Whether you’re just starting out or are an old pro, who doesn’t want to be a
more successful entrepreneur?
Owning your own business gives you a sense of freedom and empowerment. You can build things and watch them grow.
Entrepreneurs
make decisions for themselves, realize their creative visions, and
develop lasting relationships with other entrepreneurs, customers, and
vendors.
It’s a great way to live. That’s why I’ve founded so many companies — I can’t get enough.
That’s why I’ve put together these tips to help you to become more successful.
1. Get gritty
Grit
is perseverance. Grit is the go-get-’em attitude that we expect of
entrepreneurs. Grit is the ability to keep working when everyone tells
you that you should give up.
If you want to be a successful entrepreneur, you have to be gritty.
Honestly, without
hard work and perseverance, you’re not going anywhere in the entrepreneurial world.
2. Challenge yourself
If
you want to be a successful entrepreneur, you have to challenge
yourself. No one else is going to push you, so it’s up to you to do it.
Challenges
keep entrepreneurs nimble and on their toes. If you’re constantly
looking for the next challenge, you’ll always be prepared for what comes
your way.
Consider this example:
You’re
going to the gym to build your upper body strength. You start doing
bicep curls with a 10-pound weight. It feels pretty heavy at first. But
as you build up your strength, it gets easier.
Would you stop there? No!
Then
it’s time to do bicep curls with a 20-pound weight. Once you’ve done
bicep curls with a 20-pound weight, going back to a 10-pound weight will
feel easy.
Challenging yourself with new and difficult tasks will
make your other tasks seem even simpler. Just like the 10-pound weight
feels light after you lift a 20-pound weight.
As an entrepreneur, you always have to be looking for the next big challenge.
3. Be passionate
If you don’t love what you do, don’t do it. I truly believe it’s as simple as that.
As an entrepreneur, you’re going to have to put in long hours and make sacrifices for your business.
When you’re passionate about what you do, putting in the long hours won’t feel like a sacrifice anymore.
If
you’re not passionate about what you do, you’re not going to have the
motivation to keep going when you’re stressed and tired.
Have you
ever noticed those entrepreneurs who never seem to get tired? Those
entrepreneurs who get that gleam in their eye when they talk about what
they do?
Yeah, that’s passion.
Forty-four percent of entrepreneurs started
their business because they saw an opportunity to create something
great. They are passionate about their business. Are you?
Be passionate about what you do, and being an entrepreneur gets just a little bit easier.
4. Take risks
Humans are generally risk-averse, but part of being an entrepreneur is recognizing the risks that you should take.
Successful entrepreneurs take risks. It’s part of the job.
Successful
entrepreneurs also know which risks to take and which they shouldn’t.
Learn to recognize the risks that will benefit your business and take
them.
Taking risks has a dangerous side, but the opportunities they present often far outweigh the potential dangers.
Learn how to identify which risks are worth taking and you’ll learn how to be a successful entrepreneur.
5. Trust yourself
If you don’t believe in yourself, who will?
Being
a successful entrepreneur means that you’ve learned to listen to your
intuition and rely on your wisdom when making decisions.
Your
ability to trust and believe in yourself will show your confidence.
People are more likely to follow and trust confident leaders.
Trusting in your own skills will also take some of the pain of uncertainty out of being an entrepreneur.
When
you feel uncertain, remember how much experience and knowledge you
have. Most entrepreneurs start their business after years of experience
working for someone else.
There’s nothing wrong with asking for help when you need it or
turning to a mentor for advice, but you also have to learn to trust
yourself and your own judgment without input from others.
Learn to trust yourself and you’re already starting down the path of entrepreneurial success.
6. Reduce fear
Fear
stops action. Entrepreneurs have to be able to pivot and quickly take
action when they see an opportunity or recognize a mistake.
With fear riding on your shoulder, you won’t be a successful entrepreneur.
As
an entrepreneur, if you let fear be your guide, you won’t be able to
listen to your intuition, you’ll be afraid to take the necessary risks,
and your judgment will be clouded by emotion.
