Yes, Shy People Can Be Entrepreneurs too
Aspiring entrepreneurs who are a little intimidated by those ‘slick Willie’ type of entrepreneurs who come at you strong, almost shouting, about how you can do it too, as they ooze confidence and bluster all over a stage may think that the world of entrepreneurship has no place for those with less bombastic approaches.
For the quiet, serious and methodical in life, the question of whether or not there is an entrepreneurial personality type, also evokes the question of whether or not you’re on the right path.
But you are.
In studying entrepreneurs all over the world, one trait is clear, the common denominator is not personality type – it’s doing the work.
Entrepreneurial Personalities
When asked to name some entrepreneurs , many people pick from the same same dozen or so familiar people who are known to have started their own business. The most famous people are seen on TV, and make news.
And that’s not a coincidence. People who make noise, make news, and some make themselves famous as part of their overall business strategy. So outgoing people who happen to be entrepreneurs can become well known.
But the most famous people do not represent al entrepreneurs.
In the United States alone in 2016, the census bureau says there are 5.6 million employer firms, and that does not count the big Fortune 500 companies that were started by one person whose name you know. Around the world, estimates say there are 600 million entrepreneurs. That’s a lot of personalities. And it is doubtful that every one of them is a Slick Willie Salesman.
An entrepreneur is anyone with an idea that they are willing to bring into the public marketplace.
Using the definition from UNCTAD, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development:
An entrepreneur is an individual who identifies opportunities in the marketplace, allocates resources, and creates value.
Entrepreneurship—the act of being an entrepreneur—implies the capacity and willingness to undertake conception, organization, and management of a productive new venture, accepting all attendant risks and seeking profit as a reward.
The definition applies to action, not personality.
The definition does not say an entrepreneur must be able able to talk to strangers.
Nor does it say the entrepreneur has to be funny and make jokes in an interview, or on stage.
The definition definitely does not imply the ability to get rich quick, make a million dollars in ten minutes and let others know about it.
Being an entrepreneur is about identifying a big idea…and running with it. Since you cannot copyright an idea, you have to write the book. You have to bring your idea into fruition.
Entrepreneurs allocate resources – often your own. If you’re shy or slow or both, you only need yourself to get your business going. Allocate your own resources to researching your business idea, figuring out how to bring it to the marketplace, and defining the other tools and resources you may need to help you.
Working this way, you do not need to ensure that thousands of people ‘like’ you before you get started.
You need to create value. Entrepreneurs create value. And thousands or millions of people recognize that value if appeals to them and their needs.
If you have business ideas in your head and you are thinking about opportunities to bring a product or service to market that will help people. You have to get it out there. No one will know about it if it stays in your head. The key is to bring it forward for people to see. The validation comes from the market.
New products and services are introduced all the time. When speaking about your business idea, people love to make comments like – ‘it’s been done before,’ or ‘no one is asking for that’ or ‘why would anyone buy that.’
But time and again the market defines what it wants – after the product or service has been introduced.
So many products that we take for granted today like corn flakes – which apparently was a cooking experiment by a guy named Kellogg – were just invented and placed in the market. No one asked for the exact product, but the entrepreneur had an idea that could appeal to many others.
The definition of entrepreneurship does not include the need to laugh, smile or glad-hand (pretend to be nice).
You have to be a person – often exactly the type of person who is shy and slow – who is willing and able to turn the idea into a business, and willing and able to meet the risks – and more than willing to reap the rewards.
Options for promoting your venture
Even knowing this definition, an entrepreneur may struggle with the idea of bringing a product or service into the marketplace. At some point, the new venture must be presented to people in some forum.
When the product or service is developed, a shy entrepreneur can look for other methods for introducing the venture. For example, advertising, giving away free samples, writing promotional materials or creating a video.
When Help from Others is not Intimidating
If those activities fail to attract attention, you can partner with one or two kindred spirits, outsource to someone you pay to promote for you, or hire someone else with the skill to promote your product or service.
Each option has its own risks and rewards. But those factors can be considered in any plan you move forward.
The key is go ahead and create your business even if you think you are too shy or too slow. The personality traits you need to start the business applies to you regardless of who you see on TV, and who you think might be a more classic example of an entrepreneur.
