Category: Entrepreneurship

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Entrepreneurship Marketing Uncategorized

You’re ALWAYS Marketing

Marketing: too often entrepreneurs (especially new entrepreneurs) think of marketing as something that’s isolated from the other aspects of the business. The mission of the marketing department is considered to be related to, but separate from, the overall mission of the company. When marketing is an entire industry unto itself, and marketers are expected to be able to market anything they’re paid to, that kind of thinking is understandable.

Ultimately, though, that approach can be detrimental. Thinking of marketing as a completely separate sphere can actually damage the brand in the long run, and hurt the business overall.

That’s why it’s important to commit to a philosophy of integrated marketing. The key to great marketing is not to see it as a separate chore, but as part of who you are and what your business is. Your brand, your identity, and your philosophy has to be woven into every aspect of the culture of your business. Your marketing message is not a facade to be plastered onto your business. Instead, it should be part of the foundation.

Integrating Your Marketing Strategy

Even if your business has a marketing department, or certain team members who are understood to be the marketers, marketing should be something that everyone feels responsible for. In a sense, every employee of the company is part of the marketing department. Every single time a team member interacts in even the most seemingly insignificant ways with the public, they’re marketing.

Anyone who talks to customers in any capacity- not just through ads but even in customer service, is marketing. Every answer to every email is marketing. A complimentary mint at a restaurant is marketing. A greeting at the door of a shop, the design of your invoices, the layout of your website: it’s all marketing. Each little act of communication with the outside world adds a brushstroke to the overall picture of your business, just as much as your advertising does. The sooner you realize this, the more control you’ll have over your company’s image.

Getting Marketing Right

There are a few steps you can take to ensure that your business is marketing itself well. Start by inculcating marketing into your office culture. Communicate clearly with your entire team, and make them understand that every one of them is in the marketing “department.” Make this clear during the hiring process, and reinforce it along the way.

At Business Republic, we take this approach with all of our employees. The software developers for our webinar platform know that the software itself is an act of marketing, of communication with our customers that’s going to have an effect on our brand. Our customer service professionals know that the way they handle customers’ needs informs our image and what we represent. When we compose blogs, we do it in the honest and straightforward way that we like to think defines our approach. Even the team members responsible for accounting are marketers: if a refund or invoice isn’t handled properly, it tarnishes our reputation.

Second, be social media mindful. Your online presence is an important aspect of your marketing footprint. That might sound obvious, but it’s not just about shooting ads out into the Twitterverse or making sure to post enough on Facebook. It’s about the way you interact on social media, that you take the time to converse with people and respond to questions or even mentions. Good social media marketing isn’t just about the content. It’s about the willingness to engage the online community and thus “market” ourselves as actual people, not just content producers.

Lastly, it’s important to interact (and not just advertise) in the physical world. At conferences, trade shows, and any other industry gathering, the way you treat other people is all part of your marketing. Every handshake and conversation is an opportunity to define yourself and your business. This isn’t meant to be understood as glad-handing or politicking. Rather than cynically schmoozing with others, commit to being a genuine member of your industry’s community, one that cares about and interacts with other people as if they’re…people.

Marketing Through Customer Service

The people who work in customer service do almost as much marketing as the people in the marketing department. Handling customers’ needs with genuine commitment to their satisfaction is only the beginning. Customer service will have the best impact on marketing when it’s done with empathy, even in the face of unreasonable behavior. Dealing with irate or just plain arrogant customers, while never pleasant, is an opportunity to make a bold statement about your company’s approach to customer service, and therefore really help define the character you’re trying to market.

Even the most patience-testing haters, when extended courtesy and respect, can become your most loyal customers and horn-tooters. Some will be truly impossible to please, but when a person is shown patience when they’re being less than their best selves, experience dictates that they’re likely to become your most vocal supporters (after they’re done apologizing, of course).

Marketing Your Character

Improving your marketing isn’t just about your approach to advertising, or even just the business culture you try to instill. In the end, the best way to perfect your image and brand is to improve your own personal character, which all of us can and should do.

When you stay humble, refuse to let success inflate your ego, and keep yourself guided by a personal commitment to honesty and respect, people can’t help but associate that with your business. To paraphrase the Buddha, don’t be a jerk. You’ll find that people’s feelings about yourself and your team are the greatest factors in influencing your company’s brand, no matter what your ads say.