Find ways to reduce and manage your fear and you’ll be a much more successful entrepreneur.
Remember, fear has to do with your perspective.
Research has shown that the more crime TV that you watch, the more likely you are to fear crime. Reduce your fear by changing your perspective.
My favorite tip for managing fear as an entrepreneur is to do confidence-building exercises.
For me, I like to take a few moments at night to think of the decisions I made that day that had a successful outcome.
Thinking
each day about the decisions that you made that benefited you, others,
or your business will help you to quickly build your confidence and
reduce fear.
7. Visualize goals
This tip is less abstract than you might think, so bear with me.
When
I recommend that entrepreneurs visualize their goals, I don’t intend
for them to close their eyes and see the goal in front of them.
What I want you to do to visualize your goal is to define it so clearly that it’s real and tangible.
For example, which of these is a more accomplishable:
- I want to become a successful entrepreneur.
- I will become a successful entrepreneur by starting a business that solves a problem for this specific niche of my audience.
The second one, right?
When you can clearly articulate and visualize your goal, it becomes more achievable.
There are many ways to visualize your goal if you aren’t sure how to start.
You can write it down or draw it out.
You can tell someone, such as a friend or business partner, or take
photographs that represent your goal. Go with your strengths.
When
you ask a successful entrepreneur what their goal is, they can tell you
in great detail what it is that they’re working to achieve.
8. Hire great partners
I’ll admit that this one might be a little bit obvious.
Successful entrepreneurs aren’t successful within a vacuum. We all have a great team and support network behind us.
And when I recommend hiring great partners, I don’t just mean someone who can do the job you’re hiring them for.
I want you to hire partners who have great character and whom you like and respect.
And just as a bonus, you’re
more likely to succeed with a partner than you are on your own.
You
and your partners will be working long hours together and making
stressful decisions. If your partner has a character that you don’t
respect, your team won’t last long.
Fill your team with people who have great character and you’re well on your way to success.
When choosing your partners and team members, always remember that you can teach skills, but you can’t teach character.
9. Act
Talk only delays action.
Successful entrepreneurs act.
It’s
easy to get wrapped up in planning, considering potential failures,
discussing funding, and talking in meetings with board members. If all
you do is talk, you’ll get nothing done.
At some point, you have to halt the talking and make something happen.
10. Spend time
Do you think that there’s such a thing as an overnight success? I recommend that you take a closer look.
Upon
examination, those people and businesses that became overnight
sensations and successes actually worked really hard and long for their
achievements.
When you think you’ve found an overnight success,
check again and examine closely the hours, days, and years that went
into their success.
Take a look at their life, the things they learned, and how many times they failed.
Successful entrepreneurs take the time that’s required to reach success. And many of them have
failures along the way.
If you think it’s taking too long to find success, give yourself a break.
Keep plugging along, putting in the hours, and before long, you’ll be a successful entrepreneur.
Just
imagine looking back at all the hard work and knowing it paid off. Keep
that image in your head to motivate you forward through the long,
slogging hours.
11. Plan your finances
Startups and entrepreneurial businesses need money. It’s just a part of the lifestyle.
Many
entrepreneurs spend too much time looking for money and not enough
acting, but that doesn’t mean that you can leap into the abyss without a
plan.
For most entrepreneurs, they’re using
their own savings to start their business. That’s risky. Have a plan and you minimize your risk.
Plan out your finances in the beginning and try to stick to it, but know that the plan will have to be adapted along the way.
12. Who’s your customer?
One of the most common reasons that entrepreneurial businesses fail is that there isn’t a customer.
If you start a business or make a product but don’t know who will buy it, that person might not actually exist.
Before
you make a financial plan, raise capital, or even choose a name, make
sure that there’s a customer who would buy your product or use your
services.
Without a customer, you don’t have a business.
Successful entrepreneurs know who their customers are.
