Journaling isn’t something people associate immediately with entrepreneurs, but it’s an important part of building mental toughness and setting up the road to success. Here’s why freelancers, small business owners, and entrepreneurs should keep a journal.
Reflection and Mindset
It’s not easy to start your own business. Find me a business owner who says that it’s easy to succeed at your own business, and I’ll owe you a fire-breathing dragon.
Mental toughness is crucial for the self-employed. There are guaranteed bad days when you question the wisdom of your decisions and guaranteed good days when you see your dream within reach.
Journaling helps build that mental toughness. Write about what went well and what you need to work on. It’s a time to evaluate your progress, work out your problems, and face your fears.
When you see your fears and problems in print, you can look your “adversary” in the face. Is it fear of failure? Is it financial struggles? What can you do next to deal with these issues?
Write about your successes as well. Celebrate your first customer or first employee. Be proud of your new skills.
Document these good days and bad days as a reminder that starting a business is like a roller coaster ride, and if you hang on, you’ll get past the ups and downs.
Goal Setting
Putting your thoughts on paper is the first step to getting organized. It’s okay to write your thoughts in a jumble in your journal. When you’ve got what’s on your mind on paper, you can start planning next steps.
For example, you’re excited about getting your first client.
What’s next? Would repeating the same actions get you the same results? Could you get the next client in half the time it took you to acquire the first?
If you’re deeply concerned about your financial situation (maybe you owe money from loans to start your business), then jot down a plan. What could you do to ease your stress? It could be taking a closer look at your bank balance. Or speaking to someone for some advice.
Journaling is a first step to setting goals and making plans after getting your thoughts on paper.
Writing Skills
When you write often, you improve your writing skills.
It’s a way to eliminate writer’s block if you’re the type who self edits while you write. You become obsessed with your spelling, grammar, and quality of writing instead of simply writing down your thoughts.
When you write more often, your writing skills improve for writing emails and reports. Writing also helps you organize your ideas if you create mind maps, flow charts, or outlines.
The best part of writing is inspiring yourself. It’s a challenge to start your own business. Document your wins, no matter how big or small. At a future date, look back and see how much you’ve learned and what progress you’ve made.
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People hate being sold to. If you tell them your product is an “awesome buy” and “there are only two left,” people will raise their hackles. Just think of the times you threw up a stop sign when someone tried to sell you services, gadgets, or discounted items you didn’t want.
Regardless, everyone should learn how to sell because the ability to persuade and negotiate is necessary in both your personal and professional life. The reality is, you’re always selling. If you can’t sell, you’ll limit your success at getting hired or being the person friends want to spend time with.
Whether you’re a novice or an expert, you’ll find selling strategies that work for you. Let’s start with three quick selling tips that’ll make you successful, even if you are already a master at sales.
Tip 1: Listen to what the customer wants
Being a great listener surpasses listing all the features and benefits of the service or product you are selling. Think about how you want your needs heard as a customer.
For example, I used a skincare brand for several months without seeing any results, so I stopped using it. The associates who sold me the products immediately asked if I had used the items exactly as instructed. They said I needed to give the products more time to see the desired improvements. I could speak to one of their skincare advisers to get some advice.
Interestingly, however, not once did they ask what I wanted, or why I quit using the products!
If they had taken a minute to ask, “What do you want the skincare to do for you?” or “Why did you stop using the skincare?” I would have told them I had an allergic reaction. Their products weren’t advisable for someone with my skin condition.
Listening to what the customer wants is vital.
Listening to what the customer wants is necessary if you want to sell.
The skincare associates were trying so hard to show how their products would benefit me that they didn’t consider the possibility that I wasn’t a fit. They didn’t even ask why I quit, but if they had, they would have found out the products had caused me a month of pain.
So the first quick tip on selling is to listen and really find out what’s going on. If a customer isn’t interested in buying, pushing features and benefits won’t get you the sale. Learning their story, however, will get you closer to success.
Tip 2: Build rapport and trust with the customer
Back to the first rule of sales: Don’t push features and benefits.
Last month, I was roleplaying with a friend who was practicing as an insurance agent. He was nervous, trying to remember every point he was supposed to cover in the sales presentation. Accurate recall was necessary for him to be in the field with clients. He was so focused on getting all the elements of his presentation right that he didn’t listen to my answers. He simply fired off each line of questions from his sales script.