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Design Entrepreneurship Uncategorized

How Important is Your Look?

Do appearances matter? Most people – especially business people – would say yes, though how much so is up for debate. When it’s time to project competence and success, most of us reach for a suit, even if it’s not something we’d normally wear. Meanwhile, Steve Jobs single-handedly revolutionized the tech market with nary a departure from his black turtlenecks over blue jeans and sneakers. The question remains: are looks powerful enough to make or break a business?

The importance of your look isn’t limited to your style of dress, either. What about the look of your entire business: the storefront, the website, the service vehicles? The business card? The way you and your business are presented to the world matters, but understanding how and how much is the key to leveraging your style into profit. While the number one priority of any entrepreneur should be the substance of the product, the right look can be the key to finding that product’s market.

Know Your Audience

The first thing to understand is that there is no universal dress code. The CEO of an investment firm might wear a suit, but if an automotive tech showed up to work in a three-piece from Calvin Klein, many would question his grasp on the business. What you wear and how you present your business depends on what exactly you’re trying to say. More importantly, it depends on who you’re saying it to.

Take the example of Jordan Richter. Richter was a skateboarding pro who decided to parlay his passion into a service business: teaching skateboarding. If he presented himself to his audience in anything double breasted, they’d be more suspicious than interested. Likewise, if he wore flip-flops, he wouldn’t be taken seriously. His look, from his carefully unkempt beard to his hyper-functional wardrobe, announces that he’s a professional who not only knows how to skate, but personally understands his customers’ desire to learn how.

That’s not to say that it’s never appropriate to suit up, even if the business you’re in is creative or technical. When my partner Nicole and I used to do video work, our wardrobe had to reflect the setting in which we filmed. As videographers we were strictly on the artistic side of things- but when it came time to shoot at financial firms, we made sure to adhere to the dress code of our clients, suiting up out of respect for the setting.

When it comes to your personal style, the key is not simply to look like a professional. It’s to look like a professional something. Whether that’s a professional motivational speaker, a professional writer, or a professional acrobat, your look has to strongly suggest, at a glance, that you’re what the customers are looking for. By dressing the part, you don’t necessarily convince anyone that you’re the right person for the job, but you do convince them to look more closely and find out for themselves.

The Business Makeover

Of course, the look of your business has to reflect the same dedication to professionalism as the look of your person. If you own a brick-and-mortar business, it’s vital to pursue the kind of curb appeal that sends the right message to passersby. That might mean stark and minimalist, or it might mean eclectic and homey, but whatever it is, it has to speak to what you’re offering.

More importantly in today’s economy, the look of your web presence needs to be on point. Your website should have a clean and intuitive interface, an attractive layout, and an overall design that reflects the character of your business. In an environment where most consumer decisions begin with a Google search (even if they end at a physical location), your online look may be the most important look of all.

The key to projecting a professional web “look” is quality images. When it comes to images, nothing looks more unprofessional than poor quality pictures and illustrations. If you have to hire a professional photographer in order to have quality pictures for your site, it’s worth every cent. In fact, it’s better to have no images than blurry or poorly framed ones. The same goes for profile pictures and other images for use in social media and online ads.

Combine strong e-style with confident and relevant personal style, and you’ll not only draw more potential customers in, you’ll notice a difference in your own outlook. A great image raises expectations, including your own. It may seem superficial, but anyone who’s nailed their image can tell you that the effect on their self-confidence and drive is a self-fulfilling prophesy.

While substance is always the first concern, it’s a fact of life that appearances matter, so come correct. Whether we admit or not, everyone makes instantaneous judgments based on visual first impressions; it’s just how humans are wired. Those judgments then lead to decisions. In a crowded marketplace, this means that your look could be the difference between piquing interest and being passed over.

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Entrepreneurship Uncategorized

4 Places to Find New Product Ideas

As I’ve argued before, innovation is everything. Therefore, it’s important -no matter what you sell- to keep new products on the horizon. Not only does the simple fact of a product’s newness generate its own excitement, but a business that’s constantly seeking to better address customers’ needs is a business that keeps those customers for the long term. It’s the approach best articulated in Eric Ries’ The Lean Startup: staying in the game by staying fresh.

The challenge is in the execution. How can we constantly create and design new products? How do we decide what new products are needed? How do we know which are likely to sell? How can we be truly innovative, not just crank out ideas for their own sake?