It’s the people who start the business who are entrepreneurs. Willing and able to make it happen – that’s the key.
The common trait for entrepreneurs is getting the work done to bring the product or service to market. Successful people get the job done. You can work full-time, part-time, weekends, do all-nighters, take a month from work, take 15 minutes a day, update on the ride home – any time frame or time allotment that you can give yourself brings you one step closer to realizing your dream.
If you have business ideas in your head, you are already thinking like an entrepreneur. The next step to being one is based on your ability to accomplish your own dream.
If you are shy, or slow or doubting your entrepreneurial personality traits, understand that entrepreneurship is for anyone who is willing and able to do the work.
You are an entrepreneur if you identify an opportunity in the marketplace, allocate resource to it, and create value, which is something the shy and slow can definitely do.
The Information Privilege
Robert Kiyosaki’s best selling book Rich Dad Poor Dad explained a reality that is rarely spoken about out loud.
In life, some people are successful not because of demographics or wealth or education, but simply because they get great information early enough to apply it to their life choices; and other people…most in fact…do not.
In a world built on democracy and free enterprise, there’s a belief that people operate on a leveling playing field – that the society by virtue of its success values will encourage anyone to be successful. But in reality, success often comes to those who have the right information, and you get the right information by either having a ‘Rich Dad’ who will impart it, or by knowing where to get it.
Image by Shahid Abdullah from Pixabay
A ‘Rich Dad’ is any human who pro-actively teaches or demonstrates how to maximize wealth and grow for success; and ‘Poor Dad’ teaches nothing, but moving along with the status quo. So ‘Poor Dad’ leads a life of paying monthly bills, earning a salary, and scrimping and saving for retirement.
People who grow up with ‘Poor Dad’ often believe they are doing everything right, and they are, until they hit financial concerns. ‘Poor Dad’ learners are the ones who are shocked by financial crises, rising mortgage rates, equity market swings, and the interest rates on their car loans, student loans and credit card debt.
Being taught by ‘Poor Dad’ means spending on the items you believe you need like a house and car, and being worried that you cannot afford those same items when you run into financial difficulties.
With ‘Poor Dad,’ you are surviving life, and not exactly having a good time. Even the ‘Poor Dads’ who teach frugality, and end up with a couple million dollars in the bank at retirement, don’t seem to be having a good time because they have never learned how to spend money for enjoyment.
Many people who are interested in entrepreneurship and starting a business are discouraged by their ‘Poor Dads’ who preach caution and security. Entrepreneurial ideas go untested because of fear and the inability to break habits from the past.
But those same people, maybe even you, are watching ‘Rich Dad’ and trying to determine how to have a great life now.
Entrepreneurs are risk takers, but it’s calculated risk based on their ability to find gaps in the consumer marketplace. ‘Rich Dads’ are focused on long term wealth creation and never having to worry about money. Rich Dad teaches to invest to earn the money to buy the items you want, including a house or a car.
Since financial education is not taught in schools, you have to be exposed to a ‘Rich Dad’ to get the information you need to be successful.
If you have an intellectual ‘Rich Dad’ consider yourself among the privileged – you will end up living better than probably everyone you know because you have been given the information you need to be successful.
But if you don’t have a ‘Rich Dad,’ and you know you are missing out on the information you need, you create that valuable mentor for yourself by absorbing and applying the lessons learned. It’s never too late.
If finances are leading you to delay your business plans and questionable past choices are discouraging you from moving forward, focus on getting back up.
You can make yourself information privileged as an aspiring entrepreneur by giving yourself the information you need to be successful.
Read to Wealth
Start by reading. Of course Rich Dad Poor Dad, and many other books about personal money management will give you the crucial information you did not receive when you were growing up. These are books that can help you understand how to accomplish your dreams.
Being one step ahead of others and making life happen for you is about having information.
The Information Privilege means you know:
A) You do not have the information you need to be successful, and
B) Where to get the information
Even if the information is that you need more information, you are one step ahead of the next person who has no clue they are working themselves into a trip
Successful people rarely blindly move forward without some other piece of information that helps accelerate their business plans.
