Listed below are 5 steps to examine as you seek to become an entrepreneur.
- Vision / Why
Learning how to become an entrepreneur starts with why you want to become an entrepreneur. It’s important that you define this… and it has to be more than the desire for money, because money is just a tool.
Spend some time defining your reason WHY. There are a million reasons and any suggestion I make would possibly mislead your own exploration of why you want to become an entrepreneur. Take a journal and spend some time alone. In the middle of the paper, write the word “WHY”. Right below the random thoughts that come to you when you look at that word. Spend some time on this. Once you feel like you’ve really nailed down your motive, it’s time to clean it up and produce a clearly written vision statement. This is the foundation and a critical step you don’t want to miss, because you’ll be relying on your vision to get you through every obstacle.
To form your vision, imagine the reasons you wrote down regarding your WHY, see them manifesting in the future. How does it look? Write down specifically how you see yourself and this will be the formation of your vision statement. Here’s the important part: you can trick your mind. To truly see your vision become a reality, your mind has to see your vision as a reality. To do this, write your vision statement in the present tense. When you read it, you will read it as if it is happening right now. Once you’ve finished your vision statement, read it every morning and every night; very soon, your unconscious mind will believe that it is there and will begin to make decisions voluntarily and involuntarily as if you were realizing your vision at that moment.
- Self-control
Self-control is nothing other than having personal discipline. By far, this is probably the most difficult part of anyone’s entrepreneurial journey. Even though your unconscious mind is being tricked into seeing your vision as a reality, you will still have to move on to do the things that need to be done.
You need to have the discipline to fight laziness and procrastination, the discipline to fight fear and still take action. You see, the first person you will have to lead and manage is yourself.
Self-control is achieved by establishing a system of accountability. First, you need to write down the things that need to be done. Then you have to have some way to make sure you do them and track your progress. Some people use to-do lists, calendar marks, digital notes… you just have to find something that works for you. Also, it helps to have a responsible partner, someone who knows your goals and deadlines and isn’t afraid to call you.
Self-mastery also includes making sure you keep your attitude and mindset headed in the right direction. This requires a constant flow of positive influence in your life. Whether it’s using personal development materials or relying on new friendships and relationships to give you a positive mental boost, you need to have positive things in front of you. You know the old saying: “Garbage in, garbage out.” Well, that’s true for your mind too. Don’t let your spirit and mind be a dump. Eliminate negative influences in your life (you can control most of these things).
- Relations
Despite one trivial, minor, ultra-small exception (you), the world is understood by others. You cannot learn to become an entrepreneur without discovering how to enlist the help of others. The first two steps covered your dream, but you can’t do it without a team. The concept of a self-made man is really a misnomer. Man is neither designed nor capable of doing everything by himself. We all have different sets of skills, abilities, opportunities, and desires. It really takes teamwork to make a dream work.
Building relationships is probably the most important skill an entrepreneur will ever learn. Learning to become an entrepreneur is really learning to become a people person. This is probably the first personal development program I would encourage a budding leader or entrepreneur to invest in early on.
Building relationships starts with getting better at communication. It would be good to understand that we have two ears and one mouth, which means that we should listen twice as much as we speak. Improving your communication with others will ultimately provide you with the ability to build a great network. Entrepreneurs form huge networks of people they can trust and interoperate for mutual success.
- Values
I find that the most successful people are the ones who take action. These people do not let anything stand in their way to take the necessary steps to build their entrepreneurial dream.
A key distinction to make for anyone looking to become an entrepreneur is understanding the actions taken by employees in the business and the action of the leader in the business. As a business owner, you will have to work in the business, but not in it. If you are the person who does everything (remember relationship building), then you are working in business. Working in the business means that you take actions that grow your dream and your team. To determine this, you need to build on the skill sets you have and distribute everything else except the key element: ultimate responsibility. You can’t delegate that. Therefore, the actions you take should reflect the attitude that you are the one who will have the responsibility to see the success of your business.
- Personal brand
Is there such a thing as brand loyalty? Of course… some people prefer Coca-Cola, while others drink Pepsi. That is an obvious comparison. What about brand loyalty in the cars or restaurants you eat at? Again, it’s easy to see, but what’s often overlooked is that individual people have a brand too. Who you are and what you offer makes all the difference in the world when it comes to building your business…that’s right, your personal brand is more important than your organization’s brand. What’s interesting is that for entrepreneurs, more often than not their personal brand shapes their organization’s brand and culture.
As you establish your business and begin to interact with other people, your customers and clients, you will be known for something. Unfortunately, for those who don’t think at this point, sometimes that’s a negative thing. The point here is that you want to control what you are known for.
This is not as complex as it seems. The most important part is deciding: what do you want to be known for? Great communications, great service, great… you fill in the blank. After you decide what it is, you need to make sure that its values and goals take into account your brand. Finally, the hardest part is this: Your Actions and Activities must always support your brand image. That is all. And it’s probably one of the most important things you need to establish to successfully grow your business.
