If You Want To Become An Entrepreneur, Be With Entrepreneurs

(Photo by Leefotos)

So you want to become an entrepreneur. Question: How many successful entrepreneurs do you know?

Not someone you know in the news, not someone you just know as customer, someone who can tell you what it really is to be an entrepreneur – friends or family members who are successful entrepreneurs.

Aaron at Today is that Day has a thought-provoking article titled Are You Building a Winning Team or Running a Daycare Center? He points out how our environment, including the people we associate with, affects our mind and feeling, and to some extent determines the course of our life. He says:

You need to ask yourself if your surroundings are conductive to actually attaining those goals. Do you work, live, or play in an environment or with a group of people who are constantly building you up and believing in your greatness, or do your surroundings serve instead to remind you of what you don’t want to have in your life?

He goes on to check if your circle of friends are aligned to such goals as fitness, relationship, and financial success. Now let me add to it that becoming a successful entrepreneur is no exception to this rule.

This is a requirement of becoming an entrepreneur: Be with successful entrepreneurs.

Surround yourself with successful entrepreneurs who can tell you what it is like to be an entrepreneur and who will trust your potential as they have trusted theirs themselves. Spend as much time as possible with them. Learn how to think as an entrepreneur.

I know this is difficult. You are probably employed as professional now, so you spend majority of your time with other employees. And let me remind you – no matter how high up someone is in the corporate ladder, an employee is an employee. They have employee mindset. I used to work for a president of a sizable company (who managed three locations in the US). He was very knowledgeable of the business, he had strong leadership, and yet he was an employee. He made a great president, working for the parent company, but he is not an entrepreneur. (In some companies, president may be working for the board – same thing, he is a high-end employee, not entrepreneur.) Your challenge is how to associate with real entrepreneurs and learn the mindset of entrepreneur while you may be working as employee.

You are very lucky if someone in your family is an entrepreneur. In my case, my father was an entrepreneur. He started his business when I was six, so I grew up watching what it is like. In a sense, I started working at age six. It was time before the answering machine, so I took calls when he was out making sales calls. He never paid me, but I earned some tips. . . (Wouldn’t you be impressed with a six-year-old girl speaking with highest degree of politeness answering calls and taking their name and number? Or doing the basic shipping and receiving, counting the number of packages before signing off the paperwork? Oh, this was back in Japan. I know, in the US, kids are not even allowed to be themselves without adults. . .) I also watched how he deals with his customers and venders. He didn’t teach me anything (because I was a girl, not a boy – I know, I wish he had better attitude), but still I learned. I also figured why he has more time and money, and more flexibility of spending his time and money, than other kids’ fathers. . .

What are your options if nobody in your close circle of friends and family are entrepreneurs?

You need to seek them out. Seek them in social clubs and professional associations. Hire a mentor or coach. (There is a difference between a mentor and a coach. A mentor is someone who has been successful in specific area of your interest. The strength of a mentor is their specific knowledge and experiences. The potential drawback is they would tend to draw you to the direction they believe to be right, which may or may not fit your personal aspirations and personality. On the other hand, a coach is your detached thinking partner. Most coaches have a niche, but it doesn’t necessarily mean they are the big shot in that field. The strength of a coach is their professional communication skills supported by the ability to remain caring yet detached and objective. Coaches are trained to be client-centered.)

I also encourage you to check this blog often because – in addition to me, myself, who is an entrepreneur – I will be writing about and interviewing successful entrepreneurs I know.

You need to change the way you think, feel, and act to become a successful entrepreneur.

It is a fundamental shift from that of employee. And you can’t just learn it intellectually like your learn how to write business plans. You need to learn experientially.

And please introduce yourself by leaving comment!

Whether you are just dreaming of having your business, or quite serious about going independent, or maybe already launched your business, please introduce yourself. Let’s build an online community of aspiring entrepreneurs.

If you like this post, please check the Interview with Successful Entrepreneurs.

Thanks to Aaron for including this post in Doing It Differently Carnival.

