Tag Archive for: Running a Business

There are some people that just seem to be drawn to entrepreneurial life. There’s just something inside of them that makes starting and running a business a highly attractive proposition. But of course, just because you may be drawn that way, that doesn’t necessarily mean that things will be easy. In fact, they’re certain to be anything but easy! Business, after all, is far from a walk in the park. There are things you can do that’ll allow you to make the most of your talents, however. In this blog, we’ll take a look at some useful tips that’ll lead to just that.

Follow the Passion

You’ll find that everything connected to running your business is much more straightforward if you’re doing something that you inherently enjoy. Though it can be tempting to start a business that you might think will make money flow your way, it’ll be better to select something that’s related to an interest of yours. For starters, this will probably cut down on the amount of time you have to research your industry, since you’ll already know a lot. It’ll also give you that extra motivation, and help when the going gets tough, as it surely will at some stage.

An Inch of Courage

We tend to look at successful entrepreneurs and just assume that they had the skills and talents to get to where they got to. They were always destined to reach the top, is what we think. But actually, this isn’t the case. Though it’s often overlooked, one of the key factors that unite all successful entrepreneurs — actually all successful people — is that they had the courage to make it happen. Unless you’re born to wealthy parents, nothing is given to you on a plate: you have to earn it. And in order to step up and make things happen, you’ll need to have some courage. You don’t need to have it in spades, but at least a little bit!

Find Your Rhythm

Even if you think you’re ready to start your own company after a period of being a regular employee, it’ll still take some time to adjust to the new way of doing things. You’ll have had your established rhythms at your workspace when you worked for a company. Now that you’re on your own, those rhythms will have disappeared — and it’ll be up to you to make your own, new ones. It’s important that you conduct a bit of self-analysis and figure out when and how you work best. It could be that you prefer to be in a busy working environment, or that you prefer to work in silence. Once you’ve figured out which is your preferred method, you’ll find that you’re able to make more progress than if you were trying to work in ways that feel uncomfortable.

Start the Day Well

It won’t be long before you realize that working as an entrepreneur is not the same as working as a regular employee. You’ll have to work harder and for longer when you’re running your own company. As such, it’s important that you take time to ensure that your energy levels and capabilities are at the highest level that they can be. While there are many different ways to do this, one of the best and most simple to enact is to start the day right. You’ll find that you’re able to make much more progress if you have a morning routine that pushes you towards delivering your best work. This all begins with, of course, getting a good night’s sleep. You should try to wake up well in advance of when you need to leave your house, and try to get some exercise in. A short run, cold shower, and nutritious and energetic breakfast will set you up for a great day at the office.

Trust Other People

One of the myths of entrepreneurial life is that people do things on their own. This is virtually never true. Every successful business owner has had to make the most of other people’s help. As such, one of the best things you can do for your business is to learn how to trust other people (that is if you’ve previously had issues with this). This is especially relevant when it comes to hiring your first employees. If all you want to do is micromanage them, then you’ll be doing your business a disservice. It’s much better to hire well and then trust that your members of staff will deliver top of the line work for your company.

Open to Criticism

You’re going to know a lot. You’re going to have successes. But you’ll also make mistakes and take missteps. This in itself isn’t a major issue; every company in the world gets things wrong from time to time. What counts is whether you’re willing to accept that you’ve made a mistake, and take criticism from other people. There are many business owners out there that have pretty thin-skin. They take everything personally! But this will only cause trouble at some point or another (wouldn’t Tesla be better if Elon Musk could just let things go?). Instead, accept that you don’t know everything, and be humble enough to know that sometimes, other people will know better. It’s an approach that’ll take you far in life.

Lighten Your Load

Even if you hire employees to help you, you’ll still have a lot of responsibilities on your plate. But do they all need to be on your plate? Probably not. Not only would it be better to outsource the tasks to other people because it’ll free up your time to work on other tasks, by handing the job over to experts, but you’ll also ultimately strengthen your company. They’ll be able to do a better job than you could, after all. There are some jobs where it just makes sense to hand over to someone else. A company like CalTech Web can take care of your web design, so you don’t have to. Other tasks to outsource include your payroll, marketing, and legal matters. Once these time consuming and complicated tasks are off your plate, you’ll find that you have much more time to work on the jobs that help push your business forward.

Strengths and Weaknesses

As we mentioned earlier: you’re going to have a degree of confidence that you can run a business if you decide to become an entrepreneur. It would be weird if you didn’t! But it’s not as if you’re going to know everything, or even close to it. There are some jobs where it’ll be better to bow to superior knowledge. The difficult part is knowing which is which. In the early days of your entrepreneurial career, it’s recommended that you conduct an analysis of your strengths and weaknesses. This will highlight the areas that you should be in charge of, what others should do, and where you need to improve. And talking of which….

Continue to Improve

You’re not the finished article when you become an entrepreneur. Actually, you’re really just getting started along your journey. Though you’re the boss, don’t forget that there will still be areas in which you improve. And so make sure that you are. Whatever weaknesses you have, you’ll find that there are courses and other materials available that can help you to improve that aspect of your professional life. Think of it this way: it was your open-mind and willingness to learn that got you into a position where you could start a business in the first place. Don’t turn your back on that tactic just because you’ve technically started a business.

Find a Mentor

You’re at the beginning of your new career as an entrepreneur. While you’ll learn a lot on the job, there’s no denying that it would be pretty useful to have some of the lessons under your belt at the beginning. For that, it’s recommended that you find a mentor. This will be an older person who has been there, done that — and who will thus have plenty of wisdom to share with you. They won’t necessarily help you with the running of your company (though they might), but rather offer general advice about how you can achieve success, the habits you need to have, things like that. If you can’t think of anyone who would be your mentor, then you could consider reading the books and podcasts of successful people. There’s always a lot to learn in those!

Conclusion

As we said at the beginning of the article, running a company will never be easy. Even when things are going well, there’ll be challenges on the horizon that you’ll need to overcome. But it’s not as if you need to just go along for the ride. There are things you can do that’ll help you to make the most of your inherent talents. Take the tips that we’ve outlined above, and you’ll find that you’re in a pretty strong position to achieve great things with your company.