The answer lies with the consumers. The best product ideas come from the people who will eventually buy them- whether they realize it or not. Often, even when asked, customers won’t directly describe the product they need. They will, however, describe what they want it to do. They won’t ask for a salad spinner; they’ll ask for dry lettuce. They won’t ask for a cupholder; they’ll ask for a place to put their coffee. They won’t ask for a selfie stick; they’ll ask for the inevitable downfall of society, presumably. Your job is to listen, and respond with creativity.

There are many places to listen. They’re accessible to every businessperson. All it takes to profit from them is the ingenuity to hear the sound of a product coming through…

1. Your Website 

Specifically, your blogs. If you’re not blogging, you’re not innovating. This is because the act of blogging is the act of consciously tracking the progress of your industry. It’s an open journal through which you discuss your take on the industry, and prompt customers to share theirs. Blogs are where the conversation with your audience begins.

Use analytics to your advantage and track the response to your blogs. Which posts generated the biggest response? What was liked and shared? More importantly, what do the comments indicate? The comments section of an industry blog is really the first place consumers go to vent their feelings and express their opinion on what an industry needs, so read through them.

Try to get a sense of the consensus- is there something that most or all of them need? Is there a common complaint? Is there an existing product that you could modify or sell yourself in order to meet their needs? Look to your most popular blogs and start there. Look to the blogs of competitors. Somewhere among the people’s reactions is a request for a product.

2. Amazon 

Yes, that Amazon. One great thing about Amazon is its huge catalogue of consumer reviews. That information is a gold mine for the innovative entrepreneur, if he or she is willing to put the time in digging. It’s where customers love to vent, talk at length about their preferences, and (more importantly) articulate their desires.

Focus on 3 star reviews, as they’re likely to be the most objective (anything higher probably represents loyal “fan” or a customer too satisfied for you to help, anything lower is likely to be irrelevant). By reading reviews from those who aren’t exactly dissatisfied but are still looking for something better, you can get a sense of exactly what they need. Why didn’t they give that extra star? What could have made them do so? What did the creator of this product fail to provide that you can? The answer is somewhere in those last ungiven stars

This takes time, but it’s time well spent. Consider it research and development. As you read, record the patterns that you notice. Do many of the products’ shortcomings fall into the same category? Record the frequency of similar complaints to get a sense of what the customer base is crying out for. Find the gaps in the service they’re being provided, and ask yourself what product could fill them. Whatever it is, you can count on the fact that every one of those reviewers will be interested in buying it.

3. Facebook Groups 

Facebook isn’t just for kitten pics and ill-informed politics. Search through any of the groups relevant to your industry, and get involved. Join the groups and interact. Answer questions, converse, and network. By establishing a rapport with a group, you expose yourself to a wellspring of their wants and needs- and a wellspring of product ideas.

In fact, you can start your own group, directing and maintaining a long-term discussion of what customers like, dislike, need and want. By tapping into this cyber-scene, you avail yourself of a massive resource: the customers’ expertise in themselves.

4. Conferences 

Finally, the physical world boasts a few places to cruise for inspiration. The best are conferences, featuring experts and high-profile figures in almost every industry. Going to conferences is like plunging yourself into the hive; the hotbed of excitement, enthusiasm, and dedication to a particular industry.

At the conference, keep your ears as wide open as you can. Listen to everything. Not just addresses, but conversations, even the idle ones. Engage with everyone you can, constantly listening for hopes, aspirations, and anything else that can help identify a need that a new product could potentially fulfill. At conferences, people tend to be far more open, loose, and up front about what they want. It’s your job to listen closely enough to pick up the threads that may lead straight to a product idea.

The key to new product ideas has less to do with conceiving and more to do with discovering. Business is about service. It’s about identifying and addressing the needs of a customers, not working up big ideas and then convincing people to pay for them. The best entrepreneurs aren’t geniuses at thinking up incredible products; they’re people who know their audience, who embed themselves into a community of consumers and understand their needs. They let their creativity and their drive be guided by that understanding.

The next great product idea won’t be something created for the purpose of making someone successful- it will be created to fulfill a need, and the success will follow. Identify the need, and you’re most of the way to a game-changing idea.

