Running a business successfully has so much more to do with perspective and mindset than we often assume. Most people think it’s exclusively about having a steady source of funds as capital, the right connections, and the perfect target audience. While these factors are truly essential, they can only facilitate success when the entrepreneur’s mind is focused in the right direction.
A poor mindset regarding the entrepreneurial process runs in the opposite direction to productivity. A person must be mentally prepared, adaptable, flexible, and entirely determined to make things work, otherwise they can burn out before the ball gets rolling.
While the most surefire way of learning to manage a business adequately comes from experience, it’s always helpful to embrace some changes in perspective from the start. This way, you reduce the risks of disappointments in the future and de-limit your creative abilities. Entrepreneurship is the key to financial freedom, and here are five mindset overhauls you must embrace to fortify your journey.
1. Personal bad habits will turn to professional disappointments
Operating a business is self-employment and it comes with a lot of freedom. Especially for people who walked out of the routine 9-5 lifestyle, figuring out what to do with all the time they now control can be tough. Essentially, your business hangs on the threads of how serious you take it.
“Everyone has some bad habits to a certain degree,” says Sebastian Scheplitz, a German entrepreneur, multi-business founder, and international business coach. “You’re not alone. However, if you find yourself Netflixing the whole weekend away, although you clearly had dreams of starting your own business, you need to make a clear cut. Those bad habits are not your friends. They might seem that way because it’s so cozy in your comfort zone. But do you know what’s cozier? The feeling of finally having achieved your dreams and goals.”
2. You can’t do it all by yourself
Especially when funds are tight at the start, it’s not uncommon to find new entrepreneurs running themselves ragged 23 out of 24 hours in a day to cope with everything. From administration to production to delivery, when one person handles an entire business, no matter how small, it’s always counter-productive. Scaling and growing would be nearly impossible because you can only handle so many issues at the same time.
Also, you may find yourself fumbling at certain aspects of the business where you’re not exactly a professional, for example, branding. Delegating duties to other people allows you to expend your time and energy where they can be fruitful.
3. Be a leader and not a boss
A business is only as excellent as the people running it. As your enterprise grows and more people come on board, you’d realize that setting up an environment to micromanage everyone’s activities would only limit growth. Starting from the recruitment process, ensure to hire people with the right skills to suit each job position. Most founders hire mediocre employees to save labor costs. In the end, you have more work piled onto your schedule while your helpers remain clueless.
“Learn to outsource to the right people. Learn to trust them, instead of micromanaging. I remember how working at [so many] different companies, the environment would often be toxic,” Scheplitz recounts. “I’d often question how certain people got their positions and what the leaders were doing to set everyone on the right track. I thought to myself, ‘I could do this better. I could provide better services to my clients and have better team chemistry than those who were my bosses before.”
A true leader must teach the team by example. Show up on time every day, perform your own duties with dedication, and always display a true commitment to the brand. The best way to set the pace for impressive performance is to blaze the trail yourself.
4. Wealth isn’t merely financial – it’s a holistic value
We are all conditioned from childhood to view success as a direct factor of a person’s financial prosperity. The more digits in the bank account, the wealthier and happier a person is expected to be. However, so many people spend most of their lives hustling for financial wealth while they remain impoverished in every other aspect. Wealth is a holistic concept that emphasizes joy and abundance in the financial, emotional, physical, social, and spiritual aspects of a person’s life.
Entrepreneurs are often so pressed for time, especially in the beginning, that they may end up not having any solid relationships left in their life. It’s often referred to as “the price of owning a business”, but according to Scheplitz, no business is worth throwing away the relationships that make your life meaningful.
“Always focus on all of life’s pillars: work life, relationships, wealth, and health,” he said. “Just like you can use the four pillars of Ikigai to find your happiness, you should focus on all of the above pillars. If you leave one out, your life will lose its stability – and who wants to follow an unstable CEO? You can always choose to emphasize one or two of them for a short period. But ultimately, your business will only run smoothly if all of them are stable.”
5. Scratch the “I will” and go with “I am now…
To prevent procrastination from destroying your positive energy, Scheplitz recommends diving straight into activities that do not require long periods of planning. This way, you form a great habit that spills onto other major areas of your life.
“Don’t say ‘I want to lose weight’. Say ‘I’m going to track my calories from now on’ or ‘I’m putting Tuesdays and Thursdays in my calendar to work out’. Don’t say ‘I want to make more in sales’. Say ‘I want to sell X number more. This means X phone calls per day/X amount of ad spend more.’ Don’t say ‘My own business would be nice’ Say ‘On Saturday, I’m planning to research business ideas for four hours, and on Sunday I’m going to research competitors for each’,” Scheplitz explains.
This way, you find yourself doing, instead of merely declaring interests and letting them die off in due time.
Scheplitz helps other entrepreneurs to spur their businesses into the online spotlight through digital branding – video branding, copywriting, branding, keyword research, SEO, and several other elements. He helps people to find their footing across all industries, either by showing them how to handle their digital branding requirements or professionally rendering his services. He is the founder and CEO of four digital marketing agencies namely Translation Royale, The Content Spa, Hotcopy Asia, and Mastercut Video.