The Entrepreneurial Eight: Qualities That Lead To Success
by Ty Freyvogel
So you want to be an entrepreneur. Perhaps you’re thinking of buying a franchise restaurant . . . or quitting your dull day job to open a custom bike shop . . . or starting your own in-home graphic design business so you can care for your babies and still make a little cash. Whatever flavor of business you’re considering, when you dreamed it up your first thought was probably “How exciting!” Your second thought was “How scary!” And hot on its heels: “Do I really have what it takes to be an entrepreneur?”
My responses to these initial reactions are as follows:
1. Yes, it is exciting!
2. Yes, it is scary! But that fact is directly linked to the excitement factor. Ask any skydiver: exhilaration is the other side of the fear coin. You’re not going to get one without the other.
3. It depends. On one hand, if you’re worried that you don’t fit the entrepreneurial mold, you can relax. There is no mold to fit into. That’s the great thing about entrepreneurship: you get to be yourself and make a living doing it.
On the other hand—there always is another hand, isn’t there?—I’ve found that with very few exceptions, successful business owners possess the same set of qualities. I call them “The Entrepreneurial Eight” and I’ve detailed them below. As you start out, you may not possess each of these traits, but the challenges you encounter along the way will help you develop them over time. Read them carefully, and strive to develop them within yourself:
A Natural Risk Taker. Okay, I am starting with the most obvious quality.
Entrepreneurs, by nature, are risk takers. Starting
a new business is a huge risk and as you grow a new
business you will be taking risk after risk along
the way. Of course, the key to being a successful
entrepreneur is learning how to anticipate risks along
the way. Know the difference between risk taking and
being reckless. When I am starting a new business,
I always develop a plan B in case things don’t
go as anticipated. As an entrepreneur, you will learn
that there has to be a limit to your risk taking.
If your business, or a new development in your business
isn’t going as planned, you have to know when
to pull the plug.
Resilience. When you
start your own business, if you are realistic at all,
you have to know going in that there’s a chance
you may fail. We’ve all been there. I learned
the importance of resilience when my first venture,
a franchised telephone consulting business, ran into
a major obstacle. The franchiser I purchased the business
from went under. I knew that I didn’t want my
franchise to go under with him, so I ended up taking
over the company and we became a huge success. When
you become an entrepreneur, anything can happen. You
have to be able to change directions on a dime. The
key to resilience is being proactive. Anticipate the
challenges you will encounter over the next six months,
and be prepared to deal with them.
Ability to Learn from Your Mistakes. Talk to any entrepreneur and they’ll tell you
about crazy, ridiculous mistakes that will have you
shaking your head and saying “I just can’t
believe someone could be that stupid.” Well,
they can. I can. And so can you. No matter
how brilliant a mind you may have, no matter how sharply
honed a business sense you possess, you don’t
have a crystal ball. And that’s okay. No one
ever learned anything meaningful from success. But
failure … well, failure is chock-full of lessons
on business and life. Part of learning from your mistakes
is learning how to make your mistakes work to your
advantage.
Let me give you an example: When I owned a set of NutriSystem franchises, I gave local deejays free memberships and in return they plugged NutriSystem on the air. The plan was that the deejays would use their memberships and tell their audiences about their success. However, one of deejays wasn’t losing any weight, and I knew that it could be a deal killer if someone saw the deejay around town and noted that he wasn’t losing weight. So I gave a membership to his assistant and instead of telling about his own progress on the air, he started talking about her progress. By transferring the focus to his assistant, I was able to correct my mistake of relying only on the deejays to follow the plan.
The
Need for Independence. Entrepreneurs need
to feel in control of their own lives. They chafe
under the authority of a “boss,” though
most of them will gladly jump through hoops to serve
their clients and customers. Is there really a difference?
In the mind of the entrepreneur, yes. You
see, we entrepreneurs generally want to work.
When we’re immersed in work that we feel passionate
about, we get a natural high, not unlike an endorphin
rush. We just want to feel that it’s our decision, not someone else’s. When we work for
others, we feel like we are giving up control. When
you own your own business, you feel like you are in
the driver’s seat. No feeling is more empowering.
