Tip no.1: Your mindset matters.
Your mindset is a set of beliefs that shape how you make sense of the world and yourself. Your mindset shaped your past, is shaping your present and it will shape your future. It influences how you think, feel, and behave. There are two types of mindset: the fixed mindset and the growth mindset. A growth mindset will ignite creativity, innovation and success while a fixed mindset will smother creativity, innovation and frustrates success. How “cut out” you are to be an entrepreneur depends on your mindset more than anything else. Entrepreneurs cultivate a growth mindset and so must you.
Tip no. 2: Be patient and stay focused.
There’s no such thing as over night success. Growing a business takes time, effort and strategy. Without patience it’s so easy to give up and without focus your business will soon get derailed. Focus is especially important for entrepreneurs. You have to ensure that the vision and impact you want to create lines up with the tasks you perform and the spaces you occupy. It’s an intentional effort to steer your business in the direction you want it to go. Simply focusing on the day to day running of the business without considering the company’s mission and vision will take you off course.
Tip no. 3: Be mission driven.
I’m sure you have a mission statement for your business but does your company function and live by it as a team? Being mission driven means upholding what you stand for as a company, cultivating a strong work culture driven by deep engagement and revolving all activities around the mission. . High-performance organizations are linked to being mission-driven companies. Companies that consistently creates value that aligns with their mission are the ones that end up beating their competition. Customers know what value you create and can trust your brand above your competitors.
Tip no. 4: Hire the right people.
Employees are the rods that keep the company standing. They directly influence the productivity and efficiency of your organization. Therefore selecting the right people to perform roles in your company is very important. When you hire the right candidate for a particular position, you save time, money and avoid undergoing additional job searches incase this person mess up. If you want to hire the right people, you have to be willing to take your time to search for people with the right skills, experience and attitudes. You also need to provide onboarding for new hires and pay your staff well and on time.
Tip no. 5: Understand your cost.
The quickest way to put yourself out of business is to spend more then you make. And yet, I’ve spoken to so many small business owners who do not keep proper records of their sales and expenditures and worse, carry the business in their personal bank accounts. Understanding your costs and keeping accurate records of it is vital for making informed business decisions. It helps you determine the profitability of your operations. Since resources may be limited, you must learn to be cost-effective. This requires a full understanding of your cost centers. While you don’t have to worry about identifying every single dollar of your costs, you do need to focus on the most important ones that makes significant impact on the business.
Tip no. 6: Build a community.
Nowadays, almost everything is done online. We advertise online and our customers learn about our business and engage with us online. Knowing this, entrepreneurs need to intentionally build their online community of supporters, customers and followers. To do this effectively you must first identify your niche or the group of people you want to target, then create valuable content that they can benefit from. Your online content should go beyond “buy my product”. Once you’ve attracted your niche, engage them regularly and consistently.
Tip no. 7: Expand your marketing effort.
I can’t over emphasize the importance of marketing your business. This doesn’t just stop at creating a Facebook page and running some ads. You have to know the products you sell and the customers that have need for them. You have to be creative about reaching these customers regularly and consistently. When you expend your marketing efforts like this you build your reputation as leader in your niche, engage your target customers, keep your business relevant, and make informed investment decisions.
Tip no. 8: Be true to your unique vision.
Let’s face it, the entrepreneurship journey is both rewarding and challenging. Sometimes the obstacles and setbacks can be so overwhelming that it can cause you to lose your balance and focus. Feelings of doubts and discouragement are normal but what helps the entrepreneur stay on track is remembering the vision. Why did you start this business in the first place? Your vision has to be deep and centered around a purpose because if your vision is just about making money, you will soon find yourself starting and quitting several businesses.
Tip no. 9: There is no exact blueprint to success.
Finally, I want you to know that there is no blue print to success, we’re all just faking as we go. No, seriously! The internet is filled with every idea you think you need to “get rich quick”, “succeed in business”, “attract money” etc. Whether any of these ideas are right for you depends on what your goals are and what you’re willing to do to achieve them. My advice, instead of trying to find the “keys” to success, focus more on creating a vision for your life and business then failing forward. Contrary to how this may sound, failing forward means learning by doing. It’s means having an idea, implementing that idea, checking the impact of the idea on the business (whether you accomplished your goal or not), and learning from that experience. It means cultivating a growth mindset and staying open to how the world is changing around you. It means being willing to pivot and adapt when necessary.
Did you like reading this article? Let me know your thoughts in the comments and if you wanna learn more about cultivating a growth mindset read this article.
Balance with Ade 