5 Qualities I Find In Successful Entrepreneurs

(Photo by Stuck in Customs)

Is it intelligence? Is it luck? Is it connection? What does it really take to become a successful entrepreneur?

We have all thought about this looking at the cover of Forbes 500, haven’t we? Or when we notice one business (be it a deli or an accounting firm) doing so well while another similar business around the corner fails miserably. I am on a mission to find out what qualities or characteristics it takes to become a successful entrepreneur – and this is what I have found so far. . .

1. Passion

This is the moving force that gets us take the leap and gets us out of bed with excitement every morning. Successful entrepreneurs love what they do. So spending a lot of time doing it is actually a pleasure, not really a work. They love doing not just the part that immediately affects the bottom line, but also studying about it and thinking and dreaming about it. When you are like this, the people around you feel your passion and naturally help you out.

Usually, the passion is about the service or products you want to offer, but sometimes there are variations. I heard that Howard Schultz, CEO of Starbucks, was passionate about building a business that treats its employees well more than he was passionate about coffee. Because he grew up looking at his dad who was treated poorly at work and yet could not leave the work.

Or how about the case of Chris Gardner, who rose from poverty to become a successful stock broker and established his own brokerage firm Gardner Rich. (His story became a movie The Pursuit of Happyness (Widescreen Edition) His main passion seems to be about being a good father to his kid, and this drove him to aim high.

2. Self-Love

Successful entrepreneurs believe in themselves to the point they take their ideas seriously and put them into business. Self-love and sense of service together form the foundation of strong entrepreneurship. This is where the strength comes from when the going gets tough.

Self-love is also about defining a healthy boundary, which is critical in dealing with others effectively. Further, a new sense of self-discovery, supported by self-love, is the critical part of clarifying our niche and carving out our own brand. People don’t like doing business with faceless organizations really – and without the self-love, how will you put yourself in front of your customers? (Have you noticed the name of this blog, “Yes to Me”? This is for you, the aspiring entrepreneur, to love yourself to the point you say “Yes to me.”)

3. Sense of Service

If you’ve been thinking you need to somehow cheat, manipulate, or otherwise take advantage of people to be a successful business owner, this may come as surprise. I was first introduced to this idea of entrepreneur as social server in one of Rich Dad’s books Rich Dad’s Retire Young, Retire Rich. In this book, he asks “a very important question” that “if answered and acted upon, that makes people millionaires, even billionaires.” The question is:

How can I do what I do for more people with less work and for a better price?

Entrepreneurs serve the world through the work we do. And as entrepreneurs, we are the biggest beneficiary of this service because it gives us the strength to carry out our businesses. Without the sense that what we are doing makes a positive difference to other people’s lives, and to the world, it is hard to keep going.

4. Compassion

10 years ago, I might have called this inter-personal skills, but now I know it is more than a skill.  As entrepreneurs, we need genuine compassion for the people around us, whether they are customers, potential customers, employees, business partners and advisers, and just anyone and everyone. Because everyone has the potential to help us in one way or the other, but for that to happen, we must first care for them so that they know us and care for us. And this is not about being a people-pleaser. There are people who are not the right match. Compassion is still the basis of true inter-personal relationships.

Liz Strauss at Successful Blog has a good post about this. It is titled The Best Business Advice Ever . . . in 50 Words. She says she learned the most important business lesson from her father. Let me quote:

Learn your business from your customers. Understand their minds, their hearts, and their lives. Do what you do to make their lives easier. When a problem comes, leave them a place to stand and stand tall beside them. . . . And remember, everyone is your customer, even your dad.

5. Skills / Knowledge

I am a practical dreamer. Here I am saying we do need to learn what we need to learn. If you are not prepared, what do you do when the opportunity falls on you? Liz has another post that illustrates this scenario. It is titled Success Can Come Right Out of Nowhere. Make no mistake. This is NOT about overnight success that takes no effort nor skills. The girl sure got an opportunity of a life time “out of nowhere”, but the real reason of her success is her great performance, her singing skill exhibited on the stage even though it was her first time. The opportunity may fall on you by accident, but if you are not well equipped with the necessary skills and knowledge, it will amount to nothing.