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Entrepreneurship Uncategorized

Timing Your Sales Offers

You’ve done the work. You’ve taken your passion and talent and built an infrastructure around them. You’ve earned a following, putting yourself out there and creating a customer base by providing quality free content. You’ve invested time and capital into the hope of monetizing your unique expertise. All that’s left to do now is to convert this work into its ultimate reward.

It’s time to sell.

Or is it? Knowing when to solicit sales can be tricky and intimidating for new entrepreneurs. There’s a certain stigma to salesmanship, the product of generations’ worth of snake oil and pyramid scheming from “entrepreneurs” with the moral compass of a tapeworm. On top of which, even honest salespeople run the risk of seeming otherwise by being over-eager and pushy. All of this can make the transition from giving to receiving an awkward one.

When is it appropriate -and effective- to finally hit “send” on sales offers? How do you know when it’s time to convert the trust and authority you’ve earned into money?

There are a few schools of thought when it comes to the correct timing. Each has their advantages, but all of them have two things in common: that they include consistent, quality free content throughout, and that each sales offer include some kind of enticement, usually a coupon code or other discount.

Having tried different approaches myself, I know which one works best for my business. However, it’s worth exploring several options before deciding for yourself when the iron is hot enough to strike.

Option 1: On The Customer’s Schedule

Some businesses time their sales offers according to a schedule with each individual customer. After a certain number of content-only emails, an offer is sent, no matter what. The idea is that there’s a formula by which one can balance the free content/sales offer ratio in a way that usually leads to conversions.

The logic is sound. The opportunity to solicit sales should be something that the customer gives you in exchange for quality content. How many opportunities per how much content will vary, but the basic idea remains the same: as long as the customer enjoys your content, you have the right to do a certain amount of advertising.

While sensible, though, this strategy isn’t always effective. This is because the offers come arbitrarily. From the customer’s point of view, whatever offers are enticing after five emails are just as enticing after three, or seven. The offers, in this strategy, have nothing to do with any opportunity for them. They simply come like clockwork, and represent no particularly good time to buy other than a coupon code that’s being held back until they’ve endured enough content.

It may work for some, but for others this approach may be too impersonal to generate consistent sales in the long term.

Option 2: On Your Schedule

Others time their offers to the rhythms of their business. When offers come, they come to every customer on the email list regardless of how long they’ve been on it. They may come on a set schedule, as in a monthly sale. They may come as part of an effort to promote a particular product or clear inventory. Whatever the reason for the offer, it’s particular to the conditions of the business.

This approach doesn’t reward any particular loyalty, or require any commitment from the customer other than being on the list. It’s less aggressive than targeting customers individually, but more logical. It’s also more transparent; if customers understand that there’s a genuine reason for the offer, it’s no longer an arbitrary ploy. You’re simply letting them in on the fact that now is a good time to for them to buy, for specific reasons that benefit both of you.

This approach works because it’s honest. It’s less cynical than dangling offers like bait regardless of your business conditions. It feels more personal than sending offers out randomly. Because of this, it has the potential to make customers pay closer attention to all of your emails. It’s a way to time offers that encourages and relies on transparency, which encourages trust.

Option 3: Always, and Never

Finally, some business don’t make sales offers at any particular time, or on any particular schedule, or because of anything customers do or don’t do. They simply focus on creating content that is mostly salesmanship-free, and offer it to their base in the hopes that customers will decide for themselves to make purchases.

The blogs, videos, and emails in this strategy simply contain a footer or other link to a standing offer that anyone enjoying the content can make use of, whenever. It requires the least effort in terms of salesmanship. It’s the least aggressive strategy, the least proactive, and the least pushy or intrusive.

It’s also the least effective.

The fact of the matter is that customers who get nothing from you but content will soon see you as simply that: a source of free content, not a business. If no attempt at sales conversions are made, few will occur spontaneously. While it’s high-minded to think that customers who enjoy your content will come to you when they’re ready, the simple reality is that customers need to be reminded that great free content is only the tip of the iceberg, and that beyond it is something worth paying for.

Which strategy is right for you? Clearly, I’ve found Option 2 to be the most effective. Other businesses may reach other conclusions, but I find it to be in the perfect “Goldilocks zone” between overly aggressive and overly passive. It’s salesmanship, but it’s salesmanship based on the very essence of capitalism at its best: the honest search for mutual benefit.

