7 Do's When Striving for Entrepreneurial Success
Becoming an entrepreneur can be difficult. It’s not just starting a business but also maintaining it, consistently luring in customers and earning profit at the same time. Some may consider leaving their full-time jobs and becoming a entrepreneur a daunting prospect, but the rewards outweigh the risks when done right. If you plan on starting a business soon, here are seven do’s when striving for entrepreneurial success:
1. Do talk to people for advice
Confidence is key when it comes to entrepreneur success, especially when starting a business. But you shouldn’t act alone and do everything yourself if you plan to succeed long-term. Talk to people, particularly those who have started a business, so that you can be guided on the different aspects of starting and running a business. You can also seek advice from government personnel and business experts (particularly in the field of finance and marketing) on how to deal with specific processes.
Although doing all your research online can be beneficial, it doesn’t compare to actually asking advice from people who know the job on the ground. So, take all the advice you can get. This won’t just help you find entrepreneurial or corporate success but also help you deal with numerous challenges when running a business.
2. Do plan long-term
Long-term planning is one of the few entrepreneurial characteristics that aspiring business leaders should have. Specifically, do long-term planning by forecasting how your small business will expand in the next three to five years. Planning for the next few years may be a complicated and lengthy process but it will help you deal with external issues more effectively.
When creating a long-term plan, include details regarding your production, financial, marketing, and information technology (IT) activities. Specifically, list down the products/services you will be selling or planning to sell, the costs to be incurred when making these products, the revenue and profit to be generated, and the marketing and IT solutions you will be investing in. Additionally, you will also want to do Porter’s Five Forces and PESTLE analysis to help you identify and analyze how certain external factors (government policies, interest rates, climate change, etc.) will affect your business.
3. Do consider what business you will be starting
Sometimes, entrepreneurs are faced with a tough choice of what business they want to start. It can either be a business that revolves around their skills or hobbies, a business that revolves around current trends, or a business that helps support the local community. Starting or maintaining a business will always fall on two factors: passion and technical skill. Whatever business venture you will pursue, make sure the two factors are always in play.
For example, a business that revolves around your personal hobbies (playing video games, listening to music, going on leisure travels, etc.) may not exactly generate revenue even if you very passionate about these hobbies. Alternatively, running a business based on current trends may not be sustainable five years down the line. With this, make sure the two mentioned factors should always be in play when making both short-term and long-term business decisions.
4. Do market testing before starting/expanding
Doing market testing is one of the key success factors that can help you better gauge how consumers react to your products and services. It is never advisable to immediately open your business and sell products to random people. By failing to do a market test, you will not just lose money fast but you are risking closing down your business even before it reaches its full potential.
By doing a market test, you immediately get proper customer feedback which you can use to improve your products and services. Once you’ve made the necessary adjustments, it won’t be long before you generate revenue and eventually become an entrepreneur success story.
5. Do minimize costs
Being frugal is one key to business success that can aid you greatly long-term. Oftentimes, costs can be the main reason why businesses never take off. Whether it be operational or overhead costs, always make sure to keep them manageable so that you won’t be running a business that is constantly low on funds. To help you minimize costs, focus resources on products and services that are essential to your business. For example, if you run a European restaurant don’t waste your finances on purchasing ingredients used in Asian and American dishes.
Although minimizing costs is a basic entrepreneurial strategy, never compromise the quality of your services as well as the compensation packages of your employees. You may not lose money now but it certainly affects the reputation of your business in the future.
6. Do measure your skills
As previously mentioned, technical skill and passion go together when starting a venture. But having the right entrepreneurial skills bear more weight since they are required when dealing with the technicalities that businesses face on a regular basis. You may rely on motivational building blocks but if you lack the skills to run a business from numerous fronts such as operations, marketing, finance, IT, and human resources, then your business is bound to fail sooner or later.
Always consider the skills that you currently possess and ask yourself if it is enough to help you grow your business from scratch and fend off competitors. If the answer is “no”, you can either improve on those skills or find a business partner that can aid you in the actual operations of the business.
7. Do consider starting a moonlight business
A moonlight business is a business that doesn’t operate during regular business hours. Taking a cue from its name, moonlight businesses operate at night and oftentimes close before offices start opening their doors in the morning. Despite these businesses operating when most people are asleep, they are very profitable.
Bars, restaurants, hotels, massage parlors, and convenience stores are some of the moonlight businesses you can consider. Although the potential revenue generated when running these businesses is very high, it can easily take a strain on one’s physical and mental health so think carefully before deciding to start a moonlight business in the future.
Final Word
Being a successful entrepreneur can be tough but as long as you rely on the seven items listed above, long-term success for your venture has become an easy guarantee. You also shouldn’t worry about lacking entrepreneur traits as you can always develop them while getting hand first-hand experience with your business.