To get the information you need, and make yourself an information privileged aspiring entrepreneur:
1. You have to put yourself where information flows
2. Gather to the information
3. Use the information you get to drive the creation of other information that you can use
1. Put yourself where information flows
Attend meetups and conferences, go to college or vocational school, form a mastermind, ask a few questions at parties, offer to do activities at work that give you proximity to senior executives or leaders, volunteer in the community with accomplished people, and/or seek those with whom you most wish to align.
2. Gather the information
If you don’t like people or can’t afford to go anywhere, you must uncover and gather the information you need. Use books. If no one ever told you, you could get the information you need from reading books, consider yourself told now, but there are also other options.
Find the information in free YouTube videos and PDFs, and free ebooks. Sign-up for free ebook distribution sites that will send you a curated email each day or week with free books that are available in the genre you seek.
3. Use the information you get to drive the creation of other information that you can use
However you choose to get the information, use it to uncover more of what you need. Learn at every step. If you spend time developing your own website on WordPress, use that information to learn, for example, how people leverage websites to drive affiliate advertising. One thing can be the base or foundation for the next. You build layer upon layer upon layer.
You make yourself the top of the heap in your own sphere by learning and understanding the information that moves you forward as a person, an entrepreneur, and a deliverer of value for the product or service you bring to the marketplace.
Disclosure: Links to books are affiliate links to Amazon.com, and I earn from eligible purchases
Are MBA subjects Important for an Entrepreneur?
by Case Lane
Does the traditional MBA business school curriculum, help you to become an entrepreneur?
The expectation is you will spend two years attending classes, interacting with professors, and learning from books. You will not be creating your own business and being your own boss?
However, if you read the life stories of the most successful entrepreneurs, the short answer about business school is almost certainly, is ‘no.’ The formal education will not help you become an entrepreneur.
But the long answer is different story. In the long run, the information taught at business school is almost certainly going to be important to entrepreneur. Knowledge about accounting, finance, marketing and the other disciplines will have to be acquired or you will have to pay other people to look after the details for you.
The question to ask is whether it worth the two years and the expense to get that information yourself through the classroom?
picture credit: Stocksnap at Pixabay
Alternatives to B-school
Even if MBA subjects are important to entrepreneurs, the information taught in B-school is not exclusive to the walls of your preferred campus. You can go online, take one off courses in specific subjects, hire someone to teach you, do an internship or paid work with a specialist or ignore the details. This article will focus on the choice for a two-year full-time MBA program at an established business school, or anything else.
Considerations
- How do you prefer to consume and understand information education? Scroll online or formally sit in a classroom?
- Do you want the back-to-school experience?
- Do you want to work, in management, for a big corporation, investment bank, consulting firm, or technology company – even for a couple of years?
- Do you immediately want to work for yourself?
NOTE: The author’s MBA is from the Anderson School at UCLA. In reviewing the core curriculum classes for two-year, full-time MBA students, the author also looked at the universities of Chicago, Harvard, Stanford, and the Wharton School.
Purpose of MBA
The Master of Business Administration degree is one of the flashy pedigrees of the educated. If you said to someone, “I was in a room full of MBAs,” the person will know what you mean. A room full of MBAs means professionally dressed, polished, number-crunching thinkers. People who will work 80 or 120 hours a week for hundreds of thousands of dollars and lots of perks.
In general, the MBA degree is the calling card of professionally trained business managers. The degree provides foundational business knowledge that allows a graduate to talk the talk. And the talking is done with recruiters.
Recruiters
The MBA program is for recruiters – people who work for companies who are looking for skilled managers, and want to know that the people they are interviewing have some grounding in the core subjects a typical businessperson should learn. Recruiters need people who can be trained as managers within a corporate structure.
Therefore, a graduate must know the difference between assets and liabilities. Companies do not want to spend money teaching potential managers the basics.
The Entrepreneur’s Dilemma
MBA subjects are important to entrepreneurs in the context where the entrepreneur must also know the difference between assets and liabilities. But many entrepreneurs wait until they have sufficient assets to protect, and hopefully not to many liabilities to pay off, before wondering how they can learn more.
Therefore, an entrepreneur needs to understand these issues before there is any chance of being ‘ripped off.’ The criteria for deciding when to acquire non-expert knowledge is before you are in a position to be ripped off.
