Scientists tell us that over millions of years, humans have developed specialized skills that have allowed us to survive and thrive as a species. From learning to create and use tools, to language, and social skills, we’ve adapted and innovated however was necessary to be successful in the given environment of each age.
Whether you accept evolution as fact or not, one thing is clear: In today’s world, if you want to be a successful entrepreneur, there is certainly an “evolutionary” process that we must all undertake. In other words, there are skills that we must each learn and hone in order to thrive in today’s business world, and we need to be able to adapt those skills to our surroundings, or be left behind with the “entrepreneurial Neanderthals.” Below are 5 essential skills for today’s entrepreneur:
Decision Making – No one can deny that the ability to make decisions is a core skill that every entrepreneur must possess if he or she wants to be successful. From the very beginning of your entrepreneurial journey, you must make sound decisions, first of all, about which business to go into. From there, decisions on how to proceed with marketing, funding, product production (in some cases), vendor selection, and a host of other judgments need to be made. The key is to be decisive and learn from mistakes, rather than fearing mistakes to the point that you avoid decisions.
People Skills – It’s often said that no matter what business you’re in, you’re in the people business. How true that is! Even if you have a dog grooming business, it’s the people who bring their dogs to you who pay you and make the decision to use your service over your competition’s, so you’d better know how to deal well with people. This is a skill that nearly every highly successful entrepreneur has, and those who don’t have recognized the need to hire a “face of the company,” often in the form of a CEO or COO, to represent them in the business world. Whether dealing with customers, vendors, investors, the press, or employees, well developed people skills can mean the difference between success and failure.
Planning – Being able to project into the future and build a plan to accomplish your objectives is a skill that can take any entrepreneur far. Effective planning is what will guide your company and ultimately define what you’re all about. The skilled business planner knows that planning is only an effective skill when combined with action, so they don’t get bogged down in planning, and they keep their plans focused but somewhat flexible. With so many facets to effective planning, it could be called as much an art as it is a skill.
Sales – Just as it is said that every business is a people business, it is also true that whatever business you’re in, you’re in sales. You might not be a salesperson in the “What’s it gonna take for me to get you into this car today” sense, but if you are exchanging products or services for money, you’re selling. And the more skilled you are at sales, the more successful your business will be. It’s not just customers you need to sell to though. Selling your business plan to investors, your job opportunity to potential employees, or your marketing to your target audience is all dependent upon your ability to sell your ideas.
Communication – If ever the term “last but not least” was appropriate, this is it. The skill of communication plays a role in the execution of all of the other skills above. If you don’t have this skill, none of the other skills will be fully developed, no matter how hard you try. You can’t be a great salesperson without great communication skills; your planning skills won’t matter if you aren’t able to effectively communicate your plans; you can hardly claim to have strong people skills without being a good communicator; and it won’t matter what decisions you make if they aren’t communicated properly to those who are in a position to execute them. So of all the skills listed here, start working on your communication skills first, if they aren’t 100%. It will pay off in immeasurable ways.
Of course there are other important skills to have as an entrepreneur. What would you add to the list? Be sure to share with the community in the comments below!
Most aspiring entrepreneurs feel it in their bones -- they were born to be an entrepreneur, to the point where nothing else in life could satisfy them. They’re dissatisfied as employees, followers or consumers. They want to create, build and grow their own enterprises, and they’re filled with the passion of their own ingenuity.
Here are 50 habits that born-to-be entrepreneurs can’t help but show. How many do you possess?
1. You can’t sit still. You’re always itching to come up with something, and do something great.
2. You’re always coming up with ideas. Good or bad, the flow of ideas never stops.
3. You can pinpoint flaws in other ideas. It comes naturally to you.
4. You marvel at successful business owners. Steve Jobs, Richard Branson, Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates are just a few of your heroes.
5. You get excited when you see a successful business in action.Whether it’s a local bar or a supermarket franchise, you can’t help but smile when you see a good business.
6. You constantly think of ways to improve your employer’s business.When you’re at work, you only think about how it could be better.
