Are you starting out as an entrepreneur? If so, you may not know where to begin when it comes to navigating the world of business. In this article, we’ll take a look at a number of tips and tricks for budding entrepreneurs to steer your business efforts in the right direction.
Knowledge is Power
Learn as much as you can about as much as you can. It’s often cited how Steve Jobs used his calligraphy lessons at Reed College to later design the iconic Apple logo typography. Often, entrepreneurs become myopic when it comes to their industry, only to be blinded to other opportunities that, at first glance, seem unrelated. Keep your mind open to different topics that may seem esoteric or unnecessary. It may be only later when you truly realize the value of what you’ve learned to do or not do.
Expand Your Comfort Zone
You’ve probably already heard about this concept, but it needs to be repeated for it to sink in: expand your comfort zone. As creatures of habit, entrepreneurs can become easily impressed with initial success and stay within those parameters. Understanding which parts of entrepreneurship make you uneasy or uncomfortable is an indicator of what you must examine.
There’s No Such Thing as Failure
In business, you will fail. And you should relish every opportunity towards failure because it will shine light on assumptions and errors that will rear their ugly heads when you decide to scale your business (see below). New entrepreneurs may be depressed when they encounter failure, but think of failure more as “constructive feedback.” With this approach, you can profit from every mishap instead of feeling lesser.
On the contrary, if you don’t fail, you should be worried. This means that either you don’t recognize where your business plan is coming up short or that there’s a much larger problem brewing beneath the surface. In fact, there’s a famous quote from IBM’s second president Thomas Watson Jr. that says, “If you want to increase your success rate, double your failure rate.”
Learn How to Delegate
Foolish business owners try to take on every responsibility and task, almost as a badge of honor or fuel for their workaholism. However, one misstep and all of those tasks — which may normally be in your capabilities — can turn on you and sink your business.
That’s where delegation of tasks is essential. Often, novice entrepreneurs are wary of assigning tasks to other people in regards to quality, or (more commonly) they may feel that they don’t know how to delegate work adequately.
So, how does one learn how to delegate? By delegating. There are no shortcuts to the process, but what you’ll soon notice is how well your employees work (their strengths and weakness) and how accurately you convey what you want accomplished.
Scale as Soon as Possible
It’s rare that you’ll find a high-revenue business that has remained the same size from its beginnings. This means that businesses generally grow in an organic process as they increase in size. Similarly, scaling includes making methods more efficient and replicable. For instance, if you find yourself handling all of your inbound phone calls, perhaps it’s time to hire staff to handle this incoming demand. Furthermore, if your business feels like it’s tapped out local markets and an expansion to new markets is at hand, why not use virtual phone numbers to scale your business to efficiently grow your business in a cost-effective way? It’s the early-adoption of methods like these that can easily separate your business from the amateurs and propel you into the big leagues.
Appearances are Important
Everything about running a business is about appearances and how the public perceives your viability to meet their needs. For instance, would you think a business that offers toll free numbers instead of local area numbers is capable of handling your needs? You’ll want to leave no stone unturned to ensure that nothing seems out of place, whether this is as simple as making every public document typo-free to ensuring that your corporate logo matches high-dollar organizations.
by Tom Senkus
Author’s Bio: For the past 15 years, Tom Senkus has been a freelance writer and international entrepreneur. For more information about his list of services and published work, visit www.tomsenkuswriter.com