If you decide to pursue the MBA to learn the basics of business, what are the subjects you will learn?
Types of Courses
To begin, there are basically three types of courses, the standards, the some-form-bound-to-haves, and the rare. Different schools may call these courses by different names, but the content is usually the same or similar at each school. Also the assumption in all cases is that the entrepreneur’s proposed business is not based in a core MBA subject. If it is, learnings beyond the MBA may be necessary.
Standard
A first-year MBA is almost guaranteed to have a core curriculum that includes courses in accounting, economics, finance and marketing.
An entrepreneur will almost certainly want to know about accounting and marketing, and probably about economics and finance too.
Accounting
Basic accounting is the discipline of keeping track of your money, balancing your books and knowing the situation for your revenues and expenses. Accounting is a crucial skill for people in business. It is also a formal profession and a business can outsource its accounting work.
But an entrepreneur will need to understand the information the accountant is presenting. As the head of your a business, the founding entrepreneur or CEO is ultimately responsible for the numbers. The business can find a trusted accountant, but must take ultimate responsibility. At some point as an entrepreneur with an ongoing business concern, you will want to have a general understanding of accounting.
Economics
The discipline of studying the economy is a subject for entrepreneurs who want to understand the larger economic issues of the day. If you intend to frequently watch CNBC, and understand and interpret the discussions, economic terms and concepts are the foundation required for this type of conversation.
An entrepreneur may decide to take an interest in economics as a matter of general business interest. If the business operates in the global economy as a global corporation, the head of the company should understand how economics issues may affect business.
However, when an entrepreneur is getting started or in the early years of business, the subject of economics may not be of interest, except the field of behavioral economics, the discipline covering how humans (and therefore your potential consumers) behave in the marketplace.
Finance
Many people view finance as stocks and bonds, but as the world came to understand in 2008, financial companies create and use many different complicated financial instruments. These instruments are created by mathematicians or physicists and other geniuses who are crunching numbers in search of value in the marketplace.
For an entrepreneur who may one day contemplate an initial public offering (IPO) or become an investor, the information in finance class may be especially valuable. But at the beginning of the business, years before a IPO, the intricacies of financial minutia will not be valuable.
Marketing
With the exception of unique high demand products or services, or a specific dedicated super-niche customer bases, most entrepreneurs want or need instruction in marketing. Marketing gets your product or service in front of customers. And the MBA-level course will teach the traditional tricks and concepts for accomplishing this goal. Successful entrepreneurs today still refer to classic marketing gurus like David Oglivy as the standard to follow for creating marketing campaigns. The student learns how to analyze company campaigns, slogans, jingles and customer targeting. But the lessons tend to focus on corporate marketing.
An entrepreneur building a business today will almost certainly look at tools like social media and direct e-mail marketing. These still new and rapidly growing fields may not yet be covered in traditional business school classes. One common complaint about university is around their inability to keep up with the times. Online advertising strategies and developments may not yet be fully integrated into the curriculum. And even if it is, the information may be outdated before school starts.
Some Form
The core curriculum also contains some form of subjects with names like Human management, Operations management, Personal Skills, statistics and strategy.
MBA subjects are important for entrepreneurs if these types of corporate business skills, which are rarely needed when starting a business, become critical as the business grows.
Human management – Organizational Behavior/Human Resources
Courses that can be called organizational behavior or human resources or human resource management are about managing people. This is a critical and important skills which, as we often learn in the news, is not given the respect deserved by corporate management.
This subject teaches processes, structures and ideas around managing people. As a business grows, some of these structures will be legally required, but may be implemented by skilled professionals trained in the field. But when an entrepreneur is starting there is typically no reason to hire these expensive resources, unless the business has a specific reason begins as a corporate entity with employees.
Operations – Operations/Technology/Information Management
Courses with names like operations management, technology or information management have a similar approach as the human management courses, with one crucial exception, operations skills will be required earlier than human resource skills. An entrepreneur is likely to be put in place systems to run a business from day one. If the business owner understands how to develop and setup these systems, the efficient approach will save time in the long run.
Determining how to run the business is an early introduction into learning how to think like a businessperson. Operations processes look at the inputs and outputs, time constraints and productivity issues. If an entrepreneur understands which components need to be assessed, then she will also want to understand how to get established.