Building rapport and trust with the customer is important if you want to close the deal and get the sale.
Approach the customer as though they were a friend but do it professionally. Before starting the presentation, ask some quick questions. Talk about the weather, weekend plans, family pictures in the hallway, how the day went … anything to keep the conversation light. Get to know the human sitting across from you before you start to make any sales pitch.
When a customer feels that you’re interested in their well-being, that you mean more to them than some income in your pocket, then they are more likely to do business with you.
You close more deals with genuine conversation.
I remember feeling impressed with the decor and the atmosphere of a client’s apartment. I gave them honest compliments as we had a brief conversation about their family, career plans, and what brought them to the neighbourhood. The information they openly shared with me helped to customize my presentation so that I was able to sell them a plan that best suited their situation.
When you know more about your customer, you can customize your service or product to their needs. For example, when I found out a client was expecting to have a child later that year, I highlighted the benefits of getting a plan to help the client invest twenty-five years into the child’s future.
Tip 3: Respect each other’s time
Set a clear start and end time for your sales meeting. After you set a time, confirm it with a reminder text or email a day to an hour before the meeting.
Arrive at the meeting on time.
It shows you respect your client’s schedule and demonstrates your professionalism. Wear a watch so that you can discretely keep track of the time at strategic points in the meeting. Checking every fifteen minutes makes you look disinterested. Checking during a pause in the discussion will show that you have a schedule to keep. Explaining that you have an appointment after the current one gives the impression that you are busy.
Bring a watch. Look busy. Look professional. Stay on schedule.
Another reason for keeping tabs on the time is your customer will lose focus and not buy if the meeting is more than two hours long. In my first week in sales, I had an appointment that was three hours long, and by the end of it, the client was exhausted and so was I!
Key Takeaway
I’ve come across many great books on sales, as well as tips and tricks. In this blog, I’ve featured only three quick tips, but these are key to getting a sale. Listen to your customers, get to know them, and then sell them what they need.
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When I was a little girl, I dreamed of marrying a wealthy business owner, and when I got older, I dreamed of becoming a successful business owner, but teachers and family had other plans for me. Instead, they wanted me to attend university and have a career as a doctor or dentist. Helping people and changing lives appealed to me, but being around sick people or staring at teeth all day did not. So when I finally decided to step out of the box and become an entrepreneur, I discovered all my years of schooling weren’t enough to fulfill my dream.
Employee vs Entrepreneur
School taught me how to be an excellent employee. I went from obeying the teacher to obeying the boss, from taking six classes a day to working set hours. I performed according to expectations and job requirements, and challenged myself to leave my comfort zone when it meant a pay raise or getting fired. Having a job and a career were great — I really enjoyed my writing career after graduating from university. However, it didn’t bring me any closer to fulfilling my dream.
Now that I have my own business, I’ve realized that there are entrepreneurship skills that school doesn’t teach you that are relevant no matter what career you choose for yourself. Some of the most successful entrepreneurs, including Richard Branson and Henry Ford, were not known for having a shining academic performance.
Students who are well behaved, complete their homework, and perform well on tests are praised by their teachers. Students like Branson who struggled with dyslexia, disliked schoolwork, or didn’t fit the “good student” stereotype were told they needed to change. A friend who failed in school (because it didn’t challenge him) now owns two flourishing side businesses.
Perhaps, in addition to the current school curriculum, children should be taught entrepreneurship from an early age. Entrepreneur wannabees would benefit from these skills, but students seeking careers would benefit also.
Leadership and Communication
Two of the most important entrepreneurship skills are leadership and communication. Children who lead by example and communicate effectively are known for their charisma and optimism. Peers are drawn to their ability to make decisions and define objectives, such as making teams and establishing rules for a game. They can convince others why building a sandcastle would be a fun activity.
These leaders will listen to your problems, empathize with you, and offer advice if needed. A popular girl in my third grade embodied these qualities. She always smiled, and when you spoke to her, she listened like you were the only other person in the world.
I have never heard anyone say that they admire their bossy supervisor. But I’ve heard how much people admire leaders who get their hands dirty and treat their coworkers as equals. That’s like the child who makes the extra effort to make the new student feel welcome and encourages classmates to do the same.
An example of how leadership can inspire others is acclaimed speaker and author Adora Svitak. She advocated kids to take action about academic and environmental concerns and has also spoken for causes such as feminism and literacy. Her Ted talk “What Adults Can Learn From Kids” has received more than 4 million views and established her as a prodigy by the age of 12.
