There are many types of entrepreneurs and while they may be from all walks of life they generally have a set of similar traits and an entrepreneurial spirit across the board.
Entrepreneurs are compassionate who have bigger ideas and better ideas to make the world a more efficient place with more cost effective products or greater value incentives. When you love what you do, it shows in your work. And there is no greater facilitator for a product than someone who truly loves doing it.
I’ve been in business for 25 years and I can tell you firsthand from my mistakes and achieveents what it takes to run a successful business.
Passion
The first rule of thumb is you have to have a strong passion about doing the thing that could become a business. You have to be connected to it in a way where it makes you very happy or it. This is how you add value to your product or brand. You love doing it so your presention will be on point.
Filling a Hole
That can be everything from providing discount phone service to prisoners like (that’s guys name run is story on The Industry Dot Biz) and changing the entire industry because of it to another friend of mines who LOVED making cheesecakes and experimenting with different kinds. He would take them to work and the employees would go crazy over them. Is the thing that you are passionate about something that people need or an industry is in need of? That’s the first rule. Even if there is something that someone else is doing, can you do it more efficiently? More effectively?
You Love Doing it
I’m sure you have heard celebrities say, how they can’t believe they make money doing what love or how blessed the feel to be able to do that. When I first started my bsuiess in 1995 I could barely sleep from the excitement of what the next day might bring. You experience an incredible high knowing that people are willing to pay for soething that you would do all day for free.
Being in control of my own destiny brough me a level of happiness that I have never known and to be able to do it from home was even more rewarding. If you love doing the thing that you are passionate about and it feel like you are not working when you do it, it is one of your callings and a great opportunity to start a business
Offer Value
People will support you based on the value that you bring. You must be accountable and reliable for your services. I work in an industry where people think their tenure is valuable when they are no longer working. That’s not the case. Who you were is not as important in today’s industry as who you ARE. People support you based on the value that you bring to the table.
People Offer to Pay you for Whatever it is
My friend that made the cheesecakes was starting to get people to ask him to make them a cake, he threw a price out there are a joke $75.00 and they were fine with it. This was a business that he could do during the weekends and make an extra 750.00 per weekend making 10 Cheesecakes and that’s what he did.
Your Friends and Relationships will change …
Entrepreneurs are in a class by ourselves. We thrive off of positve energy and growth so if you have friends who are content in working a standard job and they don’t want more out of life, you will probably find yourself moving away from them and more towards other entrepreneurs. Most entprerneurs that I know are friends with other entrepreneurs.
You love learning:
In order to stay ahead of the curve, you have to be able to consistently learn about market trends, ways to sell, funding etc. You cannot exist in a bubble and be successful forever you have to keep growing
Give but Do NO Favors for Future Returns
What you give you get back 10 fold. If you are selfish and you hoard everything you will struggle. I don’t know why this works but it does. I give to several organizations like the SPCA etc. Be careful of giving your time or energy to people who are out to use you and to benefit from your hard work. That never stops which is why you must constantly upgrade the people you spend your time with.
The more successful you become the more of these types you will run into but you must be respectable of your time and efforts. No hooks ups or discounts either. I have given away a LOT of my services for free while others pimped and made money from my business and my experience but I had to stop that. Do NO favors for future returns. TRUST me, it rarely comes to pass. Never become a credit agency. Either people can pay or they can’t but you lose more by doing the work and giving it away than getting the money up front THEN doing the work.
Money is NOT your reason for Starting a Business
If you are in it just for the money, your success with be very shortlived. Thre will ups and downs and people who are in it just for the money can’t handle that. They will be ready to quite when they are no longer making money. The old saying is very true ‘Do what you love and the money will come.”
About Kevin Ross/Founder The Industry Dot Biz
Kevin Ross is a former radio dj and programmer who is also the founder of The Industry Dot Biz (https://www.theindustry.biz) and music and radio industry site and magazine targeting the black music industry. He can be reached at kevin.ross@theindustry.biz
