Support your entrepreneurs.

We all have at least one in our lives. Friend or family these people come in all shapes and sizes. The vast majority of people are not entrepreneurs because they do not have the stomach for the roller coaster ride it is. If you look around the world and pay attention, you will note that most people work for someone else because it gives them income stability. That is why we work, to earn money, and a job that pays a set amount in exchange for predetermined activities is a pretty sweet gig. At least for some people.

Entrepreneurs are the people who look around them and see opportunity. They are not content to spend their lives working for others to make other people richer. These are individuals who have an idea, a skill, talent, service or product that they want to sell to the world.

If you talk to most they will tell you that they wanted to be their own boss, and it does make sense. We spend our entire childhood being told what to do by adults, when you are an employee it just shifts from parents to employer.

Not everyone is comfortable with spending their lives just being a cog in a giant never ending wheel, they want to do more and leave their mark on the world. They have lofty dreams that for many people seem unattainable or ridiculous.

The thing is, we would not have a single modern convenience today without entrepreneurs. Every single product in your life was created by entrepreneurs who dreamed up these ideas and took the chance to make them a reality. Entrepreneurs are our dreamers and inventors.

They also create jobs, a lot of them. In fact they are the single largest employers on earth and have been for as long as we have existed and exchanged goods between each other. There is not a scenario that exists where there is not some form of entrepreneurship at play when exchanging goods for some form of compensation.

I would bet that you reader are either an entrepreneur or work for a company started by one, at some point.

Entrepreneurs are not as prevalent as the rest of the world, if they were we would all be self employed. The journey to success being an entrepreneur is not an easy one and most do not start to truly reap the benefits of their labours for a decade or more. That is because quick win fast growth ideas are rare and the capital required to get started can be a real barrier. But even the biggest companies started somewhere, and it is rarely on the top floor. Fast is not the measure of true success, longevity is. It is much harder for a 100 year old company to fail than a 10 year old one, and there are very few companies that make it to 100 years or more.

Most startups fail in the first three years, and of those entrepreneurs, most will try again. In fact they say if you never fail you never really learn. Even I have had more than one moment when I thought "this might be the end", but it wasn't. Not because I did anything magical, rather I refused to give up and that is no different than any other entrepreneur.

I have been a part of a lot of groups, attended meetings, and been to networking events where there was a common theme, lack of support. In fact when you read articles in the news, on social media, here on linkedin, etc. there seems to be a common theme. Being an entrepreneur is lonely.

It can certainly seem like that for most from time to time. Especially when there are challenges ahead and it can be hard to find the motivation to keep moving forward. A lot of people have the same knee jerk reaction when things start to go amiss - fold the towel. Quit, go get a job for security and just move on.

When we work for someone and things happen that make us unhappy, we have avenues that can be explored. There are human resource departments, unions, government agencies, and more to protect and guide us through those challenges. An entrepreneur is on their own and is normally left with lawyers as their top resource. Lawyers are also very expensive, but they too are mostly entrepreneurs, so they get it.

In the mortgage industry we talk a lot about support and what that means. I have heard a lot of variation over my 30+ year career, but the most common ones were: (1) Training (2) Mentoring/Coaching (3) leads. Why those three so consistently, because that is what any entrepreneur lacks the most.

Training is not just about taking a course, watching a video, or reading a book - it is about getting real world experience. Without hands on, doing the work, at best all that exists is theory. This is something that we all have to pony up for, it's called school.

Mentoring or coaching, that is really all about validation and emotional positivity in the support received. That I should probably expand on a bit.

Self employed people spend a lot of timing hearing the same word, over and over again. No. We are told no throughout our day by leads, employees, banks, and any number of others who we have to deal with. Then we also have to say no to others, and sometimes that is really hard to do. Because the buck stops at the top and that is exactly what the entrepreneur is, they are also accountable for everyone and everything associated with their business. That is very stressful because not only do they have to manage themselves, but everyone else in the company as well. That includes all the interpersonal issues that happen in a workplace the minute there is more than one employee.

Mentors and coaches provide a different sort of feedback and they do it through positive means. In my experience a mentor or coach should not tell you what to do, specifically. They are there to guide us and help us find the solution, challenge us to stay focused, and celebrate the little wins. They also rarely encourage us to quit, give up, etc., and they charge for the support.

So far we have touched on training and mentoring/coaching and if you note, both come with the same final solution available to an entrepreneur, paying money for the support. This is not a dig at anyone or the system, it is just a statement of fact. Remember, the coach, mentor, and the school are all doing the same thing as the entrepreneur, making a living.

I intentionally left mentoring and leads to the end, and am going to speak to this from the point of view of a restaurant owner.

Imagine you work really hard and you finally achieve the dream of opening a restaurant. Now imagine if some of the people you know in your life, never came to eat there, and never referred anyone to eat there.

They know you own the restaurant, they ask you for cooking tips and recipes all the time, they eat over at your home, and you know that they eat out because you have seen them at other restaurants nearby.

Before you read on, pay attention to the thoughts that pop into your mind. Make sure you put yourself in the restaurant owners position and think about how you would FEEL.

************************** Pause to think about and re-read the above****************************

Ok. I would bet that your thoughts leaned one of two ways. (1) the person who never went there was a jerk or (2) there was a reason why they did not go, something about the food or the restaurant. Most of the readers probably went to both places.

No matter what, there is one truth in the above that cannot be denied. This is clearly about respect. If someone would happily eat food at your home, for free, and not be willing to eat your food at your restaurant and pay for it... that is not support. That is just plain old bad behaviour.

