As a seasoned entrepreneur with over ten years of experience in the industry, I have created brands and products that improve people’s lives inside and outside of work and continue to do so. Aside from that, I am a workplace innovation leader focused on diverse talent management and recruitments. With my credentials and successes, I am here to share four essential keys entrepreneurs should follow to turn their goals into reality.
Focus on what you’re good at and delegate what you’re not good at
To become successful, you first have to recognize your strengths and weaknesses. In doing so, you will be able to develop systematic schemes for your improvement. Although it may seem like a never-ending challenge, it is possible to practice this through patience and dedication.
After acknowledging your weak points, you should opt to delegate tasks you deem unfit for your competencies to fulfill. Part of delegating means allowing someone else to be responsible for a particular task; you must be able to lessen your degree of control. In essence, you cannot do everything by yourself, therefore, you must be willing to share the responsibility to produce effective and efficient results. Although there is value in having a wide range of skill sets, time should highly be considered. Hence, you should learn how to achieve maximum productivity with minimum wasted effort or expense.
Learn how to manage moments of stress
Becoming an entrepreneur may be appealing and amusing, but it is worth noting that every entrepreneur inevitably faces hurdles along the way. The reality of it is that the road is often filled with more challenges than celebrations. For many aspiring hustlers, this is something that seasoned veterans try to point out before getting started but is a lesson that can only be learned in the trenches. Many first-time founders have to learn this lesson through rigorous processes. It might also take a while before realizing that balance is a necessary part of long-term success.
Know when to hire the right people
Another common mistake in the early stages of building a company is hiring people who are unfit for roles you do not fully understand yet. Sometimes you might not even need to fill these positions with full-time employees. The team you already have can probably work together to get a few extra tasks done each week. Hiring someone too early can actually cause more problems, rather than speeding things up.
As my mentor used to say, “Would you rather own 100% of a grape or 50% of a grapefruit?” At first glance, the answer appears to be straightforward: you should go for the whole. However, he wanted to impart that by giving up some things in the short term, you end up having more in the long run, which is why you should always have the larger picture as the priority.
Remember why you started in the first place
Running a business can be stressful since there are inevitable hurdles you will overcome throughout your entrepreneurial journey. According to Bloomberg, eight out of 20 companies fail to last in their first 18 months. The major reason behind this staggering failure rate is because many give up at the first sign of a significant roadblock. They see big challenges as signs that they should throw in the towel, and when the going gets tough, they forget what it was they were working toward in the first place.
Sometimes, it takes hearing the humbling story of another entrepreneur to be reminded of the intention behind our ambitions. For myself, as an owner of a popular restaurant in Milwaukee and the founder of Ease, a software company for hiring freelancers, my “why” is motivated by my difficult upbringing and the struggles I watched my parents go through. Always remember that when everything looks like it is crumbling and tumbling down, you have to remember your why.