Written by: Fijeh Roseline Aadum, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
The times we live in are dire, forcing governments, companies, and individuals to reassess what is important and invest resources in efforts that are of absolute necessity.
Economies are affected, companies are laying off, and small business owners and individuals find themselves at their wit’s end trying to figure out what to do.
“Pivot” and “reset” are words that took center stage in 2020 as nations, companies, and individuals sought to reposition and re-strategize in an attempt to guard against total loss and failure.
The question then is, how do you plan to guard against personal financial failure? In these uncertain times where companies are cutting costs, laying off, and reframing what role is important, how do you plan not just to survive but thrive?
There is a different perspective, and that is what this series is about. It is designed to help you see this time that we live in as an opportunity to profit, profit by finding pain and creating solutions that solve those pains.
You will agree that 2020 has opened up so many opportunities, and there is a huge market for new ideas and opportunities to thrive. I invite you to look out for these opportunities as we go through this series and create a plan to profit.
Before You Begin
So you want to do business! Entrepreneurship is the one platform that offers you the opportunity to create value in exchange for making a profit.
The thought of going into business is exciting, but entrepreneurship requires more than excitement. Just before you take this journey, let us take a closer look at what is required to become not just any entrepreneur but a successful entrepreneur.
In this article, I intend to help you accomplish the following:
Understand your readiness to take on the challenge of being an entrepreneur
Be able to apply the lessons from your self-evaluation
Define and develop your unique EDGE
Develop the entrepreneur’s mentality
Self Evaluation
Your ability to be authentic to who you are is key to being successful in business. Authenticity is considered the new competitive edge, and it begins with self-awareness. It is simply knowing the following:
What are your passions, your gifts, your potential skills, your core values, your aspirations, and your desired balance? It is defining your “Why,” knowing your strengths and weaknesses, and determining your opportunities and threats.
Why is self-evaluation important before starting a business? Becoming an entrepreneur entails being able to embrace risks and being innovative enough to create value that enough people are willing to pay for. Starting a business is not a walk in the park. It requires that you possess the ability to think critically, innovatively and embrace the uncertainties in the marketplace. Self-evaluation helps you to determine areas where you possess these abilities and areas where you are lacking. In this sense, you will then be able to honestly evaluate your unique EDGE and where you need help.
I have developed a tool called The Edge to help you develop your readiness to launch a business. Downloadable tool is available on request, so you can use it to think and evaluate yourself.
Developing the Entrepreneur’s Mentality
No one is born an entrepreneur. There is something that drives people to start a business and do what is required to become entrepreneurs. You can learn to think and act like an entrepreneur by simply developing an entrepreneurial mindset.
What is an entrepreneurial mindset?
The entrepreneurial mindset refers to a specific way of thinking. Thinking like an entrepreneur will prepare you to meet everyday challenges as opportunities to learn and experience growth. It will enable you to see challenges as opportunities and be decisive.
The entrepreneurial mindset also refers to a need to always improve your skills, learn from your mistakes, and take continuous action on your ideas. Beyond taking actions, it will drive you to develop a finisher’s mindset and not abandon ideas or projects whenever faced with challenges.
Anyone willing to do the work of developing an entrepreneurial mindset will begin to accomplish more goals than you ever imagined in your career or if you choose to start a business or side hustle. The entrepreneurial mindset will help you overcome doubt and not give up at the first sign of a challenge.
The entrepreneurial mindset can be learned. To acquire this mindset, you must be willing to build the habits and be open to continuous learning.
How To Develop The Entrepreneurial Mindset
There are several skills that you must develop to start thinking like an entrepreneur. The competencies include but are not limited to the following:
1. Innovative
Entrepreneurs are innovative. They are constantly identifying better ways to do things and exploring ways to turn their ideas into viable products or services.
2. Curious
Entrepreneurs stay curious; they are always seeking opportunities and finding ways to transform them into businesses. To constantly learn and maintain your competitive edge, you must always learn something new. Never lose your curiosity.
3. Determined
Successful entrepreneurs stick with ideas until they become tangible. They don’t give up easily. They are diligent in seeing a project through to the end. They think and act with purpose.
4. Commitment
Entrepreneurs stay steadfastly committed to daily revisiting their vision and working to achieve set goals. They remain devoted to their promises, no matter how great the personal sacrifice.
5. Efficient
Successful entrepreneurs always find ways to work smarter, not necessarily harder. They constantly explore ways to do things better, faster, or cheaper.
6. Pursue Quality over Quantity
Entrepreneurs who are focused on building successful businesses for the long term pursue quality over quantity. They are focused on delivering the best value at all times.