13. Listen to complaints
This is one of the tips that I think is the most important for entrepreneurs to learn.
Your customer’s complaints are how you identify your business’s weaknesses.
Similarly to the last tip, without customers, you can’t have a successful business. There’s another possible scenario, though.
You
might have customers who are interested in your product or service, but
if you don’t listen to their complaints, you soon will have no
customers.
Take your customers seriously, treat their complaints with respect, and listen.
You might think you’re giving them value,
but they may not agree.
Your customers know what they want, and they’re going to tell you what they think.
A smart and successful entrepreneur listens to those complaints and uses that information to fix the business’s weaknesses.
14. Exceed expectations
If you deliver more than you promised, you’re sure to have satisfied customers, investors, and business partners.
Making promises and not delivering is a quick way to lose your business.
In contrast, successful entrepreneurs exceed expectations.
15. Manage risks
Remember when I said that you should take risks? Yep, you should. But, you shouldn’t take every risk that presents itself.
Instead, manage your risks.
Learn to recognize which risks are worth taking and which you should walk away from.
For example, if you know that you don’t fit the mold of
the typical entrepreneur, find out how to better fit in and limit your risk of being skipped over for being different.
As a successful entrepreneur, you need to learn how to identify which risks to take but also when to take risks.
Taking risks isn’t just about what the risk is but also when you’re taking the risk.
Earlier
on in founding your business, taking a risk might have a much lower
chance of failure than toward the end of founding your business.
Be sure to recognize where you are in the entrepreneurial cycle when calculating which risks to take.
Learn to manage your risks and you’ll be a much more successful entrepreneur.
16. Read case studies
As
an entrepreneur, you’ll be inundated with your business, needing to
take care of it all the time.So when you get home and have some leisure
time, you might be tempted to read fiction or books for entertainment.
So when you get home and have some leisure time, you might be tempted to read fiction or books for entertainment.
Instead,
I encourage you to read case studies. Read biographies of successful
entrepreneurs. Read everything you can get your hands on about those who
have already been successful.
There’s always something to learn from those who have already done it.
I
especially think it’s important to learn from the mistakes of others.
If you learn from their mistakes, you won’t have to make those mistakes
yourself.
And if you do make mistakes yourself,
definitely learn from those.
The
more you learn from their mistakes and successes, the faster you can
grow your business and become a successful entrepreneur.
17. Self-promote
Many people don’t want to self-promote or talk about their business too much for fear of sounding like an
ego maniac.
But if you don’t promote your business, who will?
Egotistical self-promotion and self-promotion can be differentiated.
Know
your business, know some key stats, and have your 15-second elevator
pitch polished and ready to go. Then, when someone asks you about your
business, you can promote it factually and quickly.
Another way to
self-promote without sounding cocky is to know what your customers say
about your business. When someone asks how your business is going, you
can tell them your customer feedback.
Don’t forget to provide some of the bad as well as the good.
18. Set company culture
There
may have been a time when company culture wasn’t important, but with
social media and the 24-hour news cycle, your company and employees are
always under scrutiny.
Your attitude, beliefs, and morals set the tone for the rest of your company and culture. Cough, Uber, cough.
Set
a positive company culture from day one and you’ll be more likely to
work with people you enjoy and who inspire you as well as attract great
customers.
Many entrepreneurs are working with family, from home,
and even across borders. It’s important to set and know what you want
your company culture to look like.
19. Network, network, network
There
is no such thing as too much networking. Well, there is, I guess. Don’t
let networking get in the way of building your business.
What I mean to say is that you shouldn’t ever stop networking because you never know where your next lead will come from.
And
you’re not alone. Chances are, if you network with enough people,
you’ll bump into another entrepreneur who might have the ideas and
connections you need.
You
might find a new connection while grabbing a beer at the airport bar,
you might meet your next business partner in an elevator on your way to a
meeting, and you just never know who’s sitting next to you on the bus.
