Posts Tagged ‘characteristics of successful entrepreneurs’

Over 79 million people will start a home based business this year according to Forbes magazine.  Yesterday I wrote an article on Steps to Start a Small Business.

Starting a small business from home has positives and negatives.

Positives:

1. You do not have any additional rent for your business location.
2. You do not have any additional utility expense for your business.
3. You do not require any travel time or expense.  A 30 second walk from your bedroom to your office does not count as travel time.

4.  In the initial stages you will probably not have any employee expense

Negatives:

1. You work from home.  You have all of the distractions of home life which makes it more challenging to focus and concentrate on business tasks.
2. You have to do all of the tasks.  You place the ads, you call the people, you do the  training, you do the record keeping, you do the short and long range planning and you do your own research to learn more about your new business
3. Wow.  After all of that you are probably thinking about a nap.  No can do.  Until you start making money in your new small business, you are probably still working your day job.  Plan at least 20 hours a week for you new business.

Being health conscious and an exercise-a-holic, I am not telling you to give up your sleep, give up healthy eating, or give up exercise.  It will be more challenging for awhile to accomplish everything.

Oh, your sanity is in the mix somewhere as well.  I am not telling you to give up your spouse, your kids or even your tennis racquet.  You WILL have to focus your time and energy carefully.  No more wasted time.  Carefully examine your schedule and make every minute count.

Weigh the time freedom, lower start up cost, convenience, and unlimited income potential against the discipline, time, initial investment and learning curve required for entrepreneurial thinking.  Do you have what it takes to be successful?

You may be thinking, “What if I fail?”  The best way to overcome your fear of failure is to make your desire for success more powerful than you fear.  What is your “why?”  What is your powerful reason to push through any obstacle until you reach success?

Every business requires a powerful “why,” but a home based business seems to require an even stronger why than a brick and mortar business.  Maybe it is because there is a lower investment or because it is easier to quit.  You do not have a lease to break or contracts to renegotiate or transfer.  Work from home business ideas sound great and they are great.  The catch is the follow through.

If you have the discipline, determination and “why,” your odds of success just skyrocketed.

If you would like individual coaching or more personalized guidance on your steps to start a small business, contact me at www.Elaine4Success.com.

How many hours did you spend preparing for that presentation?  Entrepreneurial success requires preparation, presentation and review.  If it was a major client, it was probably several hours.  You wrote, rehearsed, tweaked and worried.  You probably picked out just the right outfit to make a favorable impression.  The time arrived and you gave your presentation.  How did it go?

Preparation is absolutely important.  Delivery is also very important.  What happens next?  “It has been 2 days since we met, Mr. Buyer.  What do you think?”  Regardless of the words chosen, you probably made at least one follow up call.

What did you do about your presentation?  Did you review your own performance?  Reality indicates that less then 1% of the salesmen ever review their own presentation.  Entrepreneurial success is epitomized by the Toastmasters speaking and leadership tracks.  Toastmasters encourages every member to record a video and an audio of every speech.  Just recording the speech is not enough.  It is important to actually watch and listen to the recording.

How many salesmen, male and female, ever record their presentations?  Out of thousands of sales professionals, you could count the number on one foot with toes left over.  No wonder so many salesmen put their foot in their mouth during presentations.

A wise friend of mine, Ed Tate, recommends using debriefing questions after every presentation.  (Ed Tate was the 2000 world champion of public speaking for Toastmasters.)

What happened?  List the good points and the “lets do that differently next time” points.

Why did that part work or why didn’t that part work?  Break the entire presentation down into small parts and review each one.  Don’t beat yourself up, but do be honest.  The growth is in the struggle to improve.  I recently had a speech which did not go nearly as well as I would have liked.  I don’t know if you ever talk to yourself, but I had a serious heart to heart with myself over that performance.  “Elaine, you stayed up all night working on the last minute changes.  You were not rested and refreshed.”  “Elaine, you spent the time running off new handouts instead of eating breakfast.  Your energy was low.”  “Elaine, you drank black coffee in an attempt to boost energy all night and early in the morning rather than drinking water to stay hydrated.”  “Elaine, you self sabotaged your own performance.”  Even though staying up all night working, running off copies and coffee seemed like good ideas at the time, in retrospect, they were self defeating.

