Many people believe that entrepreneurship is not for everyone. However, the reality is that everyone can succeed in it if they know a few game-changing strategies. These are the same tactics that have seen people like Chris Jenkins and Derrick Coleman turn into very successful entrepreneurs in their respective areas.
Jenkins runs an organization called Giovanni Milan, a sneaker brand with a focus on minimalist luxury. Coleman, on the other hand, is the person behind Saig Investments. It’s an organization that focuses on empowering people to chart their path, using education.
Having said that, here are the strategies in question;
1. Run Your Businesses Full-Time
You’ve got to concentrate on your business full-time, if at all you want to see it grow and become a successful venture. You shouldn’t run it only part-time due to a full-time job, full-time course, or any other reason. If you study successful entrepreneurs like Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, you’ll learn that they each left what they were doing to concentrate on their entrepreneurship endeavors fully.
For example, Musk quit his job at PayPal to concentrate on his new business venture i.e Tesla Inc. Similarly, Zuckerberg dropped out of college to concentrate on Facebook. The same can be said for Gates who also dropped his full-time course at Havard to concentrate on Microsoft.
Key takeaway; It’s either you are in business or employment full time. You can’t have your cake and eat it too. To avoid getting mediocre results in entrepreneurship, you just have to let that job or course go and fully concentrate on your business.
2. Possess The Right Skills and Work Smart
Real entrepreneurs don’t work hard, they work smart. You see, there’s a big difference between working hard and working smart. That’s why you can put more hours into a business daily but make less than another person who puts in fewer hours simply because yours is hard work while theirs is smart work.
According to Derrick Coleman, people need to move away from the traditional idea of working hard to working smart even in entrepreneurship. However, he urges people to first learn the right skills before getting into entrepreneurship.
With the right skills i.e those that are in high demand, you’ll earn more working less. Also, you’ll have more time to do what you love doing even if it means traveling, playing video games, etc.
A highly profitable skill you can learn right now is game development. You see, video games are in high demand these days, thanks to the pandemic, which has grounded many people at home. It allows them more time to enjoy playing games.
That’s why games such as Solitairebliss are played online by hundreds of thousands of people daily. These games generate thousands of dollars or more daily, and the business is fairly profitable!
That’s why if I were to venture into a new business, I’d choose to deal in video games. But first, I’d learn the necessary game development skills that would enable me to develop games to sell to people.
3. Begin Small
A good number of successful businesses we see today have small, humble beginnings. For example, Apple Inc, which is one of the most valuable companies globally, began in the late Steve Job’s family garage. Jobs together with his former high school friend Volkswagen Stephen G. Wozniak had to raise working capital by selling their personal belongings.
Steve had to sell his Volkswagen minibus for $1500. Wozniak, on the other hand, had to dispose of his programmable calculator for $500. Together, the two friends started the now $2.08 trillion-worth company with only $1350.
The significance of starting small is that you won’t develop high expectations for your business too early. So, when things don’t turn out as they should in the first few years(which is always the case by the way), you won’t get discouraged.
Instead, you’ll continue to work on your business step by step until you eventually achieve and surpass the breakeven point. Thereafter, you’ll start comfortably making profits and growing your business accordingly.
4. Develop The Right Character Traits
Entrepreneurship requires certain character traits without which it’s hard to find success. Successful entrepreneurs like Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg got to where they are today because of strong willpower, determination, patience, and courage.
Before finding success in the tech world, Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg had to overcome the following challenges, using the above traits;
Elon Musk
- PayPal, a payment-remittance service he co-founded, was initially considered a terrible business concept by the public.
- Rejection of his job application by Netscape, which was then an emerging tech company.
- Demotion from the CEO role to a much lower role at ZIP2, a searchable business directory service he co-founded.
- Tesla, an electronic vehicle company he co-founded in 2003 faced bankruptcy between mid-2017 and mid-2019.
Mark Zuckerberg
- Getting funding and investors for Facebook.
- Getting people to sign up and use Facebook.
- A court battle with Facebook co-founders.
Did you know that it takes an average of two to three years for a business to become profitable? Well, at least now you do!
That means if you lack patience, determination, and strong willpower to make it in your venture, you may quit before your business becomes profitable.
5. Be Real and Transparent
Finally, if you want to succeed in business, be authentic and transparent. Avoid making unrealistic claims just to make sales because buyers can see right through it. They can easily tell when you are lying.
Be honest about your product or service i.e what it will do for customers. Use authentic testimonials and reviews from your customers to market and promote what you have to offer via outreach techniques. These will go a long way.
Final Thoughts
There’s a false notion that entrepreneurship isn’t for everyone. This belief is obviously from people who tried and failed in business due to not knowing the 5 strategies of successful entrepreneurship above.
Run your business full-time. Seek the right skills & work smart. Begin small. Have the right character traits, and be real as well as transparent.
When you apply these secrets, your chances of success in entrepreneurship will increase significantly. Trust me, these are the exact secrets(especially secrets #1-4) that have made people like Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg be who they are today.
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