9 skills to turn your ideas into real businesses

Calling out entrepreneurial-minded African native living in the Western world. If you don't know how to turn your ideas into real businesses? This is for you.

Throw away the business models and the business plans, until you have mastered certain skills, your ideas will never actually become money-making machines. I will share in this article the 9 skills I have learned to be critical in the last year and suggestions for you to develop them too.

Thriving Through Turbulent Times

More and more consumers are turning to discount retailers amid high inflation and interest rates, and this is happening across the globe. Whether you are earning your life well already or not, you feel the heat.

Here is what many financial blogs are saying:

• In Canada, the Financial Post points out that “Searching “Dollarama finds” on TikTok pulls up thousands of videos of people showing off the latest deals and unexpected products they come across on the retailer’s shelves. The search query alone has more than 224 million views with users showing off $4 bamboo cutting boards and 330-millilitre cans of kombucha for $2.25. (...) While people are being asked to pay more to make sure they have a roof over their head, they’re adjusting by retreating at the grocery store."
• In Europe, a 麦肯锡 survey shares: "Consumers are pulling back on spending and dipping into savings. Nearly four in ten have reduced spending on non-food discretionary items, up from a third in June, while over a third took out money from savings to cover typical expenses. Consumers are opting for more affordable options."

You most probably have also found yourself in a situation where you are reducing expenses, but those of you with the entrepreneurial mindset, are looking for ways to generate more money and grow financially in this period.?

You have probably already heard it - it's a great time to be alive, you should take part of the opportunities online to generate new revenue, and show resilience in these turbulent times.?

It’s easier said than done though.?

I know at least 10 people in my immediate reach, who have tried and quit with catching up with the online opportunities. But the truth remains, those that I know who have not quit, are earning in the 7-8 figure range.

If it is easier said than done, we have to understand that thriving, especially in turbulent times, is not about the plans and the strategies, but more so about the soft skills you need to develop.

Popular embarrassment

Before we dig into these skills, I'd like to start with a little story.

As far as I can remember, I had always had a dent for business.?

My first attempt was in high school, when I was trying to sell tickets for a theater play I was writing and directing.

The tickets were free, but I am still in awe with how the extremely-shy girl I was back then, was marketing the plays. I was using the lunch breaks to go classroom by classroom, and talking about the life-changing play that was coming up, asking students to grab tickets.

I remember feeling back then the embarrassment that came with marketing an idea, marketing a story, trying to convince people that they needed to see my ideas, even if I was not among the most popular girls in the college.

I did 3 plays in high-school and each time the embarrassment was the same.

The first year I did a play, only a handful of students showed up. The second year, we filled up half of the 1000-people chapel where we were playing. My marketing was a bit better.

The third year, we exploded. It seemed like the whole college was attending. Seats within the chapel were not sufficient. People were standing up from the outside. I remember the director who was with us at the time told me that we might have needed to shoot it for those who were not able to see the play fully from within.

When the play was done, nobody wanted to leave the chapel, and we sang in there for another 20min, until eventually the principal came and asked us to stop and go back to our classes.?

As I reflect back on these days, it made me realize how good ideas do not turn into businesses (with clients, or customers), just by themselves.?

If you want to sell services with your idea, and make a business off of it, you have to be comfortable with the embarrassment of marketing them.

The beauty with the online space, is that your reach is not limited to my college back in Cameroon. This is the reason why you need to start developing strategies here online too, to always grow bigger.

9 skills to develop to really turn your ideas into successful businesses

Here are the 9 skills you need to develop to ease the path for you - grab one of these skills every week for the rest of the year, and attempt to become an inch better at them. You would have grown financially with your business ideas, and thrive through these turbulent times, mark my words.

1. Be always motivated - I have a personal list of motivational videos that I call "Gratitude" and that I listen to, all day long. I have shared this with many of my clients too, and they all love this idea a lot. This is the perfect way to force our brain to think positively. Hear me out, in this already tough times, you need to navigate through with more positivity. Have a list to inject some of that in your brain. Nobody likes to be around negative people. By developing this muscle, you increase your chances to get potential clients to engage with your services.
2. Learn to take responsibility - This is my favorite lesson in the past year. Until I was willing to take responsibility for my lack of clients, I would always find excuses not to go and find ones.?Find ways to read through the lessons in the failures, rather than constantly blaming outside circumstances. Having a personal coach has always help me gain back accountability for my circumstances, which had put me in a better position to change them. Apply for coaching with me here , if that resonates with you.
3. Build self-confidence - This is not about learning how to do more things, but learning how to simplify and do the small things well. The small habits such as eating well, sleeping well, help you build out self-confidence more than you can imagine.
4. Be optimistic - Many advisors will talk about the importance of being realist, especially in recessionary tides like now. I have had prospects who wanted to work with me and then told me that their financial advisors advised them to cut all non-food expenses at the moment. The thing with this realist or pessimistic views is that it prevents you to read the optimistic signs of the moment. Remember that it is also in situations like these that the greatest business ideas emerge.
5. Be passionate about the importance of your ideas - My theater plays exploded the third year I did them for this specific reason. I became extremely passionate about the stories I was writing, and I believed people needed to hear them, and that they would be transformed by it. Same, as I started business coaching venture, it became clear to me that the skills I have earned would benefit so many entrepreneurial-minded Africans in the western world to grow financially.
6. Show an ability to deal with uncertainty - People and organizations pay millions of dollars to become a bit more certain about the future. To grow your business, you have to learn how to dance with uncertainty. Uncertainty for me had sometimes come with high level of anxiety. Books like “Change your brain, change your life" by Daniel G. Amen, M.D. , give out powerful ways to deal with this. Remember that many people never grow financially because of their inability to manage uncertainty, especially when things get hard. This will definitely help you.
7. Be more alert to opportunities than others - Being more alert to opportunities means getting ready to take them as they arise, but it also means to create them. Sharing your services and offers is the best way to beat the game, and create more opportunities for you. If you need help with defining your services and offers, you definitely need join my upcoming training this friday . It will be 100% free.
8. Have good social skills - Even if you’re an introvert like me, you can’t grow financially alone. And you will lose money trying to buy programs, where you just have to do a magic trick online to get rich, without having to talk to people. Opportunities for you land in the needs of other people. Practice skills like empathy, social wisdom, boundaries, communication, in order to grow.
9. Plan and execute exceptionally well - This is why you can’t go at trying to launch a business by yourself. Planning requires good strategy or you’ll keep losing money. Execution requires tracking progress as you go along. Nobody does these 2 things well alone. We all need an outside-viewer who help in the planning and helps read in the execution the failures or wins that you cannot see.?

This is not about being Mr. Perfect, and applying all these traits. But, it is all about showing willingness to develop these traits as you grow your business.?

I have some spots open for free, for a training this friday, where I will show you the path to turn your ideas into real businesses, and grow financially this year with more ease and security. Join us here, it will be a completely free training.