Meet
everyone you come into contact with and have a short chat. You never
know who you’re sitting next to and what connections or resources they
might be able to offer you.
20. Learn and create
The
successful entrepreneur mindset is that of learning and creation. As an
entrepreneur, you always want to be taking in new information and
creating.
This type of mindset can be draining and tiring,
but without it, you’re not going anywhere.
To
stay in the learner and creator mindset, stay away from TV, social
media, and movies. These types of entertainment cause us to be passive
and just take in information.
Pursue everything in moderation, but
in general, these activities are time-wasters for entrepreneurs.
Limiting your entertainment time is a sacrifice that must be made to
become a successful entrepreneur.
Instead of watching TV and
movies, read case studies and meditate. Take care of your mind and body
in constructive, healing ways.
It may “feel good” to watch TV, but it’s not actually a rejuvenating way to relax.
To be a successful entrepreneur, find relaxing activities that help to restore your learner and creator mindset.
21. Deliver, don’t sell
Honestly,
no one likes to be sold to. I mean seriously, who enjoys going to the
car lot and buying a new car? We all know what we’re getting ourselves
into and dread it.
So, instead of selling to your potential customers, deliver. Offer them a free trial and deliver a great product.
Research has found that giving away a free product or trial on social media is
two times more effective than standard hard-sale tactics.
When
your company delivers a great product or service, you’ll build customer
loyalty faster than you can say, “successful entrepreneur.”
22. Baby steps
Building
a successful entrepreneurial business can seem daunting, and that’s OK.
Building a business from the ground up is a massive undertaking.
But I have a foolproof tactic: Break it down.
Any problem that seems insurmountable, break it down into baby steps.
Once
you’ve broken it down into baby steps, take them one at a time. Before
you know it, just by placing one foot in front of the other, you’ll be
halfway up the mountain.
With grit and perseverance, baby steps will get you far toward becoming a successful entrepreneur.
23. Put everything on your calendar
You think I’m kidding, but I’m not. Put
everything on your calendar.
Think something doesn’t need to be on your calendar? It does.
Put
your meetings, quiet work periods, time with friends, happy-hour
business meetings, kids’ soccer games, workouts, meal times, and
anything else that you do on your calendar.
Once something is on your calendar, then everyone who needs to meet with you knows that time isn’t available.
And then, a meeting won’t be scheduled for when you “intended” to go to the gym.
Exercise is important to entrepreneurs for many reasons, and I’ve got more on that later.
Once everything is on your calendar, that aren’t anymore excuses for not getting them done.
I
want to also draw your attention to one of the items I included: Quiet
work time. That is time when you can work, solve problems, or think
creatively without being interrupted.
Everyone needs these periods
of time. To be a successful entrepreneur, guard your quiet work times
with your life. The success of your business may depend upon them.
24. Exercise
Did you know that sitting down all day long is bad for your health? It is.
Being
a successful entrepreneur doesn’t just mean running a profitable
business. Run yourself too ragged managing that business and you might
not be around to enjoy its success.
You must take care of yourself as well as your business.
One of the many self-care tasks that I recommend is exercise.
Make sure to book time in your calendar to get in some exercise and get out of your chair.
Maybe you go to yoga, institute walking meetings, climb the stairs instead of taking the elevator, or simply go to the gym.
Build
time into your calendar every week (dare I hope for every day?) to be
physically active and take care of your body as well as your business.
A sick or unhealthy entrepreneur isn’t a successful entrepreneur.
25. Focus
The
life of a successful entrepreneur can feel scattered and disjointed,
but it’s important to limit your time spent multitasking.
Research has shown time and time again that multitasking doesn’t work. Humans aren’t capable of it.
And yes, multitasking includes being distracted by your phone and email tabs.
Close them and put them away.
Learn
to focus and take time to do just one task. Giving one task your full
attention will mean that you’re more likely to get it done and do it
well.
It’s also important to know that too many tasks on your to-do list can make you ineffective and distracted.