7. Take Calculated Risks
Entrepreneurs are not careless in their decision-making. They take calculated risks. They think through and make plans. Most entrepreneurs work with business coaches and mentors to guide them.
8. Goal Focused
Entrepreneurs are planners. They set goals and objectives for their businesses and their personal growth. They are never satisfied to maintain the status quo. They set clear and smart goals and have an accountability system in place to keep them focused.
9. Informed
Entrepreneurs, because of their curiosity, always stay informed about their clients, suppliers, technology, opportunities, and current occurrences in the business, socio-political and economic environment as it affects their businesses.
10. Strategic Planning and Measuring
Entrepreneurs embrace planning as a key activity because they understand that their entire business is hinged on this important activity. Entrepreneurs think and plan strategically to ensure that their business is successful. One of the keys to success in business is having clear measurement standards to determine if a goal is achieved if the business is on track, what needs to change, and what needs improvement. Not planning and measuring will lead to waste.
11. Persuasive
Entrepreneurs must develop the art of influencing other people to follow them or do something for them. This is a key mindset for success in sales and marketing. You are not in business if there are no customers, no transactions, and no profit.
12. Networking
Entrepreneurs must always seek ways to network with others to grow their businesses. There are many ways to network. These include attending industry events, joining business-related groups and communities, and being an active contributor. Entrepreneurs find mutually beneficial business opportunities that they can explore with the people within their network, and they make a move to harness such opportunities.
13. Confident and self-motivated
Entrepreneurs are self-assured in their capability or potential to do something. They develop natural motivation and learn to be self-motivated as opposed to looking to others to push them to do things or hold them accountable. They can also control their thoughts and stamp out self-doubt, believing in their vision and seeing that they finish what they start.
14. Decisive
Successful entrepreneurs develop the ability to be decisive. They can analyze a situation using relevant data to help them make a confident decision. Indecision can ruin a business. Therefore, deciding with confidence is a very important entrepreneurial skill. Entrepreneurs can develop decisiveness through practice in their life situations.
15. See Failure as Lessons
Successful entrepreneurs describe failures as learning opportunities. They see failure as an indication that they have tried something, no matter how scary. They see failure as not trying at all. One of the ways to overcome the shame of failure is talking about the things you tried that didn’t turn out as planned. Create a lesson learned document to help you see what you did right, what you need to improve, and where you need to change.
16. Face your fears
What are your fears? Expose yourself to them if you are to overcome them. It could be fear of public speaking, failure, and embarrassment. The more you expose yourself to these, the better you will develop the right skill sets to succeed. You can take a public speaking class to get comfortable in front of a crowd and improve your communication skills. This will invariably force you to confront your weakness as you work on becoming better.
17. Accountability.
Successful entrepreneurs understand their responsibility for the outcomes and actions of their business. They know the buck stops with them. Entrepreneurial thinking requires making no excuses and instead take action to resolve issues.
18. Resilience.
Mistakes are bound to happen when launching any new venture. Resilience is, therefore, one of the most important life skills for an entrepreneur. Successful entrepreneurs possess the ability to bounce back from failure and work to stay afloat, and inspire others to follow their lead.
19. Willingness to take risks.
Successful entrepreneurs are always willing to take risks and experiment, whether in testing new products, business plans, or problem-solving techniques. They also know when to push forward with an idea and are also willing to shelve ideas when they don’t work.
Summary
This time that we live in as an opportunity to profit by finding pain and creating solutions that solve those pains do not miss out by sitting on the sidelines.
This has been an excerpt from my upcoming course PLAN TO PROFIT.
The Edge FrameWork is A Tool I have made available for free on request to help you make the self-evaluation process seamless.
Share your thoughts and send your questions to enquiry@fijehaadum.com. I look forward to reading from you.
Want to learn more from Fijeh? Follow her on Facebook, Instagram, Linkedin and visit her website.
Fijeh Roseline Aadum, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Fijeh Roseline Aadum is The CEO of Immigrants Thrive & FRA Foundation. Fijeh is passionate about helping individuals produce their best results. So whether you are at the idea phase and need guidance through ideation to execution or you are an experienced entrepreneur or career professional that needs help with the challenges that confront your life or business. Fijeh is passionate about helping you gain traction and find your way through the maze of life.
Over the last 5 years, Fijeh has been committed to driving the message of entrepreneurship and innovation in the 21st century. Fijeh is a highly sort after corporate trainer and business coach.
Her passion to impact knowledge has earned her local and global recognition. She is a recipient of the ‘Golden Quilly’ by the National Academy of Bestselling Authors in Hollywood for her bestselling book Masters of Success.
She is an Alumna of London Metropolitan University.