How many college students have crammed all night for a test and almost fell asleep during the test?  Common practice but not a good idea.

What worked?  What parts did not work?  In any speech or presentation some parts work better than others.  Unless you take the time to dissect the entire presentation, you do not know what parts to keep in for the next presentation and which parts to tweak.  In order to maximize entrepreneurial success, a debrief of the presentation is essential.

What did you learn?  Debrief all parts of the presentation and make concentrated efforts to strengthen the most effective parts and revise the weaker segments.  Examine carefully what you learned.  The growth is in the struggle.

For more tips, techniques and solid business practices, join me at www.Elaine4Success.com.

Life isn’t perfect.  You always have a choice of attitude.  Choose to view the situation as a problem, a calamity and whine about how unfair life is to you.  Choose to view it as fate which is totally out of your control; be a helpless victim.  Or choose the viewpoint of a challenge, an opportunity for change, and a potential for improvement.

All 3 scenarios are exactly the same set of circumstances.  Your attitude represents the only variable.

Have you ever wanted something very badly, almost had it within your grasp and been disappointed?

If you had been with me in that tiny little farm town in June when I was seventeen, you would have felt the hot Kansas sun.  You would have smelled the sweet scent of fresh cut alfalfa hay.  You would have seen me run into our farm house so excited that I almost tripped over the rug at the front door.  “Dad, they gave me a full college scholarship.  I’m going to go to college.”  You would have seen the flush of heat and excitement on my face as I handed him the papers.  “Elaine, you’re a girl.  You don’t deserve a college education.”

I watched in shock and disappointment as he threw the papers on the floor and walked away.  Under my breath, “It would not have cost you anything.  Why wouldn’t you sign the papers?”

Decision time.  Whine, curl up in a ball and cry about being a victim, or seek a solution.  Attitude becomes the only variable.

Facts:  scholarship received, scholarship becomes invalid without a parent’s signature, scholarship is no longer an option for me to attend college.  I was so close to having my dream of a college education within my grasp only to have the hopes thrown on the floor.

When have you faced a situation in your life when you were so close, but denied at the last minute?

Solution based attitudes, determined individuals, and goal oriented thinkers find an answer.  An entrepreneurial mindset or a millionaire mindset will focus on the potential solution.

Ask any man and he will confirm the mindset of a determined female.  The circumstances remain exactly the same; the shift in the end result comes in the attitude.  Attitude will get you everywhere; choose positive or choose negative.  The entrepreneurial mindset, the millionaire mindset or the determined female mindset all revolve around a positive attitude.

After dialing numerous friends, acquaintances and friends of friends, a ride to college was located, confirmed and finalized.  No job, no money and no parental approval.  Remember that focused positive attitude?  Three years later, my college diploma was firmly grasped in those determined female fingers.  A positive attitude backed with action accomplishes amazing feats.

Even though he never told me, I heard that my father told others that he was proud of me.

Attitude will get you everywhere.  Determination, a positive attitude and action achieve goals.

For more inspiration, motivation and practical techniques for success, join me at http://www.elaine4success.com/.

When your attitude shifts, your life follows suit.  Everyone reaches that magic “decision time.”  You know the time.  You look at your life or a situation and determine “that’s enough; something is going to change NOW.”

A firm decision results in an attitude shift.  Your attitude will get you everywhere.  The relief associated with a major attitude shift is phenomenal.  The trauma and stress are all previous to the decision.  Once the decision is made, the attitude turns positive and progressive.  The stress comes from the “should I” or “shouldn’t I” dilemma.  Stop shoulding all over yourself and get with the program.

So many people spend so much time getting ready to get ready that they never actually make a decision.  What is it in your life right now that is holding you back from making a progressive decision, a progressive attitude?  Wealth builders and  self-made millionaires all make decisions.

Self-made millionaires possess decision oriented habits and positive attitudes.  Wealth builders know that a positive attitude will get you everywhere.  It starts with a dream and builds to a goal.  A plan forms designing the process to reach the goal.  Absolute laser focus is applied to the implementation of the plan.  Frequent benchmarks or checkpoints are established to insure the plan is on course.  Will there be adjustments? Yes.  Even a jet airplane does not go from San Francisco to New York without a few minor tweaks and turns.