As a small business owner, you will need to learn not just the core skill you feel passionate about, but also the basic skills of running a successful business. You can hire a pro for, say, bookkeeping, if you don’t like accounting, but at least you need to know the difference between gross profit and operational profit.

One of the most critical skills of a successful entrepreneur is, I think, the skill to build efficient system.

Yes, this is a very holistic view of entrepreneurship.

I believe it takes far more than business knowledge (like how to write business plan, how to keep a book, and so on) to be a successful entrepreneur – it is about mental, emotional, and even spiritual change. What do you think? Do you know other “secret of success” I have missed? Tell me!

Thanks to Rob for including this post in Coaching Carnival, to E3 for inclusion in Carnival of Success Principles, to Carnival of Careers for inclusion.

Name Your Business For Effective Marketing

(photo by peter bowers)

Here is a fun exercise you can do while dreaming of your business.

In fact, this is something you will have to do to start a business, and when the time comes, you may not have enough time, so advance work will pay off nicely. The exercise is: Think of the name of your business.

The name of your business is the first and main thing you want people to remember and recognize. It is a marketing tool. Marketing! Does this alarm you? I hope it does. We are talking about business, and business comes with marketing and sales. Be both ambitious and practical in naming your business.

If you are thinking of naming your business after your own name, think again.

Is that really THE ESSENCE of your business? Is your business just a personal extension of you, the business owner? Michael Gerber warns about this tendency of mixing business and yourself in his classic The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don’t Work and What to Do About It. He has a way to present the issue in a really easy-to-understand animated way, so let me quote a bit from the book.

In (the business’s) infancy, you are the business. It’s even named after you — “Joe’s place,” “Tommy’s joint,” “Mary’s fine foods” — so the customer won’t forget you’re The Boss. . . (your customers are saying) Joe is the best barber I ever went to. . . Your customers are crazy about you. They keep coming, in droves. . . And you love it! But then it changes. Subtly at first, but gradually it becomes obvious. You’re falling behind. . . All of a sudden, Joe, Tommy, and Mary wish their names weren’t on the sign.

Your business is an independent entity.

You may be the only person working for this business, and yet, your business has its own life, its own way to grow, and needs its own system. You might not want to identify with your business too closely. That way, you can see its challenges in a more detached manner. It is your business’s growth issue, its need for better system – and you can’t solve it by stretching yourself thin . . . to thinner. . .

Of course, there are a lot of successful businesses that are named after their founders. Think of Dell, founded by Michael Dell. Or Toyota, Honda, Ford. . . Charles Schwab, Estee Lauder, Philip Morris. . . (Philip Morris changed its name to Altria in 2003, but not because the name reminds of its founder and therefore limits its growth. They wanted a name that doesn’t mean anything nor have any feeling to it, like Altria. Not a wonderful reason of name change. I hope you are proud of the business you are dreaming of and want to express what it is, rather than hiding behind a meaningless name.) If you can detach from your business, the business name that carries your name shouldn’t be a problem. In other words, can you imagine your business growing to the point that doesn’t require your personal presence, and still be okay with that name? Additionally, people instinctively like dealing with other people, so personal name has its advantage, too. Wendy’s, with the mascot of a little girl, sounds and feels close to you.

If not your own name, how do you name your business? This is where the fun and agony start.

It boils down to what message you want to send out to the world about your business. So you really need to think what this business has to offer, who the target customers are, and how it aims to attract and serve the target customers. You want to think of all these things, and put in the essence into the name. A name that says what the business is about, and doesn’t mislead any potential customers. It also needs to sound good – a name that is easy to remember and to pronounce.