Deciding how to run the business often takes different permutations, trial and error, and the application of technologies. As an entrepreneur becomes more experienced, the processes become more functional. But filling in the operational processes after the business is successful can create a bottleneck to future growth. Knowing how to move forward early, can prevent future disruptions.
Personal Skill – Communications/Inter-Personal Skills/Leadership/Ethics
The MBA courses dedicated to personal skills such as communication, leadership and ethics, are among the most useful. Personal skills are as valid for solopreneurs, as for the CEO of a Global 500 corporation. However, many executives do not develop these skills or forget how to put the knowledge into place once they arrive at a company.
An entrepreneur will want to figure out how to learn these skills at some point on the entrepreneurial journey. But personal development is probably the easiest of the skills to develop outside of school. Organizations such as Toastmasters have been training managers on speaking techniques for years. And books about communication and leadership are often bestsellers that can be used to learn the foundations of the ideas and why they’re important.
Statistics – Data, Decision-making
A statistics-related course is often in the core because businesspeople need to know how to analyze numbers and make decisions from those numbers. Data has become even more critical with the rise of online usage and the accumulation of data in the background of search activities. Even a solopreneur, will want to keep track of business activities by analyzing statistics that tell a story.
But the formal statistics training in B-school may go far beyond the information you need to run your business operation. Online courses that split this field up into manageable sub-topics may be more effective.
Strategy
Business strategy is MBA-speak for: what is the company doing and how are they going to do it. Strategy is the core activity of the highest-paid executives, and the top subject of their meetings and decisions. In business school, strategy focuses on big corporations and how they make or fail to make changes to reflect realities.
picture credit: rawpixel at pixabay
An entrepreneur starting out will likely make adjustments on the fly. Strategy adjusts constantly as new processes are learned and the statistics reveal new opportunities. Entrepreneurs decide every day how they want to run the business. Strategy is a core activity for a rising entrepreneur, but the corporate strategy class may be too much too soon.
Rarely Core
Often outside the core, but part of electives for second year are two glamour subjects for prospective business school students, entrepreneurship and international business.
Entrepreneurship
Many schools offer courses in entrepreneurship – both the study and the practice of the field. Some programs have start-a-business project may be available for credit. When assessing business schools, an aspiring entrepreneur should look for the option to finish the first year core classes then focus on entrepreneurship oriented classes or starting a business in the second year.
The programs that actually offer practical opportunities to start a business, not just theory, will be more effective. If an entrepreneur can get the best of both worlds, work through mandatory classes in first year, and spend the entire second year on a business, the entire process may be rewarding, especially if the business is up and running by graduation.
Also, aspiring entrepreneurs should carefully review the mentoring or guidance offered by the programs. Check for professors who are really going to support practice over theory, and strong links to the entrepreneurship network of the community.
International
The other missing piece that’s rarely in the core program is global or international business. Yet many aspiring entrepreneurs are interested in how they can participate in the global economy. Some programs will weave international case studies into the other core courses, but rarely is there a focus just on global business. In this day and age, most rising entrepreneurs need a grounding in trade policy and international business issues to operate in the global economy.
So what is the value of doing an MBA if you want to be an entrepreneur?
The Decision
Before deciding if MBA subjects are important, an aspiring entrepreneur should take a second look at the considerations for business school. What are your answers to these questions?
- How do you prefer to consume and understand information education? Scroll online or formally sit in a classroom?
- Do you want the back-to-school experience?
- Do you want to work, in management, for a big corporation, investment bank, consulting firm, or technology company – even for a couple of years?
- Do you immediately want to work for yourself?
Some future entrepreneurs are discouraged by their lack of training and skill, and believe business school is required before getting started – but that’s not how it works. Many people also start with no knowledge and run into trouble later when their business is making money. In all cases, experience is the skill that often makes a difference, and just getting started with the business is the only way to move forward.
Others prefer to hedge their bets and do both. That’s a viable option if you can find a program that supports your entrepreneurial dreams. You have to decide based on the of your decision against the benefits or drawbacks you may receive from paying to obtain skills you believe you need.
Read to Wealth: How to Select Books for the Road to Success
by Case Lane
You have probably read that many successful people read. The world’s movers and shakers, billionaires and influencers read books (and magazines and newspapers). They read to stay informed, learn practices and strategies for success, and to continuously improve their minds.
