Category: Entrepreneurialism

To begin with you should write down your concept as to what you economically want to do as precisely as you can in only one paragraph. But in doing this you have to watch out for the various traps that exist in developing a concept. They are; 1) it won’t work, 2) you can’t make any money on it, 3) there is no market for it, and 4) there can be unpredictable customer behaviour. But also remember this; that the customer has to pay at least 5 times the direct cost of a product.

Now there are three types of Business entries that you should consider. They are; 1) starting from scratch whereby you should be prepared to take 5 to 8 years to start a business, 2) buying an existing business whereby the risks are less by saving time (1 year) for the business to be operational, buying cheaper assets, and by assuming cheaper financing, and/or 3) in buying a franchise whereby the risk would only be about 30%. Also you could be an Entrepreneur within a company as well.

The ideal business actually should have; 1) no investment, 2) an identifiable market, 3) a low cost supply, 4) minimum government regulations, 5) good price-cost ratio, 6) frequent buyers, 7) favourable tax treatment, 8) a good distributing system, 9) news value, 10) technical fashion obsolescence, 11) perishability and, 12) weather proofness

Three types of business plans should be written once your concept of a business starts to materialize. They are; 1) The Feasibility Plan, 2) The Operational Plan and, 3) The Financial Plan. Financing for the business could be accomplished by; 1) cash from customers, 2) sub-contracting, 3) your own money, 4) borrowing (from as few as possible) or 5) by leasing.

The Management team, if you decide to assemble one, should include; 1) the creator, 2) the driving force, 3) the marketer (the marketing strategy should be to find the competitive edge either in quality, price, or service) and, 4) a financial expert. Then you should give each of them part of the rock and teach them to listen to others.

Use the Experience of Others for a Jump Start

It’s often valuable to study not just your own past success, but the successes of other people. This is something successful people do. They don’t just study one person’s experience and say, “Well, whatever mistakes they made, I won’t make, whatever things they did right, I’ll do.” Instead, they study perhaps 50 histories of successful people. They look at all of the mistakes that those successful people made and then they come up with a pattern. They use this pattern when they are getting ready to make a decision. Now you can think, “OK, I’ve read that so-and-so did that in 1973 that didn’t work, and someone else did it in 1979 and it did work, so what was the difference?” “If I do this in my own business, what are the odds that it will work, what are the odds that it might not work?” That’s when you look at the experiences of other people…

… when your own experience bucket is light, you can fill your experience bucket with other people’s experiences.

Feeling Confident with Your Own Decisions

I remember when Peyton Manning had just come to the Denver Broncos and they played something like 3 or 4 games. Somebody asked him a question about a particular game and his response is something that made an impact on me and I continue to think about his response from time to time, especially when I’m in difficult situations. He made a comment something like this, “Well, as we make mistakes together as a team, and as we perform different plays in different difficult situations, we have those experiences in our memory. In the future, when we encounter a new situation and we don’t know what to do, as a team, we can rely back on our successes and failures in similar situations. As a team, we’ll be able to do better going forward.” He was much more succinct than that, but that’s the concept. I use that when I’m considering risk taking and doing decision making – I’m able to look back on my successes and failures and I’m also able to look at other peoples successes and failures.

Okay, back to you: there are two key factors here: one is experience and the other is failure. As you get more experience and as you have more failures, you’re able to evaluate the next step with more precision. Again, you may be thinking, “I have no experience, and I’ve never failed, so what can I do?”

You have a blank slate, so that means that whatever you do next might fail or succeed but you have absolutely no idea what the odds are. Some people might freeze and do nothing because of that. The problem is, if you have no experience and you freeze and do nothing, you will always have no experience!

What if you look at it differently and say: “Being able to make good decisions in the future is impacted by the amount of experience that I have, and the more failures that I have. So therefore, in order to rely on my own experience bucket, I need a few experiences, and I need a few failures.”

And, if that’s the case, the question might be asked, “Does it matter if you fail?” “Does it matter if you try something for one month, or one day, and it fails?” “Does it even matter if it succeeds?” My opinion is that the only way in which it matters is that it adds to your experience bucket.

That means that if you make a decision today, and you’ve never made a decision before, it doesn’t make any difference whether you’re right or wrong. You’re just adding to your experience bucket. Tomorrow you make another decision – and again it doesn’t matter if you’re right or wrong, you add to your experience bucket.

