Successful entrepreneurs need both entrepreneurial thinking and entrepreneurial support
When meeting entrepreneurs all over the world in my work, I am lost in wondrous amazement how many keep going after so many set backs in their journey to success.
When interviewing those who appear to have had relatively trivial setbacks, it is quite clear that they also have suffered numerous setbacks and failures, but their attitudes have meant that those failures and setbacks have become in their minds nothing more than irritating interruptions in their quest for fulfillment.
What I have learnt also is that the most successful entrepreneurs learn early that they cannot do it all themselves
They feel like they can do it all themselves, and they want to do it all themselves – at the beginning – but soon realise that they are best left to the thinking, the vision and the strategy, and subsequently the motivation of the team that they build to help them succeed so much more quickly than they would otherwise have done
Talking to newer entrepreneurs who have become successful relatively quickly, it is apparent how so many now out source so much of their support, when compared to older successful entrepreneurs who have built up quite large operations.
Both types make similar levels of profit, but often the younger newer entrepreneurs make the profit with fewer fixed overheads and fewer management headaches
I realise these are quite big generalisations, but it is something that has become increasingly obvious to me in recent years
I recently met a rare thing – a british manufacturer – more so – a successful british manufacturer
He has painstakingly built up his business over 40 years and is now sitting pretty on a very solid Balance sheet making a great living, but he has done it all himself and you can tell – he finds it hard to let go of anything
I know another younger manufacturer who is also very successful – he is ruthless – he identifies his strategy up front, and identifies who he will need to help him achieve that strategy and lets them go at it, with appropriate rewards for success – it is no surprise that he has built and sold several businesses in a (relatively) much shorter time, with an equally satisfying quality of life
Both still have the buzz for running a business and making decisions
One has ploughed a rather lonely path, while the other has decided he can do it quicker and with less stress with the right team
However this team have needed to be entrepreneurial thinkers themselves – they have always been rewarded with options for shares and appropriate incentives to reward the hard work and dedication, as well as the clear entrepreneurial thinking required to succeed.
In these days with the power of the internet available, it is even easier to build a virtual as well as a physical support team for the business – but there is still no substitute for good old fashioned “guts” needed from all successful entrepreneurs – when a decision has to be made, it has to be made quickly and decisively, whatever type of entrepreneur you are
I am lucky to keep meeting all sorts of successful business owners, small and large, young and old, in my work.
I love learning from them, and sharing stories – I was contacted recently by a young lady entrepreneur from Dar es Salaam in Tanzania, who thanked me for helping her transform her results after listening to me talk at a conference in Tanzania last year
She would have transformed her business anyway – little did she realise that just by paying to come along to listen to me and “button-holing” me with questions afterwards, she had separated herself from many of the other entrepreneurs in Dar – they were probably too busy to come, or thought they knew it all already
I love mixing with people like the ones I have mentioned – their spirit, enthusiasm and dedication always inspire me to keep thinking, to keep striving and to keep improving.
What are you doing differently in your business this week?