What You Need To Succeed in Entrepreneurship

Whether you have been an entrepreneur for years or just starting, every business owner wants to succeed. No one embarks on an endeavor, whatever it is, without lofty desires and plans to succeed. So why do several people start a business and fail? What makes others start similar businesses and succeed? What are the secrets to building a successful and lasting business?

It is often easier to remain within the safety of being an employee, not having to bother about the hassles of being your own boss, but rather stay in an organization that offers a sense of security which in itself is not a bad decision. To be an entrepreneur is an arduous venture, but you get to "be your own boss," you get to enjoy the freedom of creating your goals, follow your passions, create wealth and make an impact in your own 'small' or 'huge' way.

How then can you succeed in entrepreneurship?

1. Have a realistic view of your business.

All successful businesses started small. It took them a number of years to stabilize and begin to scale…yours would be no different. To start, run and sustain a business takes time, energy, and continuous review of your plans and strategies.

Anyone can have an idea; it is said that 6000 ideas course through our minds daily, but building a sustainable and successful business is an accumulation of different, small but significant daily inputs into the business.

2. Improve on your Customer Satisfaction Plan

Lisa owns a coaching company 5 miles from the city Centre; Geraldine's coaching outfit was within the city Centre. It was discovered that she was booking and retaining more clientele than Geraldine was. When clients were asked why most said it was how the staff treated them with respect and consideration. Others said, people spoke highly of her services and when they come, they experienced the same treatment.

Your success as a business is dependent on your customer acquisition and retention. Your mind may have automatically traveled to a store or business you have said you will never transact with. The same goes for your customer.

According to (Salesforce Research), if the company's customer service is excellent, 78% of consumers will do business with them again after a mistake.

In comparison,

• 78% of customers have backed out of purchase due to a poor customer experience. (Glance)

How can you get it right in the area of "Customer Satisfaction"?

Improve your communication skills- emotional and social intelligence is critical- to deliver a quality customer experience. Nothing kills a business faster than a bad customer service reputation. Work on your customer service experience and make it a priority not just for your customer service department (if you have one) but for every member of your staff.

3. Grow Your Leadership Skills

To grow a successful business, you must grow your leadership skills. Embedded in your leadership skill is the need to grow your analytic skills; to constantly be able to critically analyze your business and chart the course of growing your brand and revenue.

Under developing your leadership skill is the need to assess your leadership style. Good leadership means you not only lead your organization towards its goals but you raise leaders within your organization ~you replicate yourself so that your business can run without you.

Whether it is a coaching, democratic or persuasive leadership style, be a boss that leads from the front, a team player, accountable, dependable, and respectful of others. Leadership by intimidation will ruin your business.

4. Review Your Business Plan

Do you have a business plan? Did you take the time to analyze your ideas, your strategies, your timing before launching that business?

What is a Business Plan? A business plan is simply a written map that outlines the organization's goals, a time frame to achieve those goals, and the how-to achieve those goals. And just like every other map, you must go back to it for proper navigation. Having one would help you develop great marketing strategies and validates your business projections as well as consumer expectations.

5. Time Management

To become a productive business you need to be able to manage your time effectively. Time is a limited resource. Especially for an entrepreneur, it is a resource that you can never get enough of. However, learning to work smarter not harder is the key.

"Time management is the process of organizing, planning and controlling how long you spend on specific activities to increase efficiency with less stress."

Time management is a skill that can be learned. Here are some basic steps to follow:

• Plan your day the night before. This gives you time to organize your tasks on a list, according to priority, and gives you a sense of how long you'll spend working on them.
• Do not multitask. Multitasking is a myth and you achieve nothing at the end of the day. Focus on one agenda at a time, complete that task before moving to the next.
• Find your most productive hours and schedule your high priority tasks at that time

When you improve on your time management, you eliminate inefficiency, stress, and poor service quality. You increase efficiency, productivity which is reflected in your overall revenue.

6. Mindset Shift.

Do you want to want to be a successful entrepreneur and run a successful business? Then check and change your 'Mindset.' Success begins in the mind. So whether you are a 'Newbie' or you have been in the game for a while and are looking on scaling and increasing productivity, you must possess the mindset that would raise your creativity and motivation.

To engage in a mindset shift for success, you must ask yourself these questions;

What are my beliefs? As you think in your mind, so are you. To succeed, believe you can and will succeed, believe in your offer, your service, your product, and your choices.

What do I focus on? Focus on your abilities, banish limiting beliefs. Don't focus on past failures or mistakes. Above all, focus on customer satisfaction and the 'why' of your business.

What attitudes do I bring to the table? A positive attitude is key to productivity in any business. Resilience, out-of-the-box thinking, commitment to quality over quantity, collaboration, growth mindset, and a "can-do" spirit.

7. Adaptability Strategies and Resilience

Becoming an entrepreneur is not for the fainthearted. You will have to deal with customers, staff, investors, government policies, financial markets, and unforeseen circumstances; it takes grit to attend to all this. If as a business owner you cannot quickly adapt, you would soon become obsolete. When the pandemic hit, many businesses that could not adapt and pivot became redundant and went bankrupt.

Your ability to quickly adapt is key to your success in business. Are sales dropping? What are you going to do about it? Are customers gravitating to technological advancement? How quickly can you leverage the technology and jump into the change? How quickly can you get up, and leverage what's available?

One way to fuel your resilience and adaptability is to invest in education. Being aware of the threats and opportunities available will enable you to make informed decisions that will move your company forward and help you grow a successful business.