The entire process starts with a firm decision and an attitude shift.

If your life or plan is off target, check your attitude.  Queasy attitude probably means there is a decision in limbo.  Clear the roadblock by determining what decision you have procrastinated about making.  Make the decision.  Feel the relief and the positive attitude shift.

You can never make forward progress and remain sitting on the fence.  Make the decision.  Establish a positive attitude.  Set the goal and the plan to achieve it.  Establish the course correction checkpoints and prepare to celebrate victory.

For more positive attitude tips and techniques, join me at http://www.elaine4success.com/

Poor me.  Boo Hoo.  Whine Whine.  Maybe you will hear this attitude from a quitter, but never from an entrepreneur.  Entrepreneurs never quit.  We may alter the course or even change directions, but never quit.  Quitting simply does not exist with the entrepreneurial mindset.  Does that mean that we never get discouraged or face challenges?  No.  Of course we do.  The difference between the entrepreneur and the quitter is that an entrepreneurial mindset never quits.

Entrepreneur	Quitter
Goal Oriented	Today Oriented
Written Success Plan	Mood of the Moment Activity
Determined	Maybe and If Thoughts
Consistent	Sometimes – Infrequent
Compelling Reason to Succeed	Luke warm desire to succeed
Researched and Planned	Impulse of the Moment

Goal Oriented means you have specific written goals.  Each goal has a time frame to be accomplished, measurable criteria and is a stretch but yet possible.  Without specific written goals, it is just a daydream or a wish.

Entrepreneurial mindsets require a detailed written success plan with each element defined.  What financing will be needed?  What marketing method, budget and specific marketing action steps are required?  What specific benchmarks must be reached by what date to know that the business is on target toward the goal rather than wandering aimlessly.  Excellent written success plans are composed in weekly, monthly, quarterly, one year, five year and ten year time frames.

Rock solid determination is not optional.  One of the characteristics of an entrepreneur is the unwavering commitment to reach their goals no matter what the obstacles.  This determination is frequently based on a “why.”  Why will you never give up on your goals?  What is so important that you will persevere through any obstacle?  Go over it, around it, under it or through it; the obstacle must yield.

Consistent and persistent actions are typical characteristics of an entrepreneur.  Entrepreneurs know that focused action is required each and every day.

Entrepreneurial mindset remains crystal clear on their “why.”  Thus reason becomes compelling and long term.

Another characteristic of an entrepreneur is researching the ideal business fit for them and planning their success with a detailed written business success plan.

Entrepreneurs are never quitters.  Entrepreneurs succeed partially because they never accept any other outcome.

For more specific and personalized fine tuning of your individual entrepreneurial mindset, join me at http://www.elaine4success.com/ or http://www.yes2money.com/.

Is your net worth sinking from the black into the red?  Is your wallet shrinking right along with your confidence while you eat out of tension and your waistline goes the other direction?  What you want is a tensionectomy?  I’ll let you in on a little secret.  Shhhh.  Having the right non-conflict of interest information at the right time and knowing what action to take plumps your wallet and strengthens your self confidence.

Wealth creation strategies require passion, perseverance and a commitment toward permanent improvement.  Get rich quick schemes are for the foolish, lazy and perhaps unethical.  Serious wealth creation strategies require a mindset change.  If your current mindset would create a path toward wealth, you would already be rich.

Millions of people invest hundreds of thousands in college, various schools and classes every year.  Americans, and now the world need solid, accurate financial information.  How much are you willing to invest in yourself to receive honest, non-conflict of interest education about how to earn more money and make better choices with the money you do have?

The alarm bells are ringing all over the world now.  The euro is screaming in terror as its debt level rises to flood stage and it is swimming in a sea of red ink.  The US Dollar has been drowning in its own red ink for months now and the massive bailouts are causing it to go down for the third time.  Pouring in more debt, red ink, to an already overflowing debt level only intensifies the problem.