Passion for What You Do. Here are a few questions to ask yourself before embarking
on an entrepreneurial venture. Am I truly interested
in this field? Do I daydream about doing the work
(instead of just spending the money)? Does this product,
service or activity feel meaningful? Does it benefit
humanity? Does it bring me joy? You know you have
passion for something if you would be willing to do
it even if you weren’t making any money. If
you don’t have passion for your business, you
are far less likely to be successful.
The Ability to Bring Out Passion
in Others. Every entrepreneur relies
on the services of other people: partners, vendors,
clients, customers—and if you’re going
to grow beyond a one-person operation, you’re
going to need employees. While it’s important
to get everyone around you excited about your company,
it’s especially critical that the people who
work for you have a sense of enthusiasm about their
work.
In the early 80s, I owned a group of NutriSystem franchises. I always made a point to sit down with my employees to ask if they were excited to get out of bed and come to work every morning. I wanted to know what they were passionate about at work so I could ensure they were in the best job for them. It never fails … the more passionate you are about something, the more willing you are to go that extra mile.
Intuition. Okay, we’ve
established that risk-taking is an innate part of
entrepreneurship. But how do we know which risks to
take? Yes, you can do all the research, take a million
customer surveys, call the smartest person you know
and ask his or her advice, then call your mother and
ask her advice. And I’m not saying
you shouldn’t do all those things. But when
it all comes down to the wire and you have to choose
between Door #1 and Door #2, how do you pick a door?
In a word, intuition. You’ve probably
heard it called gut instinct, or maybe a “hunch,”
or if you’re a spiritual type of person, perhaps
the voice of your higher self. One thing’s for
sure: intuition has nothing to do with intellect.
Entrepreneurs tend to be highly intuitive people.
They trust their gut and act on it. I don’t
mean to imply that the gut never steers you wrong,
but I have found that when I listen to mine, I make
a good decision an astonishingly high percentage of
the time.
A
Sense of Belief and Optimism. There is real
power in a positive attitude. From what I have seen
in my life, focusing on the positive usually pays
off. Holding a fierce belief that you can get the loan, you can close the deal, you can get the big client leads to goal-oriented
action—which leads to more goal-oriented action—which
leads to getting the loan, closing the deal and getting
the big client. Remember that you have to use your
optimism or you will lose it. The daily practice of
optimistic thinking, backed by hard work,
is a practical art.
If you do develop all eight traits in yourself, is success guaranteed? Of course not! That’s why becoming an entrepreneur may be one of the scariest things you’ll ever do. And yet, in my opinion, it’s the most courageous, fulfilling, authentic way to live your life. After you have experienced the ups (and yes, the downs) of owning your own business, you won’t be the same person. You will have grown tremendously and learned a lot about yourself along the way. Those facts alone, regardless of financial success, make it a journey worth taking.
10 Biggest Misconceptions About Business Ownership
by Ty Freyvogel
So
you're thinking of starting your own business. You've
done the research, and you think you have a solid
business plan…that is, until you share your
idea with friends and family. Everyone has a confidence-crushing
story to tell about a failed business or some dire
statistic that he or she has read. Indeed, there is
a lot of misinformation about entrepreneurship floating
around out there.
If you look around long enough, you will find all kinds of information that will discourage you from starting a business. A lot of that information is based in misconceptions, and most of the time those misconceptions are spread by people who don’t have an entrepreneurial nature like you and myself.
Allow me to clear up some of those misconceptions that are out there by taking a look at what I think the ten biggest misconceptions are about business ownership:
Misconception
#1: People will care that you are smart and knowledgeable.
REALITY: Unfortunately, they won't. You won't come
across many people in the business world who think
you are smarter than they are. The business world
is filled with people who proclaim they are the best
at buying, selling, investing, starting new businesses,
etc. So, don't count on anyone being impressed with your skills. However, you do have to have
a firm grasp on your strengths and weaknesses. You
need to know when you can handle a project on your
own and when you need to ask for help. Not knowing
could mean the end of your business.
Misconception #2: It's okay to
think in the short-term.
REALITY: When you start your own business, chances
are there will be times when you will have to decide
whether to sway from your long term plan in order
to meet your goals in the short-term. For example,
you may need money to meet payroll or make a change
in the business that you think is necessary and not
have the money to do it. What will you do? Stick to
your plan? Or will you make a decision that helps
you get by in the short-term like taking on a questionable
customer or accepting money from an investor you may
not trust? To be successful, you will have to find
a balance between when it is and isn't okay to deal
in the short-term.
