SECRETS OF SUCCESSFUL ENTREPRENEURS!
October 12th, 2008
Running a one-person business is a creative, flexible and challenging way to become your own boss and chart your own future. It is as much about creating a new life as it is about making a living. It takes courage, determination and foresight to decide to become an entrepreneur, especially if you are venturing into the unchartered territories of business from the relatively safe cocoon of the corporate world, where paychecks arrive regularly.
There is no secret formula to determine if your business will be all you dreamed, however most successful entrepreneurs have the following characteristics:
- PERSEVERE AND HAVE FAITH…no one said the road to success is easy. Despite your good intentions and hard work you will have setbacks but your courage to persist in the face of adversity and your ability to bounce back after a temporary disappointment will assure your success. You must learn to pick yourself up and star all over again.
- FOCUS ON YOUR STRENGTHS…You cannot be everything to everybody. Each of us has our own strengths and weaknesses. You must identify what they are and channel your efforts into the areas that you best and seek help or assistance in areas you were you are poor. Learn to transform your weaknesses into strengths, consider taking training classes.
- BE WILLING TO LEARN…You do not need to MBA or PhD to be successful in your business. In fact, studies show that most self-made millionaires have average intelligence but in order to succeed were willing to learn. You must be willing to ask questions and remain curious, interested and open to new knowledge and in this day of fast moving changes in technology it would be wise to now how to market on the internet.
- HAVE GOALS…..You have a vision and you have the faith in yourself to believe that you can achieve your dreams or goals. But do you know how to get to your dream and goals? It is easier if you have a concrete plan that will provide the steps toward your ultimate goal. Put that goal in writing, place in a location that you can see it everyday otherwise it is just a fantasy. Start each day with a list of things that you need to do that day to move closer to your goal. Your ability to set goals and make plans for your accomplishment are the skills necessary to succeed.
- NEVER CONSIDER THE POSSIBILITY OF FAILURE…As an entrepreneur you need to fully believe in your goals and that what you are doing will better your environment/mankind and personal self. You should alway have a strong faith in your ideas, capabilities and self and believe beyond a shadow of a doubt you have the ability to achieve your goal. Your confidence in achieving your goal should be balanced with calculated risk you need to take.
- CONSTANTLY LOOK FOR WAYS TO NETWORK…In business, you are judged by the company you keep. Great business people are always looking for ways make alliances with people who can help you and whom you can help in return. To succeed in business, you need to possess good networking skills and always be alert to opportunities to expand your contacts.
- THINK SUCCESS…To attain the kind of success you want, you need to have big dreams and a clear vision of what you want to achieve. You should actively visualized success in your mind until you can almost feel that it is within your reach. Management gurus have taught us the power of visualization-you can have what you want if you can simply envision it i.e. if you want to be rich, picture yourself in luxurious surroundings holding a fat bank book. Play this image back in your mind every opportunity. What does it feel like? How will it change your life? What will your business look like if you achieve the million-dollar mark? The process of envisioning success should be a constant activity; you need to think that you are (or will be) successful every single waking hour of every day.
- WORK HARD…Every successfully entrepreneur works hard, very hard. No one achieves success just by sitting and thinking about it all day. Personal success coach Brian Tracy put it this way “You work eight hours per day for survival, everything over eight hours per day is for success.” Successful business owners put in a lot hours to get started, anywhere from 10-60 hours per week. If you are in the star-up phase of your business, you will have to breathe, eat and drink your business until it can stand on its own. Working hard will be easy if you have a vision, clear goals and are passionate.
- BE PASSIONATE…Success in business is all about patience and hard work, which can only be attained if you are passionate about your goals. Entrepreneurs who succeed don’t mind the fact they are putting in lots of hours per day, because they absolutely love what they are doing. They know success will comes easily because they love what they do. Why? Because people are more relentless in the pursuit of goals they love. If you hate your job, do you think you will ever be successful or care? No way, you may plod along, even become competent at the your job but you will never be a great success at it because you are not passionate about it.. You will start a business to change some or all of your life. To attain this, you need to develop or uncover an intense, personal passion to change the way things are and live your life to the fullest.
- LIFE IS SHORT….Life is too short to not to live each day with passion.
rebecca russell