I’m going through the baby bumps of starting my own business. Yet, I know that what I’m doing is the right thing in the long run… because living off a government job is not the way I’m going to achieve success and happiness in this life. We’ve all been programmed that good benefits and pension are the way towards freedom but at the same time, in my experience I’ve never felt more insecure than working a union dayjob. Everyone’s always fearing layoffs and by nature a large organization is full of politics.

I don’t need that kind of insignificant stress and negativity. Life’s too short.

Cut out everything that isn’t serving you in your life.

But anyways now that I’ve been working on my online business and website- trying to grow an email list and audience, learn about marketing, learn about the technical aspects of web-development and still maintain some semblance of a content creation schedule, it can be overwhelming to say the least.

Another mental ordeal I struggle with is that, I’ve gone back into old habits of doubt, fear and worry about finances. In my first month of launching a new website there were inherently a lot of expected and unexpected administrative costs with getting the hosting and registration of the websites setup, as well as business and legal costs to set the company properly setup with the city. And of course I learned a lot in putting a lot up in the front end towards marketing to begin growing an email list.

Again, the costs and process is overwhelming, but in hindsight I guess the beginning stage is the hardest.

The marketing itself was a huge lesson because I think I overspent on buying clicks for my email list. Lesson learned and now I think I’ll turn towards Facebook Ads which could be potentially more lucrative and efficient monetarily as it’s much more targeted.

Last year I joined an online marketing course and I feel it’s time to dive back into the material because there is a lot of good info on paid online advertising, and I definitely need up my skill in that area if I’m to grow my business.

These next couple months are make or break for me because I really am determined to never return to a day job… but the fears and doubts of running a business and providing a better life for my family and whether I am capable have been weighing me down.

But I know I am capable of being a great writer and content producer and also I know that I am able to solve problems that I’ve encountered in my life.

So rather than wasting my time on dwelling on all the issues that are just inherent in starting a business it’s time to roll up my sleeves and start taking action again.

Any entrepreneur can become an infopreneur as it depends on one’s skills. Many infopreneurs make use of their skills while outsourcing those tasks he is not good at.

There are certain differences between entrepreneurs and infopreneurs when it comes to running the business. The opportunities online obviously differs from entrepreneurs who takes risk of ownership of the business through management proficiency. Infopreneurs take maximum advantage of market practices and are considered to be accommodating massive number of customers compared to entrepreneurs. The reason lies in having access to numerous platforms online where infopreneurs meet more customers than in case of brick and mortar businesses run by entrepreneurs.

However, both entrepreneurs and infopreneurs require similar fundamental qualities of risk taking, determination and confidence. Even the goals are similar as that of any other business, which is, generating higher revenues and continuously incorporate novel ideas.

There is a gradual move seen from entrepreneurship to infopreneurship because of less capital required in this domain. Intellectual capital is considered necessary for innovation and creativity to make full use of technological advancements. Time and energy is not wasted to hire employees unless the work is outsourced and one does not have any established contacts. The risk is slightly higher for an infopreneur as it is difficult to grab ideas and make it a successful business initially. Considering other risks such as financial, legal and social risks are least for an infopreneur. Furthermore, infopreneurs have more time liberation and flexibility as compared to entrepreneurs.

An infopreneur usually does the entire work himself starting off with publishing information in to an electronic format. With the help of a service provider who copies information at minimum cost so that the infopreneur can sell the final product to its clients. Infopreneurs are generally good with online marketing and that is the basic reason for their success. They know the fundamentals to generate traffic that would increase their online sales. They are also exceptional copywriters and this is the key skill they use to boost their profits.

• The Founder’s Dilemmas: Anticipating & avoiding the pitfalls that can sink a Startup by Noam Wasserman

Noam Wasserman teaches a class called ‘Founder’s Dilemmas’ at Harvard Business School. This book is the culmination of Noam’s actual research and that class. He mainly focuses on the key dilemmas that a startup founder will face when starting a company. All the information related to founder dynamics, solo founders, optimal number of founders and their roles and relationships, equity allocations between founders is covered in the book.

• The Lean Startup: How Today’s Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Business by Eric Reis

Eric Reis talks about the lean startup approach that is being adopted across the globe, changing the way companies are built and new products are launched. It fosters companies that are not only capital efficient but also focus human creativity more effectively. The book also highlights the current trend toward quick, low-cost startups that prefer action over research. The impressive insights that Reis provides can be applied to any startup, making this book a must read for all promising entrepreneurs.

