The most important factor of successful Entrepreneurs

Great ideas are dreamt up every day but few are turned into successful businesses. Subjectivity clouds most aspects of a new venture including concept, pitch and projections but there is one factor that can be found in every successful Entrepreneur: The ability to sustain their efforts over an intense period.

Let’s face it, anybody can be a superstar for a day, but what separates the mediocre from the high performers is the ability to deliver every day – and every day means every day.

Think of the leader of any successful business. It’s somebody who pushes through when it gets tough. Somebody who has been told ‘No’ over and over again. Somebody who lifts their team up when they’re down. It’s somebody who, in spite of all of that, wakes up every day ready and willing to go and do it all again. They’re able to sustain their efforts not just over a day, a week or a month but over an intense period of time.

Exactly how long a period of time varies for each business but traditionally it’s until there’s an exit of some kind or until the business scales. But I want to be clear – I’m not talking about a 6-month period; plan for it to be anywhere from 3 years on. Most businesses don’t see an exit for at least 5 years and you need to be able to ride out the hurt for the entire time.

The ability to sustain effort means you need to have the capacity to endure the highs and the lows that go along with starting and growing a business. It’s easy to put in effort for a week or a month when you just start out and everything is new, shiny and exciting. However, great ideas that suffer poor execution will never find a path to market while weaker ideas led by an Entrepreneur that sustains their efforts have a far better chance of gaining traction and finding a market.

The last piece of the puzzle is the use of the word INTENSE. We often hear Entrepreneurs talk about how they grind or hustle every day to get just a little bit further in front of where they were yesterday. It’s a competitive landscape and you need to turn up every day ready to play because your competitors do. Why? Because business is hard and your customers deserve the best you and your team have to offer every time - not just when you can be bothered.

If it were easy to succeed in business everybody would be doing it but it’s not. Here are 5 tips to help you sustain your efforts over an intense period:

1)     Set weekly or monthly achievable goals;

Striving towards, and completing, a goal releases Dopamine (the pleasure hormone) giving you satisfaction and keeping you mentally alert and focused. By setting yourself short term goals you allow yourself to achieve quicker and more frequently.

2)     Take time off to re-energise to stop from burning out;

Though it might sound counter-intuitive, taking time off from work actually increases productivity. We all need time to recover and without time off no recovery can take place. Time off allows us to recover from fatigue and stress which, in turn, allows us to stay disciplined and recharge our brain and body.

3)     Surround yourself with people that stir you up and get results;

You, your life and the people around you are a reflection of what you are willing to accept. Being a hard worker is not a competitive advantage. Being a high performing achiever is. Surround yourself with people who challenge you to raise the bar rather than drain you.

4)     Ensure your activity is continually justified with your long-term goals;

We can get so busy being busy that it’s easy to travel down the path of least resistance, which isn’t always in line with our long-term goals. Put time aside and set up monthly checkpoints to look over the last months business activity and what you have planned for the coming month.

5)     Don’t lose yourself in your business;

Without realising it we can find ourselves doing revolving functional roles in our business. With email and mobile phones so accessible it’s increasingly difficult to find the time to switch off or step out of the business. Plan time with your friends and family and don’t try and do everything yourself – ask for help when you need it.