Misconception #3: You will get to be your own boss.
REALITY: After you start your own business, your customers will be king. And unlike in the corporate world, your business will depend greatly on the satisfaction of your new bosses. I am sure that no matter how demanding your past bosses have been, none of them will match your most demanding customer. Be prepared to focus only on their happiness.
Misconception #4: You will have more free time than you did at your 40-hour a week job.
REALITY: Actually, when you own your own business, you don’t have any free time. Your main focus, almost 24/7, will be making sure everything is taken care of at your new business. And you will find there is always something to take care of. You need to be prepared to make those sacrifices and have a plan in place on how you will balance the time you spend at your new business with the time you spend with your friends and family.
Misconception #5: It’s beneficial to keep your secrets secret.
REALITY: You may be concerned that if the secrets for your business plan get out, someone else will be waiting in the wings to steal your ideas. However, you should be more concerned about bringing a business to the market that no one has any interest in. Starting a business that has no potential customers is a recipe for disaster. Keeping secrets from investors can be especially detrimental. Never tell an investor there is a certain aspect of your business that you don’t want to talk about. It is important that you keep the line of communication open. Of course, in the real world, there are some things you should keep to yourself. But know what they are. Chances are the investors that are talking to you are talking to other business owners as well, and you don’t want to feed them information that they can share with a competitor. Over time, you will learn how to direct the line of questioning so that you don’t give away more information than you should.
Misconception #6: If you are starting your own business, you need to have a lot of money.
REALITY: Most entrepreneurs don’t have a lot of money to start out with. You can always increase your capital by bringing on more investors or raising more money on your own, but I don’t think that is necessary. In fact, I prefer working with a smaller budget in the beginning. It will force you to pay more attention to detail and help you figure out ways to cut costs from the beginning. Most importantly for me it has always been a strong motivator.
Misconception #7: There is no job security.
REALITY: Whose job is really completely safe these days? The answer is “no one’s.” Big companies announce huge layoffs almost every week. Because you can never truly count on your company to stay open until your retirement and because you never know when the company you work for will cut your benefits or pay for whatever reason, you might as well put your fate in your own hands. When you start your own business, you always know where the money is coming from and where the money is going. And you will never be surprised one day at work when your boss tells you he has to let you go.
Misconception #8: You have to know a lot about business.
REALITY: You don’t have to have an MBA to start and run a successful business. In fact, many of the most famous entrepreneurs had no business back ground. Bill Gates never graduated from college. Ben Cohen, co-founder of Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream, studied pottery and jewelry making in college, not business. What these go-getters did have was a passion and a belief in what they were doing. You can’t learn how to be passionate about what you are doing from a book, but there are tons of business books out there to help you along the way. If you start out with a lot of passion, you will pick up the business knowledge over time.
Misconception #9: As long as you have a passion for it, the business will be successful.
REALITY: I’ve been preaching that having passion for your new business is one of the most important aspects you need to have when starting out, and it is important. Yes . . . (here comes the but) but if you want your business to be successful, it is going to take more than just passion. To be successful you need to find customers. You need to make sure there are people out there who want to use your product or who need your services. You also need to keep your eyes open to new opportunities. You never know where your next big deal will come from or when someone will give you an idea that will work great for your business.
Misconception #10: A no-growth business is a dying business.
REALITY: This just simply isn’t true. It takes time for a business to grow and expand. The biggest mistake entrepreneurs make is forcing their new business to grow before it is ready. People get impatient and think they should be taking their business to the next level, and so they begin offering unnecessary discounts and accepting business that may not be good for the company. Most importantly, you don’t want your business to start growing before you have the means to support it. If you have tons of business and no employees to talk with the customers or order supplies, you won’t be able to give your customers the quality service they were promised. And if they aren’t happy, they will leave and they won’t look back.
When you decide to take the leap and start your own business, there will be people lined up at your door telling you what a bad idea it is. Each person will have at least one “fact” about starting your own business that he hopes will dissuade you from taking the plunge. Now, with these ten tips under your belt you will know what to tell naysayers when they start warning you about the evils of entrepreneurship. And if you heed the advice I have given in these tips, you will be laughing at their ill-informed advice all the way to the bank.
Facing The Dark Side of Entrepreneurship
by Ty Freyvogel
Coming soon
|
