Your 9 Principles for Entrepreneurship in 2019

Statistics show that only 9.2 percent of people ever achieve their New Year’s resolutions and break free from their bad habits.

But the question is that should the above statistic stop you from introspecting your actions in 2018 and setting a higher standard of goals for your business in 2019?

Let’s have a quick look at the small changes you can possibly make in 2019 to bring scalability to your business.

1. Hire to earn

The meaning and definition of hiring have changed largely in the last few years. It is now as important to a company as it is to a potential candidate because no organization can grow without the right talent and a great team. Now, this is where an entrepreneur falters. Rather than looking at hiring as a way to grow and build the business, they dismiss it or procrastinate hiring because they see it as an unnecessary expense. I need you to understand that when you have a job, you have someone to hound you to get things done and you get a salary every month. On the contrary, when you are an entrepreneur and you are a one-man army, then you own a job where you have to do the marketing, sales, development, delivery, accounting, and administration work, and when you are the one doing everything, the result is close to nothing. You need a team to handle the different functions of your business so as to earn money and not wait to earn before you begin to hire.

2. Build a system

If your business is not making the money that it should, there are high chances that you are doing all the operational tasks yourself. While trying to learn everything in your business is great, trying to do everything yourself is not. What most entrepreneurs forget is that ‘jugaad’ works sometimes but is not sustainable or scalable. To stop being the slave of your business and drive it towards success, replace jugaad with building a well-thought and effective system.

3. Bridge the gap with employees

“60% of employees say they have left jobs or would consider leaving because they don’t like their supervisors”

Are you trying to play the distance game with your team in order to get your work done? If the answer is yes, it’s time to up your game. Remember that the productivity of your team will always be higher if they feel a sense of belonging at the workplace and share a healthy relationship with the employer. Hence, in order to build a competent and committed team which will help you take your business to the next level, you need to bridge the gap with them and work on creating both a professional and personal relationship with them.

4. Don’t directly market your product/service, sell the story behind it.

When you are making a product or service, consumers are already expecting the basics. But is the customer satisfied with the basics? How, in this cut-throat competition, will you make your product/service stand out among the rest? There is only way to do it – make the customer connect, not just to your product, but, to a beautiful and unique story behind it.

5. Don’t stop at hiring, train the team.

How many times have you made the courageous decision to hire someone, and have then felt a sense of relief after the person is hired, with hopes that they will now handle everything, and with confidence that your company is on its way to growth? And how many times have these hopes come crashing down within the first month? The truth is that hiring and appointing people to do a job is not where your job ends, but it’s where your job starts. The key is to get your new hire to shadow you and to spend your time and energy to train them, monitor them and give them balanced feedback in order to ensure that your team is contributing towards your vision.

6. Stop resisting technology

68% of marketing heads report that customer experience is increasingly becoming the basis of their competitive efforts.

You might feel that you are on the right path to achieve success in your business and you needn’t learn any new technology to build a competitive business, but let me tell you that you are extremely wrong. Your customers are not just looking for your perseverance and product, they are seeking a personalized experience. To create an experience which resonates with them, you need to embrace the new technologies and gain a competitive edge over other companies before your business becomes obscure and irrelevant to your existing and potential customers.

7. Podcast – Your thoughts need a voice: Quite Literally.

With the growing number of internet entertainment companies with an abundance of content to please and engage the customer, it’s the perfect time for an entrepreneur to recognize the booming trend and jump to the converged medium of communication like a podcast with content which differentiates them from the rest. If you make people feel exclusive by offering them a glance into your world of thoughts, they are very likely to pay attention and follow you diligently.

8. Engage on social media.

Unlike how it used to be a few years back, content has truly become the center of every marketing and communication campaign. But that’s not the catch. The catch is that rather than creating content in the format of a one-way street, it is rather imperative to create content in a way that it sparks a conversation. As there is no better platform to do that than social media, as an entrepreneur you need to know that your audience doesn’t want to just follow you blindly, but talk to you and engage in order to develop trust in you and your beliefs.

Social media platforms capture 33% of the time users spend online.

9. Don’t create products, create an experience

By analyzing feedback from 10,000 consumers and recording their experience with over 300 companies, a trusted report shows a decline in the number of companies that scored a ‘good’ or ‘excellent’ rating, down from 45% in 2017 to only 38% in 2018.

You are either working on developing a product or creating a stellar strategy for selling your product, but is a selling strategy enough to drive business in today’s time? No, it isn’t. Today, understanding who your customer is and establishing an emotional connection with them forms an essential part of creating a customer experience strategy. Once you start working towards providing something extra to your customers, your business will begin to experience increased customer loyalty, higher retention and increased revenues.

I know that just like me, all entrepreneurs have entered 2019 with a million dreams, aspirations and goals to build a business which touches new horizons and transcends the boundaries of success and progress. If these resolutions resonate with your dream to make your business bigger and better this year, I will be glad, and if you have some more to add to this list, please feel free to write to me and share your thoughts.

Signing off till the next one.

– Rajiv.