If you are an entrepreneur there is really no expectation that the people we know in our lives will run around doing advertising or marketing for us. We also do not expect to be handed business as a given, nor to have an army of sales reps nagging everyone to frequent our business. When the people in an entrepreneurs life do nothing however, it really feels as though we are not trusted by that person, whatever the reason.

Ok, maybe the restaurant is a steak house and the friend is vegan. That is not really a reason though is it, maybe the steak house would bring in vegan options if the owner knew this was why the friend would not patronise the business. You get my point I think.

Even when we ask them, the entrepreneur, for free advice, and we do not reciprocate with references to help them grow, we are abusing them to our own advantage and that is not support.

99% of all businesses start with referrals, even the giant multinationals. Entrepreneurs do not just need them, they depend on them as much as they depend on oxygen to live. Without referrals the business cannot succeed long term, and the only way to start that process is through the people we know.

We all depends on referrals from friends and family, it is how we find good places to eat, travel too, and more. We give and take referrals and shared experiences freely, most of the time. When it comes to sharing what the people in our lives do, there is some sort of strange mental block a lot of people have. Let me give you an example I was reminded of.

Many years ago I had a unique problem that needed a unique kind of lawyer to give advice on. I was having a hard time finding one that could help, and I had talked to several friends and my family about it at the time. I eventually found a lawyer through many phone calls and a process of elimination. Got everything resolved quickly and easily and life moved forward. I remember celebrating the moment with a friend, only to discover that the lawyer was, in fact, their sibling.

Had they told me that their sister "fit the bill" I would have saved months of stress and time searching. I pressed my friend about why they never told me, and the response was that they did not want it to impact their relationship with me or their sibling if things went poorly. Honestly, that does not say a lot about how my friend viewed me, or their sibling, it certainly does not convey trust that their sibling will be able to help me. Sometimes that is justifiable if one or the other party has a particularly bad history, but that is very rare.

I have two siblings, both are successful and I proudly tell people about what they do for a living and who they are. (I won't in this article because I have not asked their permission and this is in print, online, non marketing). I have also referred people to them who I thought would help them in their careers, business, and other parts of their lives. I know my siblings, they are caring honest dedicated people who I believe are really good at what they do, so why wouldn't I tell the world?

I don't really know if they are good at what they do. I assume they are because they both have good jobs, great tenure, and well, I believe in them. Do I know for a fact that they are any good at their jobs? No, I do not. I have not worked with them in the same company, I have not used their services, and I have never sat down with their boss, co-workers, and customers to quiz them. For all I know their boss/employees could be praying for them to either win the lottery, retire, or get fired. I don't believe that of them, but I don't KNOW that for sure.

My point is, we have to give the entrepreneurs in our lives some benefit of the doubt and help them by supporting them. We all know people who need something from someone at any given point in the day, if their need aligns with something that someone in your life can fill - then refer them. If it doesn't go well, it doesn't go well but you have no way of knowing that and when you just don't... you are guaranteeing the entrepreneur will in fact fail. At least in that one instance, because they clearly failed to win a customer, but were never given the chance to succeed.

It is not intentional, no one actually wants an entrepreneur to fail, except maybe a competitor or some sort of super villain, but certainly not friends and family. We should be eager to support the people in our lives and understand that it is not about money, it validates, encourages, and celebrates the entrepreneur.

We all know that being self employed can come with massive rewards, but it also comes with equal risk. The only edge an entrepreneur has is the people that they are surrounded by, the ones that support and cheer them on - even when things get tough.

I am not a huge athlete but I know enough about it to know that the ones who win the trophies, never quit. There is not a coach who would allow it, or athlete in the world who would throw in the towel when things get tough. There are examples of world class athletes who experience significant physical trauma and fight back to compete again as one of the best in the world. We see it all the time in superhero movies, and are inundated with the message of "never give up".

The courage that anyone has to keep going in the face of any trauma is the same courage that keeps an entrepreneur fighting. It is what drives them forward and allows them to take the risks necessary to achieve their dreams. There is one single enemy however that every entrepreneur has, no matter who they are or how successful, doubt. The more success you achieve, the less doubt you have because success is validation. At the start doubt can be a dream killer and is why what we do to support our entrepreneurs matters more than we might think.

When we do not give our entrepreneurs support we are sowing additional seeds of doubt that will grow. Remember, this is not about becoming a brand ambassador, it is about doing more than just saying we support and backing up our platitudes with meaningful actions. They don't have to be big grand gestures, even small things matter.

Show your pride in them for having the courage and fortitude to risk it all to chase a dream. They might stumble and fall, but that happens to all of us in different ways. Instead of worrying about all the things that could go wrong, or that are missing, focus on the dream and the goals. I have goals and dreams, as do you right now reading this. We should be celebrating every good milestone, commiserating over the crappy ones, and helping them remember the dream and stay true to it.

That is what we should all be doing for the entrepreneurs in our lives and for me, that is exactly what I am accomplishing with Haystax. As an entrepreneur I am living the experience of what it means to chase a dream and be met with challenges, while feeling alone.

I can't make all of the people in an entrepreneurs life suddenly become the ideal, and that is not a realistic expectation. I do take my own experiences however and use them as a guide to help me better understand the challenges that others in my industry face. I honestly used to think it was exaggerated, but now I get it. It may not be intentional, but it hurts and that hurt can cloud everything else and become a self fulfilling prophecy of failure.

So, if you have an entrepreneur in your life be kind and don't let them lose sight of the dream. Remember, if they are wildly successful, and they see you as having been a big part of that... chances are pretty good your entrepreneur will... thank you... accordingly.

This article is my opinion and is based on my lived experiences. Your opinion may differ. I hope if it does and you wish to engage in respectful dialogue that you leave a comment! We learn from sharing ideas and thoughts, even when we do not always see eye to eye!