• Peter Principle: Why Things Always Go Wrong by Laurence J. Peter and Raymond Hull

This book contains made-up stories about administrative and business hierarchies. The idea of the Peter Principle has been explained very lucidly. “In a hierarchy every employee tends to rise to his/her level of incompetence.” When people perform well at their job, they are eligible for promotion. This cycle continues until they are promoted to a role for which they are incompetent to perform the duties. At that point they have reached their ‘final placement’. They are no longer eligible for further promotions because they have reached their level of incompetence. The authors have tried to address the question of incompetence in the work force today. Entrepreneurs may get to understand staffing issues from a whole new perspective.

• How much Income (net profit) would you like your new venture to bring in annually after: 6 months, 1 year, 5 years, 10 years, 20 years or more? If you are simply buying yourself a job but have so many more headaches, longer hours and greater risks (95% of businesses fail in their 1st 5 years) is that worth it to you?
• Along with creating income now will be your ability to sell and retire or retire and continue to earn residual income. As a former Real Estate Agent I saw many Agents build their business on their name alone and when it came time to retire it was very difficult to sell their business entity when it was so based on their personal name. What “exit strategy” or planning for retirement can you build towards? Would you be able to have early retirement?
• Closely related to income is how large you intend to grow. Is this a business that will be dependent upon your efforts alone or can you hire and expand – locally, nationally, internationally?
• A huge consideration will be amount of time that is needed to run your business and not just the operation of the business itself but things like bookkeeping, purchasing supplies, any training and meetings for yourself and/or staff, opening or closing, driving or non-productive time that would detract away from your time selling your product or service. (Usually done before or at the end of your already long day)
• Along with time is cost of starting a business vs. the gross profits or cost of running a business vs. gross profits. How much money will you keep? How much money will you need for starting a business? Will you need the help of investors? Who would you approach? Do you have a business plan ready to present?
• Do you know your personality type, your strengths and your weaknesses? You may be a promoter but can your personality type handle the finances? You may have great skill level in your area but can you manage and train others if you plan on expanding your business? Is there a difference between being an Entrepreneur and Small Business Owner or an Entrepreneur and Large Business Owner?

Imposter syndrome has its roots in insecurity that one is not smart enough or capable to do anything worthwhile. It is a deep dark well of despair where one has this constant fear of being discovered to be a fraud and an impostor. Every achievement is seen as an opportunity where others can unearth the “fraudulent” you lurking somewhere under the guise of “achiever” you. It becomes a vicious circle of self-loathing to over come these feelings one works twice as hard and then again falls prey to the destructive feeling of being discovered as a phony. It is an emotional itch that slowly gnaws at your triumphs and turns them into sorrows of the deepest kind. Since most of this happens inside a person’s head, they don’t speak about it.

Imposter syndrome is often characterized by the fear of not being able to live up to the expectations of people. It is the dread of being evaluated and the refusal to accept praise and compliments for one’s accomplishments. It could also be referred to as the curse of the super achievers as they refuse to believe in their own competence and attribute their success to luck, timing or more importantly deceiving others to believe in their intelligence. There is always an overwhelming sense of being not good enough and getting caught for it. Anxiety and panic are the wicked stepsisters of imposter’s syndrome and thus are always trying to make it worse.

The answer lies within.

“Because one believes in oneself, one doesn’t try to convince others. Because one is content with oneself, one doesn’t need others’ approval. Because one accepts oneself, the whole world accepts him or her.”

•Lao Tzu

Learning to separate feelings from facts is the first step towards fighting the imposter syndrome. Just because you have a certain feeling about something does not necessarily translate into reality. You should trust your achievements and your strengths. You should believe that your success is the reward for your hard work and brilliance and not a fluke. Find yourself a mentor who would praise your accomplishments, provide constructive criticism and give you enough room to grow and improve.

As an entrepreneur you have lots of opportunities to win over the imposter feeling. Here are some things you can do to reclaim the full value of what you have to offer and your ability to bring it out into the world.

Do Something That Scares the Beejeezus Out of You

We tend to shy away from doing new things because we don’t want to be seen as inept in any way. The problem with that way of thinking is that it takes a lot of practice to get really good at doing anything. If you don’t do anything new you can’t master anything new. Make a point each and every day to learn something new, tackle something new or do something that you’ve never done before. The experience will give you more confidence that you’re well on your way to excellence even if you stumble and fall along the way.