7. You hate being told what to do. You’re resentful of taking orders.
8. You love to learn new things. How tos and tutorials are what you’re all about.
9. You take things apart to see how they work. Remotes, toasters, phones -- you love to see the inner workings.
10. You dream of wealth. Money isn’t everything, but you can’t help but have it on your mind.
11. You don’t give up easily. You face tough challenges but keep going.
12. You’re disciplined in your habits. You have set routines that don’t get broken easily.
13. You aren’t afraid of hard work. You give everything in your life 100 percent.
14. You have a high threshold for risk. You don’t take blind risks, but you don’t stay complacent either.
15. You meet as many people as you can. You aren’t afraid to branch out and meet new people.
16. You talk to everyone you meet. Strangers aren’t intimidating to you.
17. You bounce back from failure. You’ve experienced crushing failure, but it’s never stopped you from coming back.
18. You like calling the shots. You like the sound of being a director.
19. You set goals for yourself. Big or small, goals fill your life.
20. You help people whenever you can. You’re interested in the greater good.
21. You find challenges in everything you do. You seek out opportunities to challenge yourself.
22. You find ways to inspire people. You’re inspired by inspiration.
As Laennec crossed the courtyard, he looked toward the two boys. One of them was tapping the end of a long wooden plank with a pin. On the other end, his playmate was crouched down with his ear pressed against the edge of the plank.
Laennec was immediately struck with a thought. “I recalled a well-known acoustic phenomenon,” he would later write. “If you place your ear against one end of a wood beam the scratch of a pin at the other end is distinctly audible. It occurred to me that this physical property might serve a useful purpose in the case I was dealing with.”
When Laennec arrived at the hospital later that morning, he immediately asked for a piece of paper. He rolled it up and placed the tube against his patient’s chest. He was stunned by what he heard next. “I was surprised and elated to be able to hear the beating of her heart with far greater clearness than I ever had with direct application of my ear,” he said.
Laennec quickly upgraded from his piece of paper and, after experimenting with various sizes, he began using a hollow wood tube about 3.5 centimeters in diameter and 25 centimeters long.
Laennec’s simple invention instantly changed the field of medicine.
For the first time in history, physicians had a safe, unbiased way to understand what was going on inside a patient’s body. They didn’t have to rely solely on what the patient said or how the patient described their condition. Now, they could track and measure things for themselves. The stethoscope was like a window that allowed a doctor to view what was actually happening and then compare their findings to the symptoms, outcomes, and autopsies of patients.
And that brings us to the main point of this story.
The lies we tell ourselves
We often lie to ourselves about the progress we are making on important goals.
For example:
If we want to lose weight, we might claim that we’re eating healthy, but in reality our eating habits haven’t changed very much.
If we want to be more creative, we might say that we’re trying to write more, but in reality we aren’t holding ourselves to a rigid publishing schedule.
If we want to learn a new language, we might say that we have been consistent with our practice even though we skipped last night to watch television.
We use lukewarm phrases like, “I’m doing well with the time I have available.” Or, “I’ve been trying really hard recently.” Rarely do these statements include any type of hard measurement. They are usually just soft excuses that make us feel better about having a goal that we haven’t made much real progress toward. (I know because I’ve been guilty of saying many of these things myself.)
Why do these little lies matter?
Because they are preventing us from being self-aware. Emotions and feelings are important and they have a place, but when we use feel-good statements to track our progress in life, we end up lying to ourselves about what we’re actually doing.
When the stethoscope came along it provided a tool for physicians to get an independent diagnosis of what was going on inside the patient. We can also use tools to get a independent diagnosis of what is going on inside our own lives.
Tools for improving self-awareness
If you’re serious about getting better at something, then one of the first steps is to know -- in black-and-white terms -- where you stand. You need self-awareness before you can achieve self-improvement.
Here are some tools I use to make myself more self-aware:
Workout Journal: For the past 5 years or so, I have used my workout journal to record each workout I do. While it can be interesting to leaf back through old workouts and see the progress I’ve made, I have found this method to be most useful on a weekly basis. When I go to the gym next week, I will look at the weights I lifted the week before and try to make a small increase. It’s so simple, but the workout journal helps me avoid wasting time in the gym, wandering around, and just “doing some stuff.” With this basic tracking, I can make focused improvements each week.
My Annual Reviews and Integrity Reports: At the end of each year, I conduct my Annual Review where I summarize the progress I’ve made in business, health, travel, and other areas. I also take time each spring to do an Integrity Report where I challenge myself to provide proof of how I am living by my core values. These two practices give me a chance to track and measure the “softer” areas of my life. It can be difficult to know for certain if you’re doing a better job of living by your values, but these reports at least force me to track these issues on a consistent basis.
