3 Ways You Can Go From “Nontrepreneur” to Entrepreneur

It’s easy to look at success stories like Elon Musk and think, “I could never do that.” If you’re just starting out, building giant factories and sending rockets into space seems completely out of reach.

And of course that’s true – you can’t go from square one to Mars overnight. But the problem is, many people interpret that to mean, “It’s never possible,” or “ You can never succeed.”

And that’s completely false.

Dorie Clark’s new book Entrepreneurial You breaks through those myths and shows current and aspiring entrepreneurs how they can build successful businesses, digging into the thorniest problem of all: how do you actually make money doing it?

She interviewed more than 50 six-, seven-, and eight-figure entrepreneurs to understand their exact business models, and broke that information down into a roadmap so that regular entrepreneurs and professionals can apply the lessons in their own business.

Here are three of the top strategies she uncovered.

1. Challenge yourself.

One of the biggest problems for aspiring entrepreneurs is just getting started. That’s why Michael Parrish DuDell – the author of a book based on the television show Shark Tank and one of Clark’s case studies in Entrepreneurial You – set a clear goal for himself. As he was deciding whether or not to start his own business, he realized that he’d never had to sell before. Since that’s one of the most important elements of entrepreneurship, he knew he’d have to master it.

So he laid down the gauntlet: he had to make at least one sale in the next 30 days, or he’d give up on entrepreneurship forever. Deadlines don’t work for everyone, but for some, they can be intensely motivating. DuDell made his sale and proved to himself he could do it. If you’ve been talking about wanting to start forever, but haven’t taken action, challenging yourself with a deadline could be a good way to get into gear.

2. Focus on the right things. 

One of the tricks of early stage entrepreneurship is knowing where to focus your time. In our crowded and noisy world, there are a million choices. Should you go to that networking event? Post in your Facebook group? Cold call potential customers? In the case of Natalie Sisson, author of The Suitcase Entrepreneur, she made connections early on through social media. But looking back nearly a decade later, she now regrets some of her choices.

In retrospect, she spent way too much time – up to eight hours a day – networking online and posting in forums. That was great, but it distracted her from the real work: developing a business model and actually getting clients. Today, she runs a successful six-figure business, but she feels she might have gotten there faster if she’d recognized that spending time on social media for her business, while it seems like work, really isn’t. Social media is great, but don’t confuse generalized “brand building” with actually getting clients and bringing in revenue.

3. Create your strategy.

Studies have shown that spending tons of time creating a formal business plan – those behemoth, 50-page documents laying out future revenue projections and the like – isn’t very helpful. Your entrepreneurial venture will rarely turn out exactly as planned, and the real key to success is learning to adapt and adjust in real time. But while you should be flexible when it comes to your tactics, it’s important to have an overarching strategy that guides you.

In particular, Clark makes the case in Entrepreneurial You that everyone – whether you’re running your own business, or even happily work for someone else – should seek to develop multiple income streams. That gives you the opportunity to earn more money, of course, but also hedges against risks, like downturns or layoffs. But you can’t simply say, “Today, I’m going to start five new revenue streams.”

It’s a process that takes planning, and time. In fact, Clark believes you should develop a maximum of 1-2 new ones per year. But you have to start laying the groundwork now. (She created a useful resource to help you do that, her 88-page Entrepreneurial You self-assessment. You can download it for free here). Good entrepreneurship may be improvisational, but that doesn’t mean you operate without a strategy. Like Elon Musk, the best entrepreneurs often have the longest-range visions.

Entrepreneurship is an exciting option for many people who are looking for more autonomy, flexibility, and economic opportunity. But getting from here to there – from a day job to running your own business – can be daunting. Dorie Clark’s Entrepreneurial You is an invaluable resource for making that transition, and learning the nitty-gritty details – like how much to charge and how to actually make money – that enable your new venture to succeed.

Now it's YOUR turn. Entrepreneurs: How did you do it? Nontrepreneurs: What are your ideas, and what's stopping you? Let me know your thoughts in the Comments section below.

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?Dorie Clark is also the author of "Reinventing You" (Harvard Business Review Press, 2013) and "Stand Out," which was named the #1 Leadership Book of 2015 by Inc. magazine.

Dave Kerpen is the CEO of Likeable Local, the Chairman of Likeable Media, and the NY Times bestselling author of 4 books, including the recent The Art of People: 11 Simple People Skills That Will Get You Everything You Want.