Entrepreneurs who are open to learning are destined to succeed. The road to becoming a successful entrepreneur is often riddled with challenges, which are all unavoidable encounters along the journey. For entrepreneurs who are starting off on their entrepreneurial journey and new to the world of self-employment, the key is to learn from challenges and use them to improve and innovate.
Here are 5 success tips every aspiring entrepreneur should know before starting a business.
Perfection does not exist
Just like a journey or a road trip, it’s wise to have a plan. The trip may take different turns, but a plan acts as a guide to the destination. For the best path to success, it’s important to develop your own business plan – but understand that your plan does not need to be perfect. As the famous physicist Stephen Hawkings said: “One of the basic rules of the universe is that nothing is perfect. Perfection simply doesn’t exist. Without imperfection, neither you nor I would exist.”
Ray Blakney is the CEO and co-founder of Live Lingua, an online language learning platform, that he launched with his wife in 2009 during the Mexican swine flu crisis. With over a decade of experience building (bootstrapping) and operating location-independent businesses, the number one tip he shares for aspiring entrepreneurs is to just launch.
“If you have a business idea, just throw up a website and promote it. Don’t worry about the page or the offer being perfect. Launch something and wait for the feedback to come in. Most of it will probably be bad. Don’t take it personally; just learn from it and improve. Do this day in and day out and within a year or two, you will have a growing business.”
Don’t be afraid to ask for help
Entrepreneurs often see themselves as loners who should accomplish all tasks on their own, so much that they often have challenges delegating and seeking help when necessary.
As a company grows, a smart entrepreneur will realize that there will come a time to ask for help. It may mean seeking out a mentor who can offer useful advice from past experience, or hiring someone who is more equipped to perform a task.
Entrepreneurs who aren’t afraid to ask for help are those who build a network of trusted advisors and equip themselves for long-term survival.
Don’t become paralyzed by fear
Entrepreneurs are doers. However, every now and then, they may become crippled by the fear of taking on a new challenge because the outcome can be catastrophic and trigger our innermost fears of not being smart or capable enough.
While planning, strategizing and weighing options all have important roles within a business, there comes a point in time when an entrepreneur will have to act. Analysis paralysis or simply the lack of ability to execute a plan will stifle growth, innovation, and progress in any business.
Learn to develop focus
If you are an aspiring entrepreneur, then the possibility exists that you are pregnant with ideas just waiting to give birth. While this is good and evidence of your continued creativity, it can also present distractions that limit your ability to focus on growing a single venture. It would be best if you learned to focus.
Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World is a book authored by Cal Newport in which he states. “Deep work is the ability to focus without distraction on a cognitively demanding task. It’s a skill that allows you to quickly master complicated information and produce better results in less time.”
Additionally, the path to successful entrepreneurship has many challenges. There are the highs of successes and the despair of setbacks. A successful entrepreneur needs to focus so they can stay the course when times get hard.
Understand the ability to learn
This is an important lesson for aspiring entrepreneurs. Whether it is learning from mistakes or learning from others’ experiences, entrepreneurs must make learning a habit. Learning is one of the most important skills to have in life and, by extension, in entrepreneurship. It is a requirement for success.
Entrepreneurs will encounter turbulent situations that are unavoidable. If a person can learn in any situation, even failure, they can become a successful entrepreneur. Failure can help increase one’s knowledge and understanding of business.
These are just a few lessons that are required to become a successful entrepreneur. By utilizing these skills, aspiring entrepreneurs can increase their capacity to run a successful business.
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Original source: Entrepreneur
