The New Rules Entrepreneurship

Turn your passion into profit//Create your business concept//Set up your business//Find customers and make money//Grow your business.

Thinking Like An Entrepreneur

However, the first step toward becoming an entrepreneur requires no action at all. It is not about acting, but thinking. You need to prepare yourself for the entrepreneurial journey by learning to think like one:

-To understand that you must have a passion for what you do and enjoy the business of being in business.
-To restrain your brain to get used to the sometimes uncertain life of being your own boss.
-To realize that you need to make mistakes to learn what works and what doesn't.

CHASE A PASSION, NOT CASH

Have a passion and you will make money. Want only to make money and you won't.
It's pretty simple, really.
Wanting to be rich does not generate wealth. Yes, some entrepreneurs create huge business empires and become vastly rich, but even when they make their millions they carry on working regardless. They are not driven by money, but the love of what they do. They are often gripped by an almost desperate determination to make their mark and do something better.
Think about it. If you don't genuinely enjoy or even love what you do, how will you motivate yourself? If you have to write that proposal, are you going to be thinking "oh no, not that damn document!" or "I can't wait to tell the world about my idea!" If you need to give a pitch about your business, will you be scrabbling around for ways to pad out your presentation or bubbling over with too many ideas?
True entrepreneurs have discovered that if they have a passion and manage to communicate it to their customers, they money comes almost as an afterthought. Business people who do it purely for the money aren't true entrepreneurs. Greed is not the same as passion and without that passion and enthusiasm to deliver something new or better, these people run out of energy and flee back to comfortable jobs working for someone else.

Don't let that be you. Whatever you choose to do in your business, make sure you can get excited about it. If you don't, how can you expect your customers to do so?

ENJOY BUSINESS AND PEOPLE

So passion is top of that checklist of requirements for becoming an entrepreneur but it's not enough. Before you throw your job in your boss's face, consider next whether you have an enthusiasm for the idea of running a business. Of striking deals with suppliers. Of poring over spreadsheets and managing cash and watching profit. Of handling technology problems, invoicing snags and customer complaints. And that's just the start of it. Do those thoughts excite you or horrify you?
But there's more to it than just enjoying the world of business.
Probably of more importance is having an appetite for engaging with other people. This is because entrepreneurship is fundamentally about people and relationships. It's about forging social connections with investors, suppliers, employees, customers and even competitors.

Even if you have the best business plan in the world, investors are only going to stump up funds if they trust you to deliver on your plan. Suppliers need to understand your vision. Employees might need some persuading to join your little outfit rather than some more established firm. It goes without saying that customers are going to need some more convincing to buy your products or services. In addition, it wouldn't hurt to have friendly relationships with competitors to understand industry trends too.
If all of that communicating and negotiating, and influencing and persuading sounds like your idea of hell, then Entrepreneurship is not for you. Consider that you might be better suited to settling into a more comfortable, perhaps employed existence. Avoid having to get your hands dirty with the horrible responsibility of financial goings-on and business decisions, and dealing with people on a daily basis.
If that still hasn't put you off, read on. 

TAKE RESPONSIBILITY

From wage slave to thrusting tycoon, your first step is to adjust the way you think about your work and life.
With that shift in mindset will come changes in how you behave and live your life from now on too.

        Corporate life can get terribly comfortable and predictable. Wage slaves (or employees, as they are more politely known) get used to having a regular income. They have regular hours. They have a clear role and colleagues who can support them. You might have had a sales team to find customers, an accounts team to chase them for money. Maybe you had a secretary to handle your administration or a team of lackeys to do stuff that you were too important to Sully yourself with.
As an entrepreneur, all of that has to go. So long, farewell, auf wierdersehen, goodbye. Your income will become irregular. From now on, if you don't earn, you don't eat. Your hours will fluctuate from almost nothing in a quiet week to every hour you aren't sleeping when necessary. Suddenly your clear role will be replaced by a need to do everything and anything. Not a single customer will come your way unless you pursue them, engage with them, persuade them to give you a chance.
Customers won't pay unless you send them a bill. If you need to send a fax or write a proposal, you can't pass it on to your secretary or a junior member of the team it'll be you who needs to figure out the fax machine or sit at your desk into the night.
Of course, entrepreneurs love it. They love the freedom and opportunity to carve out their own careers rather than merely do what they are told to do. It does, though, take getting used to.
Just though I would warn you!

ENJOY MAKING MISTAKES

Wages slaves are instructed not to make mistakes; entrepreneurs thrive on them.
I've heard some entrepreneurs say that you aren't a real entrepreneur until you have seen at least one business go bust. Personally, I wouldn't go that far but my point is that you have to be willing to make mistakes. To try new ways of working and understand what doesn't work. To go wrong publicly and occasionally have people snigger or shake their heads at you.
Too many would be entrepreneurs allow themselves to be held back by their own fear of failure. They don't want to go wrong and look foolish or stupid. They worry what others might think. They look for approval and, when others tell them that their idea won't work, they stall and chew their fingernails, and wonder what to do next. That procrastination is often enough for the opportunity to slip them by, for someone else with a similar idea to have the guts to trial and test it and bring it to market.
I can pretty much guarantee you that your idea won't work. At least, not at first. Not in the way you first intend it. However, each of your mistakes is an opportunity to learn, to improve your process, and eliminate methods that don't work. Linder Ikeji's Blog

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