staff; it’s YOU. Get excited! Make yourself motivated. Make bold but calculated decisions and make sure that they are properly thought out. Here’s the paradox: don’t be afraid to take chances and make mistakes. Part of this process is learning and growing from mistakes so be decisive. A confused decision maker will never be a successful entrepreneur.
There are no shortcuts to success, happiness, and growth. However, we should always put ourselves in a position where we could be as effective as possible, and sometimes, this simply means seeking a little education and employing a little bit of guts.
This is just the start of your business journey so take these tips and use them as a road-map to get on the highway of your entrepreneurial success.