Part of your success strategy for transitioning your life to entrepreneurship, should include reading.
But where do you start?
There are hundreds (probably thousands) of “best book” lists that you can Google and reference. But how do you even choose which books to read from that list?
One way to start is to think first about what you want to get out of the books. What do you want books to teach you? You want to be reading for implementable action, things you can do to improve yourself as you build your business.
Here are five categories of books to begin with:
The Definition of an Entrepreneur: Read biographies, autobiographies, and books about entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship to learn who entrepreneurs are, what they do and how they are formed.
Skills of Successful people: Read personal development books to learn how to improve your success skills and yourself, so you can move more efficiently in the entrepreneurial world.
General business environment: Read books about the business of business, the histories of specific industries and companies to learn how the broader global economy functions.
Think like a Billionaire: Read books about investing, the road to super-wealth to understand how markets work, and how entrepreneurs access private funds to fuel growth.
Life in Action: Read fiction about successful people, business people and business-related ideas to see the big picture, and get background and inside information about how people function in a success-driven life.
Here are suggestions in each of these categories. There are dozens of books in every category considered “the best” or “must-haves,” below are only some initial suggestions. You can start in any order.
If you find you would prefer to read books about your specific product or industry, of course add those ones as well. The key is you want to understand which books to read, and why. You want to be able to implement the learnings from the book into your lifestyle
DEFINITION OF AN ENTREPRENEUR
When you are starting out as an aspiring entrepreneur, and the only idea you have in your head the concept of starting a business, you might not be confident about what your vision will really mean.
To develop a more specific idea of how entrepreneurs are formed and what entrepreneurs do, you can read biographies and autobiographies, and books about entrepreneurial ideas. People often wonder: how did so-and-so get rich? One of the best ways to find out is to read the biographies about rich people, and learn the facts for yourself.
You are looking for an in-depth accounting of the entrepreneur’s story – what were the actual steps this person took to become successful. The best biographies tend to be those thick ones that take you back not only to the entrepreneur’s childhood, but also through his or her parents, or other significant influences. This additional insight will help you realize the most successful entrepreneurs come from a wide variety of backgrounds, and have had an even wider variety of experiences on the road to success.
While industry and technology do change our economic landscape, the day-to-day realities of humans rarely change. Everyone still must secure food, clothes and shelter to have a civilized life. The actions taken by John D. Rockefeller in the 1800s – walking up and down the street to ask for a job – are still relevant today. Despite all the online employment services, in the 21st century people still often find work by word-of-mouth.
Use biographies and autobiographies to help you understand how you can write your own story as you transition to entrepreneurship. Look for the lessons that explain the idea of an entrepreneur.
Books in this category include: Biographies and Autobiographies
The Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr. by Ron Chernow
Shark Tales: How I Turned $1000 into a Billion Dollar Business by Barbara Corcoran
Andrew Carnegie by David Nasaw
Morgan, American Financier by Jean Strouse
Entrepreneurship:
The Four-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-to-5, Live Anywhere and Join the New Rich by Timothy Ferriss
The Little Red Book of Selling: 12.5 Principles of Sales Greatness by Jeffery Gitomer
Zero to One: Notes on Start-ups or How to Build the Future by Peter Thiel
SKILLS OF SUCCESSFUL PEOPLE
Most of us are not born ready to take on the world with our entrepreneurial ideas. In fact, when you realize how big the personal development book market is, you realize that being an organized, attentive, polished, successful person takes information – ideas and strategies that you can learn and implement for yourself.
Successful people have a mix of skills, but they are not always the same. If you learn some of the basic, timeless behaviors, you can use those attributes anywhere. Personal development must be taught and practiced. It is not enough to read the books, you also have to implement the ideas from the book. And you must be consistent in applying the changes to your life.
Perennial sellers like Napoleon Hill’s Think and Grow Rich have been around for decades, yet the number of people who stick to the advice is certainly not visible in today’s economy. If everyone who had bought or read Think and Grow Rich had applied all the activities, average incomes would likely be much higher.