In terms of how you want to convey your message about your business, there are two major ways. One is to be descriptive and another is to use the feeling or sensation the name suggests. Examples of descriptive naming are everywhere – this was the standard way of naming. Like MicroSoft or FedEx. Or NorthWest Tax Service. Just don’t be too descriptive and long. The alternative method of exploiting the feelings such as novelty, sexiness, or fun the name suggest can be very effective when used wisely. For example, the blog name Dosh Dosh. I don’t think Dosh Dosh means anything (right, Maki?) but it sounds fun and it is memorable. And the blog has a very descriptive tagline, “Helping you make money online” so once people read this tagline, we know exactly what it is about. It is a different approach from the descriptive name like ProBlogger. Or how about Xerox? It is a made-up name, so it sounded cool. And the business has been so successful that now xerox can mean photocopy in general.

There are more to consider if online presence means a lot for your business. Seth Godin has a blog post titled The new rules of naming (hat tip to Jonathan Fields. His post is another great read on the topic). This article has some tips to improve Google search results by choosing the name well. He also emphasizes the importance of being unique, and advocates non-descriptive names that allows long-term business growth.

Let me illustrate the naming process with the real life example: Yes to Me.

Prior to settling down to this name, I had several other ideas:

• Undoo (Why two Os? Think of Digg, Mixx, Squidoo . . . More about this in the aforementioned Seth Godin’s post.)
• Unjudge
• Free(e) Me
• Successful Entrepreneurs
• Aspiring Entrepreneurs
• Unlimited Possibilities

Now what does this blog (business) has to offer? Inspiring and informative articles about entrepreneurship and personal development. I also offer coaching services to those of you who want personalized programs. Who are my target customers? “Tomorrow’s successful entrepreneurs”. How does it aim to attract and serve the target customers? By sending out clear and consistent message that you can do it, and that it starts with accepting your dreams, and ultimately you, yourself. (Entrepreneurial challenges, like any business challenges, are, in the core, really personal life challenges. Your mental, emotional, and even spiritual strengths and weaknesses will show up as business issues. And this is why I write about personal development in this blog.)

I didn’t go for using my name because my name, Akemi, can be difficult to English speaking people. And again, I want this blog to have its own life even though I am the only writer. I want to focus more on my readers and their needs.

Unlimited Possibilities got dropped because it is such a cliché. You’ve seen something like this in the self-help section of the bookstore. It is too generic it doesn’t describe the content of the blog adequately. I felt Successful Entrepreneurs or Aspiring Entrepreneurs were too descriptive and not fun. Too much to type, too. I came up with the idea of Undoo because I often teach how to unlearn conventional wisdom and judgments to learn new things. But still, Undoo sounds – too silly. Especially for my coaching business. Unjudge came with similar concepts, but I decided it sounds too negative. Free(e) Me? Again, sounds like a new age cliché. While I do believe we are free and hold unlimited possibilities within us, I didn’t think they make good blog names.

So Yes to Me. I like its simplicity and the positive, self-affirming message, which is the core concept of this blog.

My concern is that when readers (yes, like you!) see Yes to Me, do you immediately know it is about you? Yes, it is about you saying “Yes to me.”

I asked about this to a dozen individuals, including my friends and total strangers I grabbed at Starbucks. While this number is not really sufficient to conclude any decision, it did give me some idea. It seems the majority of people did understand it was about self-affirmation. Some did seem to be a bit puzzled, and one asked “To what question?” I did more brainstorming, and couldn’t come up with a name I liked better than Yes to Me. So, here it is.

It is critical to ask others for feedback in your decision-making as entrepreneur.

Ask as many people as possible about your naming ideas. You cannot not-know what you already know. You already know how much thoughts have been put into this name that you like. You also have feeling for it. And this can affect your judgment. So ask to people who are not preoccupied with your endeavor. There are even businesses that specialize in naming businesses and products.

The name of your business will say a lot about the business and how you, as business owner, deal with it. Name it with your passion, but at the same time, think how that name will be received by your customers. The name will be there as long as you run the business, or until you take the trouble to changing the name (which can be costly, not only in financial terms, but also in terms of potential loss of customers) so take time and start thinking!

This post is in the Home Based Business Group Writing Project. The impact of business name is even more prominent for online businesses (often home based).

Thanks to Brad for including this post in Carnival of Sales & Management Success, to Marshall for inclusion in Carnival of Sales & Management – Customer Loyalty.

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