Now since we are doing such a terrible job of managing our own economy, we have decided to expand this disastrous flood stage economic model to Europe, Portugal, China and any other poor soul who decides to listen.  Increasing debt far beyond what can ever be repaid makes no sense.

Hello, bankruptcy.  When your debts far exceed your current and future income, you are bankrupt.  Running the printing presses to flood the market with deflated dollars is like tying a big rock to your wallet and expecting it to float to the surface.  What are we doing to ourselves?  Even worse, what are we doing to future generations?

Wealth creation strategies require making wise decisions with current money and becoming wealth builders for the future.

1. Stop buying things you can not afford with money you do not have to impress people who do not care.
2. Start taking your financial education from people who want to educate you rather than sell you the latest and greatest “get rich quick” scheme.  Real wealth does not happen overnight.  It is a mindset of wise decisions at the right time backed by action.
3. Stop jumping on every fad that floats through the media.  Pet rocks are long gone.

The US economy and the world economy are changing rapidly.  If you go with the flow of the masses, you will go down with the masses.  By the time information floats down through the spin artists from the top of Wall Street through the media and talking heads down to main street, it is far too late to act on it.  Come learn the facts.

Join me at http://www.elaine4success.com/ and get honest non-conflict of interest information.

Visionary leaders serve in the local community with food drives, clothing for the homeless, educational support through scholarships, and health and water projects on a global scale.  What is your passion?  Where will you carve your niche of service?  Visionary leadership means seeing a need and serving others.  The highest quality visionary leader is also a giver; they give of their time, talent and resources.

As a fellow successful entrepreneur and visionary leader, I absolutely subscribe to service to others.  None of our lives are one dimensional.  We also have our families, our careers and our spiritual life.  As a Rotarian, we have a 4 way test.  We have at least 4 major life areas which also demand and deserve our time attention and money.

If you ever think that your children are out of the nest and on their own, try sending one to college.  “Hi, dad and mom, please send money.”

Children fall into various groups,

Baby birds – they are still in the nest

Touch and go flight patterns – they leave but return for laundry, raid the pantry and financial assistance

Circle flight pattern – they left and were out of the nest and then move back

homeFlight squadron – they leave but return with spouse and your grand children

Not that any of these are bad, but to say that children are inexpensive or maintenance free would be a gross error.

Our careers are also emotional, financial and time consumers.   Our careers require our passion.  Every successful person owned, lived and breathed their passion.  Olympic athletes, concert master musicians, inventors and corporate moguls were all consumed with passion for their chosen mission in life.  Whether you have chosen an entrepreneurial mindset or a corporate mindset, employing visionary leadership remains consistent.

Steve Jobs, the icon and founder of Apple Computers, credits his passion as his key to success. “You’ve got to find what you love.  Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work.  And the only way to do great work is to Love what you do.  If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking.  Don’t settle.”

When I first started Mt. Castles, Property management, I got up early, stayed up late and had an insatiable drive.  The creativity flowed and every day was an opportunity for a new adventure.

I read every book I could get my hands on about property management; I went to Inc. conferences to learn from other successful entrepreneurs.  I interviewed female entrepreneurs to determine the specific challenges they encountered.  In fact I published a white paper “Gender differences in Conflict Management Style in the Workplace.”

I picked the brains of every successful property manager I could interview.  I took them to a long lunch and asked questions.  I interviewed second home owners, tourists and long term renters.  What is it you need?  What is it you would like to have that you do not have available now?  I looked for niches to fill.

Look at your career right now.  Are you fired up to hop out of bed every morning and soar with the eagles or are you content to walk the same circle on the ground as the chickens?

How many books have you read lately about your chosen field?

When was the last time you reached outside your industry for creative ideas which work in other industries but have not been utilized in your industry yet?

When was the last time you took a successful business colleague to lunch and tapped into their mindset for success?  Do you belong to a “hold your feet to the fire” mastermind club?

When was the last time you interviewed your customers, vendors, and target market to ask what they needed?  Ask what they like now and what they would change if they could.

When was the last time you did a blind test and shopped your own customer service?

Tap into your passion and you will find your genius, your productivity and your enthusiasm.  Tap onto your passion and take focused action and you will find your profit.