Learn to focus your to-do list on the tasks that you’re capable of finishing in the amount of time you’ve allotted for them.
For
example, each night, set the three tasks that you’ll complete the
following day. And each month, set the overarching goal for your company
that you want to achieve in the next 30 days.
These techniques can help you to learn how to focus and more effectively manage your business.
26. Take time off
We finally made it to the tip that I think it the toughest for successful entrepreneurs to put into practice.
And yes, I really mean that you need to take time off.
Americans don’t do it enough.
You
might not need time off every day or every week, but you do need to
take time off. If all you do is work, you’ll burn out. Fast.
I
think this is the most challenging for entrepreneurs because they often
see themselves as invincible or believe that they must be invincible.
No, we’re all humans and we need time off.
Time
off allows your brain to roam, to rest, and to think. Ever wonder why
you think of so many ideas in the shower? It’s because your brain has
free range to just think and roam.
Even the most successful
entrepreneurs don’t work all the time. Everyone needs time off, so don’t
shame yourself for being human and normal.
When you do take time off, notify your staff ahead of time and let them know why it’s important to you.
Teaching
your staff the importance of time off will help them to respect your
time away and to recognize when they need time off.
By the way, you should allow your staff time off too. They also are human and will occasional breaks.
Take
time off before you need it and recognize that it’s important for
healing, creating, and becoming a more successful entrepreneur.
Do you agree that this is the toughest tip to work into your life?
27. Ask
You don’t know everything. No one does.
So ask for help, advice, mentors, and everything else you need. Asking questions gains you information.
The more information you have, the more connections you can make, and the easier running your business will become.
Asking questions also helps you to remain in a learner mindset, ready to accept advice and information.
Learners and those who ask questions are more likely to become successful entrepreneurs.
28. Fail
Failure is an option.
Yep, I said it.
Better to accept it now then later. You will fail at some point.
Failure is an aspect of becoming a successful entrepreneur, so you’d better get used to it now.
29. Get inspired
Being
an entrepreneur is a creative pursuit. As an entrepreneur, you have to
make connections, solve problems, and create new things that no one has
thought of before.
Creators and creatives need to be inspired.
Successful entrepreneurs take time for the things that inspire them.
Maybe
your inspiration comes from being in an art museum, maybe it’s reading
books, maybe it’s doodling —whatever it is that inspires you, do it.
It’s good for your business.
Successful entrepreneurs are
inspired. Don’t let that magic slip for too long. Whenever you can, and
definitely when you’re feeling burned out, get out there and get
inspired.
Inspiration is the spark for ideas. Ideas make successful entrepreneurs.
30. Help others
Entrepreneurs
are busy, so this tip sometimes trips them up. It’s easy to think, “I
don’t have time to help anyone else! I’m so busy already!”
But helping others can be inspiring and massively beneficial.
How
good does it feel to help others? And as an entrepreneur you have a
network with whom you can share your expertise and jobs you can hire
people for. Why wouldn’t you help others?
When
you help someone, they will likely find a way to help you. It might not
be today or tomorrow, but somewhere in the future, they will be there
to help you when you need it.
Helping others is also a great way to build a loyal and supportive network around you.
Successful entrepreneurs help the people they meet.
Conclusion
Succeeding in business doesn’t require overnight success. In fact, that’s largely a myth.
As
I’ve demonstrated in these 30 tips, you have to take a long-term
strategy and build it in baby steps until it becomes a success.
You can do it, but only if you’re aware of the potential pitfalls and ready to fail.
It’s also essential to give and accept help. Entrepreneurship isn’t a solitary pursuit. It takes a village, as they say.
Finding success as an entrepreneur is no easy task, but with these simple tips, I hope it becomes just a little bit easier.
Remember,
my biggest challenge to all of you entrepreneurs out there is to take
some time off and to listen to complaints. I think these tips are often
forgotten but are so important to being a successful entrepreneur.
What makes you a successful entrepreneur?
August 23, 2019