Your results may vary. The key is not to look for the “trick” to timing your offers. Simply seek the best opportunities to exchange genuine value for genuine value, and trumpet them to your customer base. If you keep this principle in mind, the time to sell should reveal itself.

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Entrepreneurship

Fighting FOMO

FOMO /ˈfōmō/ noun, informal: Anxiety that an exciting or interesting event may currently be happening elsewhere, often aroused by posts seen on a social media website.

That’s according to the Oxford English dictionary, which usually only adds a newly coined term to the official version of our language if it’s being used a lot (see also: twerk). FOMO, or Fear Of Missing Out, is a 21st-century condition, a byproduct of instant communication that makes us feel both omnipresent and isolated. It’s the insidious feeling that wherever you are, whatever you’re doing, it isn’t as good as something else, somewhere else.

What does this have to do with entrepreneurship and independent business? Everything. There’s a reason the people in charge of alarming-sounding acronyms decided to name this condition, and it’s because FOMO is a productivity killer. Especially for the independent business person, FOMO can be a deadly distraction or a motivational nosedive. It can so plague today’s plugged-in online entrepreneurs as to place all sense of accomplishment permanently out of reach.

Being an entrepreneur means that the border between your work and your life is a very hazy one, if it exists at all. Because of this, FOMO poses a particular threat. When doing business on your own schedule and struggling to balance business and personal needs, FOMO can slip into the cracks between what you’re doing and everything else you could be doing instead. That’s why it’s important to be aware of it, and of how to manage it.

Diagnosing FOMO

There are a few clear signs that you’re suffering from some form of FOMO. Actually, almost everyone suffers from it a little, and has since before the Internet. The idea of the grass being greener on the other side of the fence isn’t a new one. What’s different is that the Internet and social media allow us to see beyond all the fences, to glimpse infinite lawns, so that we’re almost guaranteed to know that somewhere, someone is doing something better.

How do you know that FOMO is a problem for you? Put simply, when the discomfort over what’s going on outside your sphere of influence starts to actually detract from your ability to function within that sphere, you’ve got a mean case of FOMO. Are you constantly checking social media? Incessantly refreshing your email inbox? Can you not allow any reasonable amount of time to pass without peering through one of your virtual windows to the world? When what you aren’t doing takes precedence over what you are doing, FOMO has taken root.

FOMO can also plague you within the boundaries of your own business. Do you feel the need to be part of every meeting or project personally? Are you compelled to micromanage? Are you regularly nagged by the feeling that your time and effort is needed on some other aspect of your business, other than what’s in front of you? Do you find yourself constantly questioning the choices you’ve already made, after the fact? When the value of the work you’re doing no longer registers or seems vital, you lose hope. You become impotent, dragged down by the notion that none of the efforts you’re making are as important as the ones you’re not making. You’re running in FO-MOtion.

Combating FOMO

Like many forms of anxiety, FOMO is never really “cured.” It’s managed. The keys to not being held back by FOMO are mindfulness, awareness, and an honest assessment of the ways you spend your time. It requires vigilance in monitoring your own habits, and the willingness to acknowledge your successes and to value your own work. By seeing yourself and your work in a positively critical light, you can banish FOMO like the demon it is.

First, it’s important to starve FOMO of reinforcement. Cut off or limit the amount of time you spend checking up on the rest of the world. Social media, email, and all the other windows to the teeming of humanity should have their own scheduled time, and not be allowed to seep into time that’s been assigned to other work.

Preferably, social media should be scheduled at the end of your day, to be engaged in only after the rest of the day’s tasks have been completed. This way, you go into the social media-scape armed with a feeling of accomplishment and confidence- the antidotes to FOMO.

It’s also important to consciously acknowledge your own accomplishments, even on a daily basis. Taking a moment to recognize that you set important tasks for yourself and completed them may sound like excessive back-patting, but it’s crucial to staying focused on the overall mission of your business. Again, valuing the way you’ve spent your time is the armor necessary to ward off FOMO.

Remember the long-term mission of your business, and that you are capable of deciding what activities best contribute to that. Stick to your vision, distractions be damned.

Lastly, recognize that whatever you think you’ve missed out on probably wasn’t that important in the first place- and there will be plenty of opportunities to experience something like it when the time is right. Missed conferences and conventions will come around again. Chances to network will always be around the corner. There’s always a party somewhere, and just because the Internet allows us to see them all doesn’t mean we should strive to go to all of them.