The Ability to Sell Yourself
Not everyone likes to sell or become a salesperson, but everyone should learn how to sell to succeed in life. Before the age of 18, children have done various jobs, from opening a lemonade stand to having a paper route, mowing lawns, and babysitting. These jobs teach you about tracking sales and developing your sales skills.
Moziah Bridges was 11 when he started to sell his bow tie creations on Etsy. He learned to sew from his grandmother. He’s made more than $600,000 in sales and continues to grow his business with a seven-figure deal with the NBA to make bow ties for 30 professional basketball teams.
Evan of EvanTube reviews toys and covers topics that interest other kids his age through video recordings. He makes more than one million per year with his band, and he’s not even ten years old.
Having the ability to sell can start at a young age and be just as valuable when you’re an adult. If you can convince someone you have what it takes to do a job, you will ace a job interview. Likewise, by showing someone that you have the personality and qualities that he or she is looking for, you will do well on a first date.
Finding Opportunities
Teaching children about entrepreneurship includes teaching them about weathering financial difficulties. If they need money to buy a new outfit or video game, they will speak with neighbours, friends, and family members to make some cash by shovelling snow, painting a fence, or selling a toy collection they no longer want.
We can also teach children to see opportunities instead of problems. For example, they may be seeing only the problem if they have only $100 in allowance money and the toy they want to buy is $130.
The creator of Nay Games, 14-year old Robert Nay, learned how to code through research at the public library. He programmed “Bubble Ball,” which received more than one million downloads. Nay Games now has games to help students with spelling and physics-based puzzles. Nay saw an opportunity and followed through with it.
Learning Problem Solving
Children who learn entrepreneurship also learn problem-solving. They find solutions to their problems by tackling situations head-on.
In the case of Cory Nieves, a six-year-old boy became a business owner after he decided he was tired of taking the bus to school. He wanted to buy a car because it was too cold outside. He sold hot cocoa and later branched out to selling lemonade and cookies to achieve his dream and save up for college. In 2014, when he was ten years old, he was making sales of a thousand cookies a weekend.
Busy vs Productive
Time management is a valuable skill when you own your own business. You learn to be productive, instead of just busy. Children who are adept at time management are efficient at accomplishing more in less time. Instead of finishing a homework assignment in two hours with plenty of breaks, they can finish in one hour with time for other tasks.
Business mentor and coach Cameron Herold has spoken in favour of having parents and teachers encourage kids to be entrepreneurs. At a Ted Talk in Edmonton, Alberta, he speaks about how he was bored and failing in school because teachers did not identify entrepreneurial traits as worth encouraging.
For example, at the age of seven, he was able to sell coat hangers at a higher price than originally expected, but negotiation was not a skill that he was taught.
Stories of successful kid entrepreneurs echo a similar theme to Herold’s story: they didn’t pay attention in school but became thriving business owners. As young teenagers, they were told to set aside their business ventures until they were older, but they continued to pursue their dream until they reached their goal or surpassed it.
My earliest brush with entrepreneurship was the day we brought belongings we no longer wanted and placed them on our desks at school. We walked around the class and looked for things to barter for using our items. A classmate had a pair of three-inch tall glass boots I liked. I asked her what she wanted from my desk in exchange. Sadly, what she wanted was only worth one boot — she didn’t like the other items I had. To this day, I only have one glass boot in my display case, a reminder of my early attempts at commerce.
Key Takeaways
Encourage children to pursue entrepreneurship. They will have more skills to succeed as adults, whether they choose to have a job or own a business. One lesson that successful kid entrepreneurs have taught us is that we should never limit what we want to accomplish.
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When you’re busy building a business while juggling family and social life, it’s hard to find time for career-related training. One way to improve your business knowledge is by taking a course or program. Another is to read many books. However, one of the most effective ways is to learn from a mentor who has already built a successful business. Finding the perfect mentor is not easy, but there are some tips you can follow to find the right one for you.
Determine your mentor’s teaching style
To learn from someone who has celebrity status (worldwide or local), start with an online search. Follow this person on their social media platforms, watch their videos, or subscribe to their newsletters. If they have free seminars or workshops, sign up for them. Your purpose is to learn more about their teaching style, as well as what they teach. You want to choose a mentor whose style resonates well with you.