Join me at http://www.elaine4success.com/ and lets mastermind together to focus your time, energy and financial resources in your passion.

How do you handle life’s little unexpected inconveniences?

Normally I am bubbly, enthusiastic, and in control of myself and my circumstances.  Yesterday there was a glitch in the conference call system and I could not sign in to the call.   As the call host, it was quite awkward not to be present and punctual.  I apologized a bit too profusely.  My normal unflappable composure collapsed.

What is the lesson here?  Let go of trying to be perfect.  Allow yourself to be human.  It is not a matter of IF there will be glitches in the schedule, but WHEN there are glitches.  Of course one of the characteristics of successful entrepreneurs is calmness under pressure.  Does that mean that as an entrepreneur you are expected to be perfect 100% of the time?  Absolutely not.  It means that as a successful entrepreneur you strive to be as good as you possibly can be.

Ever know a major league baseball star to hit a home run every tie at bat?  No.  Ever know a highly accomplished Hollywood screen star to get an academy award for every performance?  No.  Why do entrepreneurs put pressure on themselves to be perfect 100% of the time?  Get a grip on reality.  What makes us think we are above and beyond all of the statistics?

Now that we have had our slice of humble pie, relax.  Of course the Hollywood star steps on stage with the intention of performing their every best every time.  Yes, the major league baseball star goes to bat with the intention of a good solid base hit.  Successful people never approach a situation with the intention to be average.

Can you imagine a corporation proudly announcing that they were seeking a mediocre advertising agency?  Of course not.  An employee might go to work with the goal of “getting through the day,” but an entrepreneurial mindset would never tolerate such a thought.  Average or just getting through the day is NOT entrepreneurial thinking.

Since the characteristics of successful entrepreneurs demands striving for perfection, the very idea of average is appalling.  Henry Ford did not create the automobile by giving up at the first glitch.  Andrew Carnegie did not amass a fortune in steel by doing the minimum possible amount of effort.

Entrepreneurial traits drive the individual to seek new creative ideas, seek new and better performance from themselves and seek the top performance in everything they do.  Will they always achieve perfection?  No but they will keep striving to be the best they can possible be.  When they fall short, they analyze what happened and determine how they can do better the next time.

Being a perfectionist is one of the characteristics of successful entrepreneurs.  What is your goal?

If you want personalized assistance in reaching your peak performance, join me at http://www.elaine4success.com/.

Throughout history we have progressed from the Agricultural Age through the Industrial Age, and through the Information Age. The common thread running uniting all of the economic changes has been the individual entrepreneur.

Small business managed and developed by the individual entrepreneur forms the basis of all economic progress. The individual entrepreneur who possesses a burning desire to create a business of their own stimulates economic advances.

The Pilgrims were farmers who traveled to America to be able to settle new land and develop their enterprises. They were so adamant that they put their lives on the line to be able to conduct their businesses in peace and freedom.

The gold rush was individual miners who struck out on their own at great peril to seek their fortune. Covered wagons rolled across the prairie in search of acreages to homestead. Herds of cattle were driven hundreds of miles to stake out new ranches.

Bill Gates started Microsoft in a garage. Thomas Edison had a small laboratory to conduct his experiments. Henry Ford started Ford Motor Company in a tiny space working on the development of his horseless carriage. Andrew Carnegie started out with an idea and developed it into a huge empire.

Throughout the entire world, it has been the entrepreneur with a dream, an idea and more motivation than money who changed the course of history.

Think it is too late for a new idea? Wrong. The telephone and telegraph started with a simple idea to communicate ideas more easily. Every step of the way from the first crank telephones to the modern I-phone were all spearheaded by an entrepreneur with a dream.

New and better ideas continue to flow. With each new idea, there is the springboard for another ever more progressive idea. You are only limited by your imagination. You may have made the excuse about having a lack of money. As the beloved business philosopher, Jim Rohn, said, “Lack of money is not the problem; it is the lack of an idea to create money that is the issue.” Ideas are free. Developing the idea will require some time, effort and dedication.

What is your future worth?