Often, the people who do the most posting on social media, and therefore the most trumping regarding how their time is spent, are suffering more severely from FOMO than anyone else. Constantly seeking to convince the wider world that where they are and what they’re doing is the best is usually a clear sign of FOMO-based insecurity. It creates a vicious cycle in which everyone in their network is tempted to outdo everyone else by doing it all; and in that effort, very little actually gets done.

Meaning vs Appearances

In a nutshell, the cure to FOMO is to do meaningful work. By focusing on spending your time in ways that are truly valuable to your business and your life, you’ll probably find that there’s not much time left over to harp on the allegedly better time everyone else is having. When you devote yourself to your own vision and your own schedule, the temptation to be everywhere else falls away.

FOMO is what happens when you undervalue the ways in which you spend your time, and overvalue the ways in which everyone else spends theirs. It’s a mirage. You’re not missing anything if you’re staying true to the bigger goals you’ve set for yourself as a business person.

When anxiety about what’s going on “out there” strikes, take the time you need to recalibrate. Measure your progress against your goals. Take a walk. Meditate. Slow down before you succumb to the urge to spin your wheels at the intersection of every road you’re not on. Be grounded, and your productivity will never be threatened by the anxiety of FOMO.

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Entrepreneurship

5 Steps to Finding Your Voice

In entrepreneurship, who you are is just as important as what you sell. That’s the fundamental concept behind branding: consumers don’t only buy products for their perceived qualities, they buy products out of a sense of loyalty. To earn that loyalty, it’s vital to define and express exactly who you are by finding your own authentic voice.

In the beginning, many new entrepreneurs try to fake it. They emulate the style or voice of an inspiration or a teacher. They try to dress their talks or writings up with the trappings of an expert or guru. They try to create a persona, out of an urge to be taken seriously. They shy away from their own voice, for fear that it isn’t good enough.

This is a natural mistake to make, but it’s an important one to avoid. Instead, the first goal of any independent business person should be to discover who they are, and what makes them unlike anyone else. It starts by embracing your own uniqueness. After that, earning loyalty is simply a matter of presenting oneself with sincerity and honesty.

To find your authentic voice and make your mark, keep these principles in mind:

You know what you know. And nothing more. It’s important (especially for those whose business is selling guidance or education) to only offer information that you’re genuinely sure about. Too often, beginning experts try to swim out past their depth, offering instruction or knowledge that they don’t really have in order to establish a reputation for being knowledgeable. This will backfire.

A better strategy is to stick with what you know. Focus on the unique experience and know-how that you genuinely possess. Demonstrate the true value of your own expertise, however vast or limited it really is. This way, consumers will have a reason to trust you. Long-term consumer loyalty begins when people are impressed as much by honesty as by credentials.

As for the knowledge that you don’t have just yet, make your commitment to learning a part of your voice. Share your growth, your mistakes, and your struggle to improve with your audience. They’re more likely to respect that than to be wooed by any amount of posturing.

Be relatable. There was a time when building a career as an expert meant inflating your image. Puffed up and overblown, icons and gurus sold themselves as the answer to the customer’s problems. The bigger, the better. The goal was to be seen not as a source of help, but as a messiah.

Those days are over.

Now, it’s just not feasible to pose as a guru on a mountaintop. 21st century consumers like their food local, their music independent, and their experts human. We’re all on a journey, not a race. That means that a helping hand from someone who’s seen a bit further up the path is more appreciated than a distant beacon from beyond the alleged finish line.

Call it cynicism, or call it being informed, but people today are likely to see a self-proclaimed miracle worker as a sham, no matter their credentials. It’s better to just be a person: specifically, you. The Great and Powerful Oz is dead, but today’s consumers are willing to hear what the man behind the curtain has to say.

Take your time. Finding your voice is not something that’s accomplished overnight. In fact, it’s never really “accomplished” in any final sense. You’ll always be growing and changing as a business person. Don’t frustrate yourself by trying to build some final product that is your voice. Instead, refine it as you go along.

The important thing is to exercise your voice, to develop it like a muscle. Write. Speak. Produce, produce, produce. The more content you create, the more you hone your genuine voice, and discover what makes you worth listening to. It’s a process that can’t be rushed, only dedicated to.

Use the three wisest words that anyone can say. They are, in the following order, “I,” “don’t,” and “know.” Being honest about and comfortable with the limits of your knowledge is the greater part of establishing your credibility. No one knows it all, and anyone who claims to isn’t telling the truth.

