Being an entrepreneur can be one of the most challenging, but more importantly, one of the most rewarding career choices that there can possibly be.
So to set you off on the right path, I’ve pulled together my top tips for making sure and guaranteeing that as an entrepreneur, you are going to be hugely successful (a big claim I know).
Now, first of all, a sure way to succeed is to get yourself a mentor.
There are different types of mentors and I’ve done a whole video just on mentoring if you wanna go and check out that blog post or head on over to YouTube to watch it! But to summarise, I often talk about the fact that there are virtual mentors and physical mentors.
When we talk about a physical mentor, that might be somebody that you can go and spend time with, someone who’s been there, walked in those shoes, and who you can just offload to talk about the challenges of what you’re doing, and they can help you work through everything that you’re doing. Then there are the virtual mentors.
Now I talk a lot about virtual mentoring and what I am doing here is an example of virtual mentoring because it’s when you’re working with someone who has no idea that you are using them in this way. This is where you choose someone who you might admire and want to learn from and might buy their book or watch their YouTube videos and study what they do.
A great example of when I had virtual mentors is when I used to study people on TV shopping channels. I wanted to be the best in my field when it came to TV shopping so I looked at who I considered to be the best in their field and then I studied them. I watched what they did, noted how they made me feel in that moment and I tried to model myself on their behaviours. This is a brilliant example of virtual mentoring and one I would highly recommend but if you can, I would really recommend having a mix of both physical and virtual mentors!
Now, my next piece of advice is to have a plan because to fail to plan is to plan to fail.
I know it’s an age-old saying but it really does make all the difference and the reason you want to plan is twofold. First of all, it makes you focus on what the future looks like and how you will try to get there. The process of sitting down and writing that plan will really help hone your thoughts and get you into that right headspace.
The other benefit to having a plan is that it operates as a roadmap, it gives you a direction for where you’re going and how you’re getting there and it means you can measure your progress. When you’re writing a plan, try to think about the journey, not just the destination. What are the milestones that you’ll reach along the way so that you can tell that you’re going in the right direction?
My third tip for being a successful entrepreneur is to be prepared to just work your butt off!
Don’t let anybody ever tell you that being an entrepreneur is easy because it isn’t. It really used to frustrate me, especially when I first had the kids and I’d make friends with other mums because they’d say to me ‘oh my god it must be so great being your own boss you can decide what hours you work, you can do the school run whenever you want to, you can be in control of your own destiny and work your own hours’. They just had absolutely no idea but they’d never experienced this way of life and that is why I always say, being an entrepreneur is not a career choice it’s a lifestyle choice.
If you are sitting there thinking should I start my own business or should I take this nine to five job then trust me, entrepreneurialism isn’t for you. Being an entrepreneur is all encompassing. It doesn’t have time scales and it doesn’t have time bounds. You’re constantly on, it might not be that you’re working 24-7, but you’re switched on 24-7 so you need to be open to that mindset and be prepared to work your butt off before you head down the road of entrepreneurialism
#4 – know your strengths and play to them.
Now, don’t get me wrong a lot of people, certainly when they start small businesses, say to me, ‘well, there’s only me so I’ve got to do everything’. People think they have to be the toilet cleaner and the bin lady as well as being the sales director, marketing manager and the finance director. I would agree that yes when it’s a small business, you really have to be prepared to do everything and you have to be able to do everything but never lose sight of the thing that you are the best at that adds the most value.
My best advice to you would be to think about what you could be the best in the world at. Now for me that was selling, I knew that if I could spend most of the time I had in front of potential buyers or in front of customers, that is how I knew I would succeed. I also knew that every minute that I was away from doing, working on something else in the business was a minute that I wasn’t adding the maximum amount of value to the business.
I should say that just because I know that selling is my superpower, this doesn’t mean that I don’t do anything else but what I’m trying to say is that you shouldn’t lose sight of the thing that you truly are the best in the world at.
Make sure you carve out time to do the things that you thrive at and, as you build out a workforce around the things you aren’t so good at, as the business grows you should get more and more time to do the thing that you are so brilliant at.
#5 – manage the money.
I don’t ever want to hear someone say ‘I don’t know finance, I don’t understand finance, maths was never my strong point at school’. It doesn’t matter – you need to understand the money. You need to understand how much money you’re making and most importantly how much profit you’re making but you need to be able to keep an eye on the cash.
Cash is key in any business and so many great businesses fail not because it wasn’t a great idea but because they’ve run out of cash because they haven’t managed their cash flow. Ever entrepreneur – without exception – needs to get to grips with the basic fundamentals of how cash can impact a business. This is something that we will look at in a lot more detail over this series, with some other in-depth videos at managing money and managing your own cash flow, but these are my five top tips on how to make sure you are truly successful!