Many people wonder whether there is a guaranteed formula for becoming a successful entrepreneur. The entrepreneurship journey is as unique as a thumbprint for any business person. Entrepreneur ideas and methodologies are always unique and idiosyncratic. However, their thinking and implementation strategies tend to be the same. In fact, recent research has shown that entrepreneurs who have built two or more successful companies followed the same style.
If it has worked for others, the probability is high that budding entrepreneurs can apply parallel methods. Becoming an entrepreneur, for instance, doesn’t require you to have a college degree. According to Forbes Magazine, about 18 percent of the world’s wealthiest entrepreneurs were college dropouts. However, these are exceptions, not the norms. Often, you will find out you can start small and grow to become successful. However, then again, business growth and success do not happen overnight, there are procedures to be developed and implemented.
Here are the ten significant steps that you can undertake to build and grow a thriving business.
- Be Passionate About Your Business
There’s no doubt that passion is the thing that drives commitment to a course including your business. You have to be passionate about the idea you have for business and be willing to sacrifice to make it work. Passion will help ignite the intensity you need to succeed and help you spread it to other people who join you as your business team expands. With passion, your staff and customers will truly believe in your products or services.
- Create Strategic Business Goals
Every successful entrepreneur is always in the business of setting short and long-term goals for their business. Goals will help you grow, measure success, improve, and gain more revenue. Equally, goals will help you project your company three or five years to come allowing you to see the macro view your business. Let’s agree that without them your business has no purpose – think a swimming pool without water. Your business minus goals will struggle and stagnate. If you truly want to join the list of successful entrepreneurs out there, goals must become a systematic part of your ongoing business operations.
- Work Smarter and Harder
There’s always a price for every dream, and you, therefore, need to put in the work if you are going to succeed. Every successful business person has a tale of sweat and hard work. There’s also no such thing as luck in business; luck only accompanies those that have already worked hard. Efficacious entrepreneurs give nothing less than 100% efforts to their ventures. Successful business people keep focusing on things they can control. For instance, the average wake up time for top CEOs has been reported to be between 5:00 AM and 6:00 AM. Most of them have also reported working extra hours after leaving office including planning business related dinners. In many cases, they work for approximately 16-hours and credit their success to working hard and smart.
- Be Focused on Your Business Mission
To be successful in your entrepreneurship endeavors, you also need to be absorbed in your company mission. Focusing enables you to reduce wasted efforts and distractions. It is possible to find yourself engaged in too many operations that are not helping your business, which is why it is essential to plan and be concentrated on business operations that align with your mission. Prosperous entrepreneurs don’t allow themselves to be distracted by too many business ventures. Don’t take more than you can chew, instead, center and commit to your primary business mission.
- Be Positive Minded
A positive attitude is crucial if you will succeed in entrepreneurship. Developing a positive attitude is a keystone without which it will be very challenging to come up with any resolve to obtain long-term success. It will impact your work performance, relationships and everything around you. Choosing to be positive means that you are making a cognizant choice to remain positive no matter your circumstances. If you believe and are positive about what you do, every other person will follow suit. Jack Ma, co-founder, and CEO of Alibaba Group – world’s largest e-commerce companies – says his business did not make any profit for the first three years, but he remained positive about it. A positive attitude keeps you knowing that you will soon achieve your mission.
- Be a Risk Taker
No one has ever made it in entrepreneurship without diving into a world of uncertainty that is risked. In fact, starting a business in itself is a risk as you are not sure how it will work out. However, don’t just take any risks, go for calculated and managed risks. Successful entrepreneurs take risks that take time and money, but they also plan on reserves for dealing with unknowns. So take risks but evaluate them first. Ask yourself questions like, “Is this deal worth business time and money?”, “What will happen if it doesn’t work out?” As such, you can reduce your chances of suffering from the consequences of unmanaged risks
- Invest in Product and Market Research
Without proper market research, everything you do is built on guesswork. Many entrepreneurs therefore work closely with their initial clients to understand and gain knowledge on how to improve products and services. Well, this is a good thing. Nonetheless, the successful ones know that they need to cast their nets on a much bigger market scope. They do deeper market research that includes surveys. They study entrepreneurship books, collect business magazines, business videos and more to enable them to learn more about customers and competitors to understand why clients purchase particular goods and services from them and other from competitors.Investing in market research will equip you with the same and provide you with insights that will help you know the right time to introduce a new product or even add workers. Additionally, it will help you identify opportunities and threats to your business providing you with business sustainability. If you cannot afford to do market surveys or buy the books and magazines, you can use the library and use the Internet.
- Build the Right Business Connections
According to a survey by Business Networks, 80 percent of people network for personal development while 95 percent do it to build relationships. Building the right relationships is vital to business success. Whom you spend your business time with, will determine the opportunities that can come your way as business opportunities are attached to people – partners, clients, mentors, venture capitalists, and investors, etc. Creating business connections will help you tell people about your business. In a way, it is a form of marketing your products and services as well as a way to obtain tips that can help grow your business.
- Be Patient
You cannot start a business today and expect it to be successful tomorrow. There are procedures to follow including building your brand and getting trust from your clients. Be prepared to take the baby steps and follow on. You may need to spend a few years working with a mentor. Also, invest in identifying the mistakes done by others so that you learn and don’t repeat them. Take time to brainstorm on how to improve your operations and business models. All of this factors takes time.
- Refuse to Give Up
You must have heard this statement a hundred times. Well, the truth is that it applies to all endeavors you undertake including building a business. Things will not always go as planned. Successful entrepreneurs tell tales of the many numbers of times they felt the need to give up, but they didn’t. They persisted and became successful. Thomas Edison failed 1000 in his effort to create a light bulb. If one process is not working, try others until you get one that will work effectively. But whatever you do, don’t give up.