Some of the most successful entrepreneurs are people who don’t claim to know everything, but who connect consumers with sources of information. Oprah Winfrey never claimed to know much, she just found people who did and put them on a couch. Even the earliest pioneers of entrepreneurship and self-empowerment like Dale Carnegie and Napoleon HIll considered themselves observers first, whose greatest strength was their ability to find answers rather than to already know them.

Connect. Resonate. Reach your audience as a human being, not a walking advertisement. This is the only way to build a loyal, long-term following. It requires sincerity above all. Even actors, whose entire job is to be someone they’re not, know that the best way to touch an audience is to root their attempt to be someone else in who they actually are. Being yourself, then, means being endlessly honest.

Loyalty will come when consumers feel as though there is a genuine person somewhere behind the necessity of salesmanship. Especially today, consumers are sophisticated enough to see the human being behind the business, so make sure that one is actually there. Business is a necessity, and customers understand that. However, most would rather to do it with a person rather than a persona.

Finding your voice is an exciting and rewarding process that has its own inherent value. As an independent business person, don’t be afraid that who you are won’t be good enough. Don’t fear that your expertise isn’t sufficient. Ply your trade, know your business, and be yourself. Use your voice to reveal who you are, not to obscure it. You’ll find that that approach doesn’t just reach consumers more effectively- it produces a better product.

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Entrepreneurship Uncategorized

The 10 Commandments of Entrepreneurship

Entrepreneurship isn’t easy. The challenges are so different from those of a standard-issue job that many budding entrepreneurs can fall into traps they’d never anticipated. Fortunately, I’ve been doing this long enough to have seen (and made) many of the common mistakes that make independent business harder than it has to be.

Some mistakes are minor and inevitable, but some are such deadly missteps that they can derail your entire dream. Avoid these crucial errors in order to stay on the path you’ve chosen- your own.

1. Thou Shalt Not Overanalyze

It’s always great to look before you leap, and preparation is one of the keys to success. However, if you suffer from the kind of pre-planning perfectionism that stops you from making moves, that’s not caution. That’s Analysis Paralysis.

Analysis Paralysis freezes a business in place for the sake of seeking a level of control that no one can ever actually achieve. Business is risky! Accepting that with calm determination might be the most important act of preparation you can make.

Trust in the twin truths of your passion and your expertise, and move forward. Try things, and if they don’t work out, try something else. Don’t fall under the illusion that you can control all outcomes by laying the groundwork perfectly; you can’t. Explore, improvise, and don’t be afraid of setbacks. Set deadlines by which you have to act, regardless of the preparation, and stick to them. Even when something could have been better planned, it’s more important to overcome the fear of moving than it is to move perfectly every time.

2. Thou Shalt Not Think in the Short Term (Only)

Short term success may be gratifying, but it can also be intoxicating. It can make you forget the overall, long-term mission of your business. What’s the most important thing you’re trying to achieve? The answer to that question has to keep its place in the forefront of your mind.

While a good day, week, month or even year is worth celebrating, never forget the ultimate goal. What do you want for and from your business in 5 years? In 10? In 20? Entrepreneurship is a long game, a lifetime commitment. The sum total of your work is what will ultimately matter most, so be clear in your long-term intentions, and be guided by them above all.

3. Thou Shalt Not Do it All

You can’t do everything. Many have tried, and all have failed. While the independence of entrepreneurship is part of the allure, no man or woman is an island. Trying to maintain control over every aspect of your business is a fool’s errand, and detracts from the basic principle of entrepreneurship: turning your individual talent and passion into an enterprise.
That means learning the most important skill a leader can ever have: delegation. Find the people who can do everything other than what you decided to make a career out of doing, and let them do it. The time and energy you waste on things outside of your wheelhouse is better devoted to perfecting your own skill, your own art, your own vision.

4. Thou Shalt Not Be A Perfectionist

Nothing, and nobody, is perfect. The illusion of perfection can be a great tool for motivation, but it can also be paralyzing and self-defeating. While every entrepreneur should strive for their best, there are times when getting something done is preferable to getting it done more perfectly.

Have high professional standards. Seek improvement and development at every turn. Chase perfection as if it’s attainable, even though it’s not. The cumulative results of that effort over the course of your career will bear incredible fruit- but don’t hold your business back by insisting on unrealistic expectations.