You can be an exception. You can use personal development books to actually make changes to the way you behave. The advice exists (and continues to sell) because it works. And it works because people like you make it happen.
Books in this category include: Personal Development:
Choose Yourself by James Altucher
How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie
The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey
Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill
Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman
The Power of Positive Thinking by Norman Vincent Peale
GLOBAL BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT
As an entrepreneur, you want to be thinking about the global economy in which you run your business. Even if you have a small enterprise, you are affected by global economic changes in the price of oil or the value of the dollar. Having a more knowledgeable background on these issues can help you manage your business rationally.
You can muse about inflation or trade like the average person, or you can read books that explain current economic development and trends. These books will provide you with an insight that you can use to develop your own business. They tend to be interesting histories giving you the information you did not know, and helping to dispel certain fallacies about business, trade and investment.
Although these reads can often be dense, they are well worth the effort to give you a broader grounding and overview of the business world that you now occupy.
Books in this category include: Business of Business:
Against the Gods: The Remarkable Story of Risk by Peter L. Bernstein
A Splendid Exchange: How Trade Shaped the World by William J. Bernstein
Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies by Jim Collins and Jerry I. Porras
Guns, Germs, Steel: The Fates of Human Societies by Jared Diamond
The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money and Power by Daniel Yergin
THINK LIKE A BILLIONAIRE
As you read the biographies of entrepreneurs, you may notice a pattern – the big money, mega wealth, came from the stock market. Either the entrepreneur became an investor or was invested in, when the company was taken public. The real jump to billionaire wealth, comes from owning the factors of production, from owning capital.
You can begin to build your billionaire mindset by reading books about investing. These are books that help you develop a money consciousness, to see money not just as the tool that pays the bills, but as a factor that can be transformed into changing your life for the long run.
Many people have a poor financial management and investing education. Without these types of books, the situation would be even worse since this information is not taught in schools. In fact, good investment advice is passed on from one generation to the next within the same family, but not transferred horizontally through a society. This is information you are unlikely to hear.
So your best bet for putting yourself in line to understand the business of money is through an investment in time spent learning more about how investment works in the global economy. Educate yourself before you become an investor.
Books in this category include: Investing and Financial Management:
The Intelligent Investor: The Definitive Book on Value Investing by Benjamin Graham
Security Analysis by Benjamin Graham and David L. Dodd
The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine by Michael Lewis
The Millionaire Next Door: The Surprising Secrets of America’s Wealthy by Thomas J. Stanley
LIFE IN ACTION
As a bonus, fiction books featuring characters in business can give you a broader overview of the world you are entering. By reading about fiction characters, you have a sense of day-to-day life, as well as the road to wealth.
Unlike a biographer, a fiction writer can tell you everything. You get inside the character’s head, and maybe even read words that resonate with you, and your entrepreneurial vision for yourself. You may even decide to emulate the behaviors and practices of business or success-oriented fiction characters who you feel connected to through the story.
Books in this category include: Fiction
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
The High Flyer by Susan Howatch
The Financier by Theodore Dreiser
If you are starting out as an aspiring entrepreneur and looking for guidance on how to face the entrepreneurial world, start by reading. When you set aside, 15 minutes a day to work on your business, your time can be focused on reading, your research for creating the life you really want.
Many of the classic books now have e-reader versions and you can upload copies to your phone or tablet to read when you are standing in line or commuting on public transit.
If you have no idea where you want to start, begin with a few books. You will likely find yourself inspired to keep going until you have your business up and running, and you can begin to live your life on your terms.
NOTE: In future blogs, I will follow-up on each of these books and provide more detail about what you may be able to learn from each (especially the fiction) as you move forward on your entrepreneurial journey.
Disclosure: book links are affiliate links to Amazon.com which if used may result in compensation to the author to help support this business and future posts
Five Practical Tips to Get Started as an Entrepreneur
Maybe today was the day. The rudest person at work interrupted you for the tenth time, your supervisor ignored your brilliant suggestions, and you had to cancel lunch with a friend because a useless meeting was just scheduled up against your lunch break.
You’ve had it.
It’s time to get serious about starting your own business.
First question: Where do you start?
Many people know they want to start a business. And for many the reason to start is to gain control of your own schedule and manage your time as you see fit. Entrepreneurship is not easy, and will often be frustrating, but being the boss means you have ownership. You can make the process as difficult or complex as your resources permit.