Education helps, money helps but the critical element is always passion. Nothing and no one can stop an entrepreneur with a burning desire. If you listen to your critics, you will never accomplish anything of merit. Critics frequently want to keep you down on their level rather than providing the jet fuel to boost you to the heights you are destined to achieve.

At the end of your life do you want to know that you gave your dream the chance to develop to its fullest potential or regret that you took the safe road and did nothing? The discipline to develop your dream weighs ounces but the pain of regret weighs tons. Jim Rohn spoke volumes with those few words. “We cannot become what we need to be by remaining what we are, ” Max DePree. Stretch your wings and discover your passion. Discover that burning desire resting dormant within your soul. Allow yourself to become the entrepreneur you are capable of being.

New ideas are being developed each day. Education, age, economic background, and physical location are minor factors. A heartfelt passion and a desire to develop yourself as an entrepreneur is the only critical element.

What excuse are you allowing to hold you back from taking charge of your future? Entrepreneurial mindset is an entrepreneur with a mindset backed by action just as believing in and realizing gold dust in the air is an attitude backed by action. Entrepreneurs believe in and experience the gold dust. With the gold dust comes an overwhelming feeling of accomplishment, happiness and success.

For specific tips, techniques and practical exercises to discover your passion join

me at www.Elaine4Success.com.

I remember that feeling of failure. Property owners, employees and tourists were looking up to me as the leader they trusted and I failed. My self esteem drained away. It seemed like a good decision at the time. Have you ever had second thoughts about a decision? Some decisions are reversible and some are not. Selling a business, end of the year tax losses and having a baby are not reversible. Come to think of it, there are painful similarities.
Why had I sold Mt. Castles? My attitude and my self confidence plummeted and my business disappeared quicker than a snowflake in hot coffee. I could blame the economy, the president or the dog catcher. The problem was my attitude and my action.  My lack of Entrepreneurial Mindset.

I had allowed my attitude and my business to come crashing down. When my attitude and self confidence plummeted, my business profits followed suit. I allowed second thoughts and doubt to destroy a great business.

Money does not disappear, it simply changes hands. The words of Paul Zane Pilzer, economic adviser to 2 presidents rang in my ear. “There will be more millionaires created between 2006 and 2016 than at any prior point in the history of the world.” With all of this prosperity, how could my attitude be down?

What was the secret to all of my success in the past?

Everyone I talked to told me I couldn’t do it. I’d go broke. It could not be done with single family homes. Property management only works with condominiums. I had 3 things going for me; I love a challenge, I was naive and it’s the go go 80′s. You didn’t have to be good to make money.

No second thoughts. Back it with action and go for it. There are advantages to being naïve. Jump off the business cliff and look for a golden parachute on the way down. I had a clear plan of action.

Sometimes plans are disrupted. Owners of the first home I managed were 2 young venture capitalists. Great young guys. Easy to work with, generous and creative. They owned a car rental agency based out of Boca Raton, FL. One day I received a call from Federal Marshall Jim Tafoya of the DEA. The cars carried more than people across state lines. The guys may now be having second thoughts. They had been concentrating on powder but theirs was not Steamboat’s legendary snowflakes. They were working with another white powder. Poof. The federal marshals became the new owners of the property.

Federal Marshalls do not have second thoughts about white powder.

Mt. Castles kept growing. Even after I won the “Innovator of the Year” award for being the first property management company in Routt County to market ski lodging on the internet, I allowed my significant other, Matt, I changed the name to protect the guilty, to tell me how small and insignificant a company I was. My self confidence evaporated and so did my profits. Poof. Just like the powder, everything came crashing down. Attitude is not the only thing, but it is the main thing. I defeated myself.

I could blame Matt, the economy or George Bush, but it was my own second thoughts. My own self doubt had destroyed my business and made the decision to sell Mt. Castles.

Paul Zane Pilzer’s words rang in my ear, “more millionaires created than at any prior point in the history of the world. . .” Clear my head; restore my confidence. Dust off my attitude and back it with action. If I allowed second thoughts to destroy my attitude, then I have the power to bring it back. Stick to your goals. Don’t allow second thoughts to destroy your dreams.

For specific tips and techniques to overcome your second thoughts and hold on to your dreams, contact me at www.Elaine4Success.com.