5. Thou Shalt not Fear Failure

Business is the art of risk. Entrepreneurship is the fullest expression of that risk, since it’s done without the backing of the established powers that be. That’s what you signed up for. That’s why it’s so much more rewarding than working for someone else. The risk is yours, but so is the payoff, including the freedom of forging your own path.

However, it’s going to mean failure. Failure will lurk around every corner, and rustle every hedge you pass. You’ll fail often, mostly in small ways, but always in ways that will teach you something. Poster-child for entrepreneurial success Robert Kiyosaki urges his students to “fail fast;” the more quickly you fail, the more quickly that failure will breed success.

Don’t fear failure. Get comfortable with it. Make failure your friend, your constant companion, and you’ll discover how superb a teacher it really is.

6. Thou Shalt Not Be Anyone Other Than Thyself

Posing is a guarantee of entrepreneurial disaster (unless the field you’ve chosen is modeling, of course). Taking on a persona or fabricating a voice is not branding or image-building; it’s lying. Who you are and what drives you is your greatest asset, not something to be disguised. Entrepreneurship works based on the unique approach of an individual, not an archetype or a character.

Be yourself. Be honest. Be vulnerable. Especially if your business is based on your expertise, don’t be afraid to share your journey of improvement, development and learning. That kind of honesty separates the entrepreneurs from the scammers, and builds the trust that creates real consumer loyalty.

7. Thou Shalt Not Measure Thyself by the Success of Others

Measuring yourself by someone else’s metrics is a self-defeating strategy. There will always be someone more successful- if you choose to define that in terms of sales, income, or notoriety.

The only scale by which an entrepreneur should measure their success is the one that they create for themselves. Am I on the path to fulfilling my long-term goals? Have I improved since last quarter? Am I living with the freedom, determination, and creativity that made entrepreneurship attractive in the first place? Am I enjoying this?

Ultimately, you’re your only competition. If you focus on that, you’ll find that the ups and downs of others aren’t nearly as relevant as they seem.

8. Thou Shalt Not Move the Goal Posts

Setting goals, even short-term ones, is important. Overall goals, sub-goals, even daily goals are healthy metrics by which to keep your business on track. However, one unhealthy temptation to which some (especially very driven) entrepreneurs succumb is to change those goals before they’ve been reached.

If you see that your business is on track to hit a certain milestone, don’t retroactively decide that you’re shooting for a different one. Hit your goal, enjoy the success, and then establish new, more challenging ones. By not allowing yourself to acknowledge an accomplishment, you can damage morale. Worse, goals become negotiable instead of being reliable guideposts.

9. Thou Shalt Not Confuse This With a “Job”

It’s crucial to understand the basic difference between entrepreneurship and a “job” in the traditional sense. They are two very different animals, with two very different requirements.

A job is something you do for someone else. It’s something to which you contribute, and that contribution is well-defined and (more importantly) limited. You do your job, and then you go home. Entrepreneurship is a lifestyle. It’s the commitment of an entire individual to a goal, and there is no clock on which to punch in or out.

It means that the line separating your work from your life is a fuzzier one, if it exists at all. It’s not something you do; it’s something you are, all the time. Balancing your work/life responsibilities is a trickier and more subtle art for the entrepreneur. Friends and family have to understand this, and be willing to accommodate and support the extra responsibility.

It’s not better or worse, but it is different. Those who choose to create their own careers, to shape their professional lives independently and free themselves from the dictates of an employer have to do so with an awareness of the implications.

10. Thou Shalt not be a Lone Ranger

With all the independence entrepreneurship offers, one can be tempted to think that it’s a one-person enterprise. It never is. Entrepreneurship isn’t about flying solo, it’s about choosing your own path. Even on a path of your own making, you’ll need help and support.

Independence doesn’t mean independence from others. It means independence from the dictates of others. It means finding the people with whom you can go your own way. I tried to go it alone, before finding my partner Nicole and the other members of the team we’ve put together to build our independent living.

That was the idea behind the $100 MBA- to offer guidance to other independent business people, so that we could all reap the benefits. Collaborative support between entrepreneurs might seem less like independence, but it’s at the heart of the entrepreneurial spirit. With focus, honesty, and a little help, anyone can carve out the future they desire for themselves.