Yet even after you’ve made the decision to start your business, you are often distracted by the endless directions advice you receive. From start a business plan to build a website to complete market research, deciding where to start your entrepreneurial dream can be confusing.
Here are five tips:
1. Pick a business idea (which can, and probably will, change)
If you already have a business idea, skip to point 2.
If you do not have a business idea, pick one. You do not have to stick with your pick. Having a business idea simply gives you the context for getting started on the rest of your business. Points you will learn about Idea A may help you with Idea B. So the time you spend on an idea you do not actually turn into a business will still be useful.
If you have no idea, start with your hobbies and interests. Where is there a gap you have identified in the marketplace when people say about a particular good or service: I wish we could have this? Or I wish it could do that? That is your opening to slip in your business idea.
Pick your business idea first because this will give you a specific topic to focus on while you get through the next four tips. It’s easier to say, you need 15 minutes to work on a specific idea than it is to continue to sound as if you are just “thinking about” starting a business.
But if you are still lost for an idea and really want to move forward with your entrepreneurial dream, then keep going. Part of “starting” your business will be to define your idea, you can still move forward on the next four steps.
2. Identify your Space
You will want to have somewhere to work on your business. But when you are just getting started your space does not have to be elaborate. You can decide to work in the bathroom or closet if that’s the only quiet place you can find.
Maybe you prefer the library or local coffee shop. All of these options are viable.
But if you choose a space that is not near your home or work, include the time it will take you to travel to and from that space in the time you are setting aside for work. So if you are going to do 15 minutes of work and it takes you 15 minutes to get where you need to go, you need to set aside 45 minutes to make it happen.
Be realistic about the time you need and how you plan to use it before settling on a space. You might find you need a spot closer to home to preserve your time.
3. Gather your tools
The tools you need to work depend on how you like to work.
When you are first getting started you might not even think about this topic, but the minute you sit down to do some research you realize you need a notebook (digital or paper?), a cup of coffee or tea, a brighter light (artificial or natural), a power outlet, a sweater/blanket, a timer, a bottle of water, some chips, maybe cookies, light music (Spotify or playlists?)….
And you do not want to make excuses or get up every minute because you forgot to put one of your productivity tools in your work space.
If you have no idea which tools you like to have around you, go ahead and start with nothing, and add your preferences at the end of that day’s work session.
4. Clear your distractions
In our busy worlds, distractions are not only living all around us – ie. kids and dogs – but digital also. You have to figure out how to turn everything off for the time you want to work on your business.
For the family, find the time to do your work within the family schedule. However that works best for you. Since you have your business idea (see #1), you can tell everyone what you are doing and how you really need to move forward with transitioning to lifestyle freedom.
For digital, you know what you have to do. Turn off the phone. Or at least turn off the sound and lay the phone upside down so you cannot see the screen. And don’t try and work around any other screens like the TV or your partner’s mobile.
You only need to give yourself that first 15 minutes to get the ball rolling, so push the distractions away.
5. Take 15 minutes
The best way to start a business is just to get started.
That may sound roundabout but it’s true. People often make excuses like they do not have enough money or are not sufficiently qualified for a business idea. But you really do not know the truth behind those excuses because you have never spent any time working on the business.
Take 15 minutes. I know you have it. Before you start bingeing on Netflix take 15 minutes to research your business idea.
What are you researching?
- Similar businesses to see what other people are doing
- Specifics about your business idea and your industry.
- Courses in your area of expertise or about the product or service you are interested in.
As you continue researching, you will begin to move towards creating your action plan for starting the business. But it’s just brain-storming at this point. You do not have to pursue anything formal. You will likely find that the more time you spend researching your business and putting together ideas, the more time you will have to work on your business.
Before you know it, you will forget to watch Netflix.
Once you get to number 5, you have started your business. Because when you set aside time to transition your life, every step counts. From here you will begin to formulate the questions you want to ask, the activities you want to do and even the courses you may want to take to transform your business idea into a viable reality.
You will also start to build your confidence. The more you know about your business idea and industry, the stronger you will feel about your capabilities and the possibilities you have for making your lifestyle dream come true.
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