What Makes a Successful Entrepreneur
What makes a successful entrepreneur?
There are many attributes that make a successful and strong entrepreneur. Here’s a look at some of them.
- Vision – The first attribute of an entrepreneur is vision. What made you start the journey of being a business owner? Make sure you haven’t moved away from that. If you have, find it again and re-focus your long-term goals.
- Plan – When was the last time you revisited your business plan, sales and marketing plan, communication plan, and productivity plan. Too many plans? Most businesses take seven to 10 years to be “successful.”
- Keep it real – and in perspective. It’s not your imagination that sales are down, customers don’t seem as happy as they used to be, employees are worried but as an entrepreneur “keep it real” till the dust settles and you can get back to it.
- People – Find great people to leverage your business.
- No is a word – not a destination – Keep looking for people to buy your product or service. In a challenging economy, they will be less and you are going to have to ask more people to get a yes. That’s what sales are all about so keep selling.
- Bouncing back strategies – Being able to deal with ups and downs.
- Failure is not an option! Remember Colonel Sanders of KFC fame? Over 1,000 people or companies told him his idea wouldn’t fly. He didn’t give up so why should we?
- FEAR – False Education Accepted as Reality. Don’t give in to your fear and don’t accept it as anything other than a temporary emotion that reminds you that you are human.
- Be accepting. Keep yourself emotionally healthy by accepting it’s tough. This includes allowing personal time to grieve about failures and frustration. However, keep it to 24 hours; there’s work to be done to get to the other side.
- See disappointments as part of the journey, not a destination. When things aren’t going as planned look for a positive option or outcome. Even consider doing something else to step back from a problem them come back with fresh resolve. Problems need to be resolved but not always immediately.
- Keep your Dreams alive. Revisit your goals and perhaps re-define what you previously saw as a success. The dream hasn’t died nor needs to be placed on life support, just make it a little smaller than it was and make sure you celebrate when you get there.
- Set long-term goals by making them smaller. Remember the tortoise and the hare? For the moment embrace the tortoise. The story never said the tortoise didn’t cross the finish line…it just said it took longer to get there. Be OK with that.
- Leap then look. An analysis is good but perhaps not at the moment. As Lee Iacocca says “Apply yourself. Get all the education you can, but then, by God, do something. Don’t just stand there, make it happen.”
If you’d like more information, feel free to get in touch with me for a quick consultation. We’ll discuss your particular business, what’s important to you, and make a plan for those first few steps.
Read more: The benefits of having an exit plan