Own An Achievement

Each and every day you accomplish things large and small. Own and acknowledge all of it. Provide your own validation. If someone gives you a compliment embrace it. Too often out of modesty we deflect the praise offered to us. Note if you’re inner babblecrap is serving up some justification why the accolades are misguided. Stuff a sock in that commentary between the ears.

Keep The Bar High

Some entrepreneurs hold themselves and their business back by keeping a low bar on milestone achievement. Stretch what you think it possible. Go for it! Mitigate your risks along the way as you push to reach higher and higher levels of achievement. Accept the fact that mistakes, and the lessons you can learn from them, are an essential part of extraordinary growth. To be extraordinary you have to do extraordinary, out of the ordinary, things.

Screw it, just do it.

When you realize that you are holding yourself back take the attitude of screw it, just do it. Muster up your moxie, your guts, your cajones and take a bold step. You’ll know when you are holding yourself and your business potential back when you are Finding Excuses And Reasons (F.E.A.R.) for not doing what deep down inside you know you need to do or if you feel like you just want to F*#k Everything And Run (F.E.A.R.). As a savvy entrepreneur you will circumvent the downside of any large risk as you keep moving forward anyway. Screw it, just do it? What’s the worse that can happen? The worse that can happen is that it won’t work out as you expected. Something even better can come out of it or, at the very least, you’ll discover a silver lining which will eventually be an essential part of your ultimate incredible success.

There is likely to be a bit of the imposter lurking deep within all of us. The key is to recognize if for what it is, and for what it is not, and never allow it to rule over us.

Dare to Be Real

Just as Oscar Wilde said “”Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.” If you try to shape-shift yourself to please everyone you are valued by no one in particular. Trying to fit your business and your personality into what you think everyone will like is a recipe for mediocrity. Mediocre business cannot sustain. They’re crushed by businesses out there, taking a bold stand, and daring to piss off a few folks. This doesn’t mean you have to build a big business. If a small business is what’s real for you, real for what you want get out of your business experience, then that’s fine. Many small businesses are great because they can serve smaller amounts of people even more greatly. Be willing to stay true to what you know will rock your world instead of what others think about how you and your business should be. This means that you have to be honest with yourself, authentic in your communications and transparent in your brand. Not everyone will fall in love with what they see. That’s fine and dandy. Just continue to be real and deliver a stellar experience to those you serve.

• Time. No nine to five for you, my friend. You’ll probably work more hours than that, but if you need to go to school sports day or to the park because it’s a sunny afternoon, well, you can do – because you’re in charge. You can catch up with the work when the sun’s gone down.
• Place. Technology freed us from the need to ‘be’ somewhere years ago. It was corporations that required us to drive up and down motorways for self-serving internal meetings when we might have video-conferenced them. As your own boss you can become a ninja expense manager and eliminate all of that wasted time. Work wherever it suits you. In a coffee shop. On a beach. Whilst baby-sitting. In front of the TV. Effectively, work where you please.
• Dress code. Dress down every day, if you want to. Stay in your PJs all day, if it suits you, and you’re comfortable with the risk that a client might Skype you at any moment – but be certain to have your work head on at all times.
• No politics. Every office has politics. It’s unavoidable. It’s less obvious than it used to be, but in medium or large-scale enterprises, there will always be ‘water-cooler’ conversations about who said what to whom, and why; the latest gossip from the ‘5th floor’ and worries about who might be ‘at risk’ in the latest re-organisation.
• No waste. How many people working in even medium-sized organisation can see things happening that add no value to the enterprise, but suck money out of it? Most of them, probably. In your own business you can eliminate all of that waste at a stroke, and focus on what’s important – client satisfaction. Use the expense manager app, and you’ll always know at a glance how you stand financially.
• Earn more. The labourer is worthy of his hire, goes the Bible quotation. If you’re employed, chances are you’re not able to earn more if more work lands on your desk. Self-employed or a lone worker, then more work equals more invoices equals more income. And that’s a real sweetener when you’re still at your desk at 11pm!
• Choice. Whatever product or service you think you can find a market for, you’re free to chase. If it doesn’t work, move onto the next one. What’s more, you can choose your clients to make yourself better at expense management by removing more of that waste. There’s the story of a window cleaner who made a very nice second income by selling half of his business every year of 18 months; keeping the best clients for himself, and ‘selling on’ the ones who needed more time lavishing on them, or the complainers…
• Making decisions. When you know something is right, then being in charge of your own destiny, or your own company, puts you in a position to be fleet of foot, make the decision, and seize the opportunity