If your mentor is not a celebrity with hundreds or thousands of followers, the same idea applies. For example, you might have attended a coworker’s presentation and realized you would like to learn more from them. Or you might have gone for coffee with a friend and realized you want to learn more from their experiences.
Whether your mentor is a well-known celebrity such as Tony Robbins or someone you know personally, ask yourself if your mentor challenges you. For example, if you just became an entrepreneur and your potential mentor started a business six months ago, your mentor may not be able to guide you. However, if your potential mentor has owned a successful business for ten years, you have a greater distance to climb to catch up to that same point.
Take action after you choose a mentor
When you’ve found someone you like as a mentor, ask yourself if your mentor can motivate you to get results.
Your mentor should inspire you to take action when you watch their YouTube video or teach you about a new concept. Their message should excite you so much that you want to learn and change. They should also be approachable. For example, you should feel comfortable having dinner with them without feeling nervous.
Their mentorship should have you thirsting for more knowledge about the same topic or have you madly scribbling notes. You should be excited about applying what they are trying to teach you as soon as possible.
To get the best results from working with a mentor, have some goals in mind. The worst scenario is to be too general about what you want your mentor to teach you. If your mentor posts a lot of learning material online, focus on one topic at a time, not getting your hands on everything they have ever published. If your mentor wants to help you improve your skills, don’t set a general goal, such as, “I want to get better at my career.” Set specific goals and share these with your mentor.
Choose a mentor who chooses you
Getting feedback from your mentor is important. I’ve taken online courses from experts and gurus who I respect as mentors. I understand their lessons, but I’m unsure whether I’m interpreting their learning points correctly.
At a workshop or live webinar, choose a mentor who answers questions and provides feedback to participants. This style helps you to gauge if you understand what they teach.
If you can schedule an hour with your mentor, have your hour planned in advance. Prepare questions to ask your mentor, or list what you’d like to improve on before your meeting. Set clear expectations and outcomes to show your mentor that you respect their time.
For example, if you want to improve your presentation skills, ask your mentor if they can give you some pointers and feedback on the way you speak at a presentation. Be prepared to show them part of your presentation so they can provide you with specific tips and feedback.
After receiving feedback, take some time to reflect on what you’ve learned. Was the feedback valuable? Can you use the feedback to make improvements? Did your mentor seem genuinely invested in you? A mentor who is genuinely invested will encourage you, tell you what progress you’ve made, be honest in their critique, and help you set goals for next steps.
Keep moving forward
Finding the right mentor is like an investment. You want someone who is approachable, excited about what you want to learn, and honest when mentoring you. It will feel uncomfortable and even painful to be told that you aren’t doing something well. However, if you only spend time doing things that you already do well, you will not grow as a person.
Embrace change and getting uncomfortable. You may find yourself looking for a new mentor in the future for various reasons. In my case, I had a business mentor for two years. As I developed my business knowledge, I started to change my goals for my business strategy. I realized I needed a new mentor who could help me improve my new approach to doing business. I found a new mentor, but I keep in touch with my previous one.
In life, the best direction to keep moving in is forward. After you reach one milestone in the road, aim for a new one. Always keep challenging yourself and you will grow as a person.
Key takeaways
Finding the perfect mentor is a search for a two-way relationship. Your mentor should be someone you are inspired to learn from, but also someone who is excited about seeing your business grow.
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Garages and basements, not tall glass buildings, are are the birthplaces of business legends like Amazon, Microsoft, Google, and Apple. Startups may have humble beginnings, but they have the potential to grow into multimillion-dollar corporations with the right combination of people, goals, and financing.
If you’re starting a startup company, you’ll need to consider these eight tips to increase your chances of launching a successful business. First, let’s begin with defining what a startup company is.
What is a startup?
A startup is a company in its beginning stages. It’s founded by entrepreneurs and funded by banks, grants, the company founder, and possibly the entrepreneur’s families and friends.
Unlike a small business, a startup’s goal is to grow fast because there is a large market for its product. Many startups are tech companies for this reason.
It’s not surprising for startups to begin in someone’s basement or garage, with boxes of products stacked in the home and the CEO’s desk in the garage.
One of the key ingredients that will take a company from this humble beginning to rapid growth is leadership.
