Entrepreneurs love what they do. But of course, there’s more to it than that. Here are ten things entrepreneurs do that lead to success.
Being an entrepreneur means a lot of sacrifice. Turning down other opportunities, leaving comfortable jobs, saying no to other fun things—to carry themselves through a certain amount of depravation, successful entrepreneurs have to tap into the love they have for the thing taking precedence in their lives.
Being an entrepreneur means a paycheque is not guaranteed. It means putting savings, credit, trust, and future earning potential on the line. It means that failure is a very real possibility. This is not for everyone. Sure, everyone has a certain amount of risk they’ll tolerate. But to be an entrepreneur means tolerating a whole lot of risk.
Of course, when everything is on the line, you often have no choice but to devote yourself one hundred per cent to your idea. After all, entrepreneurs know that eventually they’ll need other people to get behind their idea, but they can’t expect anyone to be as dedicated as they are themselves. When it comes to dedication, entrepreneurs must set the bar high.
It’s easy to fill up twenty-four hours. It’s easy to spend that time working on someone else’s idea. It’s easy to while away the hours on TV and other diversions. It’s easy to see your hours get chewed up by other people’s requests and tasks.
Entrepreneurs know that they need to draw a hard line around the time they need to make their dreams a reality. They laugh at the notion of a forty-hour work week. Time is a thing you spend, and entrepreneurs want to get the most bang for their buck.
Without belief, it’s doubtful a vision will ever exist in the real world. At the beginning, no one else sees what the entrepreneur sees—or else no one else has confidence that this vision could become real.
At a certain point, entrepreneurs need their confidence to become contagious. Sure, they’re the first to be confident in their own vision and they believe in themselves the most strongly, but after that entrepreneurs need to spread that confidence. It goes beyond being a good salesperson. An entrepreneur needs to believe it, see it, and share it with others.
Lots of people call themselves idea people. But a successful entrepreneur is about more than ideas. They’re about expertise. A business may be born out of a hobby, a passion, or even a field of study, but it’s always something that an entrepreneur cares about or knows and understands far more than nearly anyone else.
There are a lot of reasons that an entrepreneur’s idea might not work out. But inasmuch as an entrepreneur needs to know about those reasons, they can’t spend their time with cynics who want to keep bringing those reasons up. Successful entrepreneurs surround themselves with people who believe in them and support their vision.
Entrepreneurs are self-sufficient and choose tools that help them get to market quickly. This makes them early adopters of digital tools. Can you run an entire business from a smartphone? Ask an entrepreneur and the answer may surprise you.
All that risk-taking and subject matter expertise inevitably leads to some rule breaking. Whether it’s the idea of a comfortable salary and a normal work week or larger rules about how businesses are supposed to work, entrepreneurs end up breaking a few rules on their way to success.
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