Startup Tip 1: Strong Leadership
Having strong leadership and a talented team are two of the most important ingredients in a startup. The CEO and the management team develop the company’s mission and vision and inspire the team to keep going, even in the darkest times. In the beginning, a startup will experience some rough ups and downs.
The leader is responsible for ensuring that roles and responsibilities are assigned to team members, and everyone is held accountable for their tasks. The leader also sets team goals and clarifies what will happen if those goals are not met. For example, will they need new goals if the original deadlines were not realistic?
Having strong leadership is key to a startup’s success. Without a clear vision for the company, a startup could drift like a lost ship blown from one direction to another, achieving little.
Startup Tip 2: Talented Team
A talented team will take the startup to the next level. What roles will each person have? Each team member should be assigned roles and responsibilities depending on their skills and expertise.
If someone has accounting experience, they can recommend the best software at an affordable price to begin tracking financial transactions, for example. Someone with HR experience can begin formalizing work contracts and policies for benefits and work hours.
The upside of a startup is the vast expanse of unexplored territory. Company rules have not been established, and decisions need to be finalized about software and communications systems. The team can choose how the company is managed.
The downside is that if the team doesn’t make these decisions to organize how the company is run, chaos and frustration can set in quickly, and team members will quit.
When finding people for a startup, choose talented people who can help get the company organized and running efficiently as quickly as possible. It’s their job to spot what needs to be done to help the leaders and the team to reach company goals.
The management team absolutely must clarify the plan for the company. What are the goals for the first month? How about goals for the second and third months? Without a clear plan, the startup is like a group of people showing up at a vacation spot with no idea what they want to do there.
After time has passed for a milestone, the company needs to assess whether the goal was met or missed. If the team fails to achieve the goal, such as having $1000 in sales for month 1, then the team needs to assess what could have gone wrong. What do they need to do differently? How could they improve?
When the team has a plan and clear goals, it’s easy to tell if they were on track with their goals or if they need to change direction to meet objectives.
Startup Tip 4: Established Culture
Establish company culture from the beginning. The management team leads by example in terms of how they treat others. When a team member works hard, do company leaders acknowledge that person’s contribution to the company?
Do company leaders take the time to get to know each team member personally? Do they know the names of a team member’s spouse, pet cat, or favourite ice cream flavour? Or does the startup staff only hear from management if they fail to complete a task?
When the company leaders set a positive and supportive environment, and not a negative one, then the entire team will also follow the example and support each other.
How much runway does the startup have? Before getting into business, the founder will have looked for financing from various sources, including company stakeholders or board members. However, how long will the funding last before the startup can no longer afford to keep the lights on? Some companies may have as little as $25,000 to begin the founder’s dream.
The amount of funding will affect how much the startup has to invest in product development, customer fulfillment, marketing, and paying staff salaries. When the funding runs out, what plan does the startup have in place to keep the business going?
Startup Tip 6: Protecting Intellectual Property
Intellectual property is like a vital piece of the company that you cannot give up. Intellectual property could be what makes the company stand out from the competition and what makes its product one-of-a-kind. Having this information stolen would be like losing an arm or a heart.
One way to protect intellectual property is by asking all staff to sign contracts about the use and distribution of this information.
Startup Tip 7: Learning from Mentors and Brands
It is rare – perhaps non-existent – for a startup to be the only one of its kind in the marketplace. The startup could learn from successful companies in the same niche and award-winning brands in the same industry. How are these established companies finding and keeping customers? What is their strategy?
In addition to learning from successful companies, startup team members could learn from a mentor or two. This person has experience with startups and running companies in that industry and functions as an advisor whenever the startup team has questions about running the business.
Startup Tip 8: Networking and Promotion
Any member of the startup team can attend networking events to form relationships with business owners interested in their product or working with their startup. They can also attend events such as conferences and conventions to find opportunities to tell potential customers about their business.
Other ways to promote the startup include creating informative content about its purpose and products on its website and social media, and building relationships with industry leaders. For example, if the startup sells medical devices, they could reach out to leaders in the medical field to tell them about the startup and create awareness of what they have to offer.
Key Takeaways
Running a successful startup depends on many key factors, starting with strong leaders and a talented team. The first year, especially the first few months, will be difficult, with many decisions to make about even the simplest things, such as where the team should hold meetings.
Proper planning is important and expecting the unexpected is crucial. Success won’t happen overnight, but having a clear plan and goals are the first steps.
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