RescueTime: I use RescueTime to track how I spend my working hours each week. For a long time, I just assumed that I was fairly productive. When I actually tracked my output, however, I’ve uncovered some interesting insights. For example, I currently spend about 60 percent of my time each week on productive tasks. This past month, I spent 9 percent of my working time on social media sites. If you would have asked me to estimate those two numbers before using RescueTime, I’m certain I would have been way off. Now, I actually have a clear idea of how I spend my time and because I know where I truly stand, I can start to make calculated and measured improvements.
A call for self-awareness
Self-awareness is one of the fundamental pieces of behavior change and one of the pillars of personal science.
If you aren’t aware of what you’re actually doing, then it is very hard to change your life with any degree of consistency. Trying to build better habits without self-awareness is like firing arrows into the night. You can’t expect to hit the bullseye if you’re not sure where the target is located.
Furthermore, I have discovered very few people who naturally do the right thing without ever measuring their behavior. For example, I know a handful of people who maintain six-pack abs without worrying too much about what they eat. However, every single one of them weighed and measured their food at some point. After months of counting calories and measuring their meals, they developed the ability judge their meals appropriately.
In other words, measurement brought their levels of self-awareness in line with reality. You can wing it after you measure it. Once you’re aware of what’s actually going on, you can make accurate decisions based on “gut-feel” because your gut is based on something accurate.
Few companies get up and running without a bit of private capital giving them an extra boost, even in today’s era of free resources, digital communication and crowdfunding. Attaining that capital means impressing seasoned investors and convincing them that your business, more than any other, is worthy of their time and money.
Initially, you might think that all investors make their decisions based on the business plan -- the hard facts of the business and the trajectory for growth that will make or break the company. But there’s another set of factors just as important to most investors, and it’s all in your personality. They realize that an entrepreneur with the wrong personality can ruin the chances of a brilliant business on paper, much in the same way that an entrepreneur with a perfect personality can breathe life into a merely decent idea.
These are the personality traits that set entrepreneurs apart in the eyes of investors:
1. Sincerity
First things first: If you come off like a snake-oil salesman desperate to get his hands on capital, you’ll immediately turn investors away. These are wealthy, involved people, and they’ve already been approached by some of the best swindlers and smooth-talkers in the business. If they feel that they’re being misled, or that you are presenting yourself as someone that you’re not, your reputation could be instantly ruined.
It’s far better to honestly admit some of your shortfalls and concerns than to try to cover them up, and it’s far better to act like your true self than to adopt a fake personality. To put it bluntly, investors have a great BS detector, so stay sincere and honest throughout all your interactions.
2. Charisma
Charisma is an intangible quality with multiple definitions, but essentially, it’s a level of likability or charm that attracts other people. Initially, you might not consider “likability” as a key trait for running a business -- after all, a business owner needs to make objective, emotionless decisions for the benefit of the business before any human interest considerations. But at the same time, entrepreneurs are leaders.
Entrepreneurs are responsible for building and maintaining the team of employees who will drive the business forward, and responsible for attracting a first round of initial clients. To do this, they need some level of charisma, and investors look for this quality in potential investments.
3. Passionate
If you come to an investor meeting and simply run down the numbers in a monotone voice, your investors won’t be impressed. However, if you come in visibly excited about your idea, to the point where you almost can’t calm yourself down, they can’t help but contagiously “catch” some of your enthusiasm.
Passion makes people work harder and more satisfied in the process of pursuing their goals. Without passion, entrepreneurs are far more likely to give up when trouble hits, and are far less willing to take essential risks to keep the business moving forward. Never be afraid to demonstrate your enthusiasm.
4. Humility
While charisma and passion can sometimes be associated with obnoxiousness or even arrogance, a level of humility is important to investors as well. Entrepreneurs need to be grounded with humility for several reasons.
First, they need to be willing to listen to outside opinions. As an entrepreneur, you aren’t going to know everything, and you’re going to make mistakes. Being humble enough to listen to outside insights is imperative to improve the business.
Second, they need to understand that not everything is going to be perfect. Humble entrepreneurs understand that mistakes and pitfalls will occur, and their ideas won’t become successful overnight. This humility leads to greater long-term thinking, and more rational responses in a crisis.
5. Ambitious
Finally, in the eyes of investors, entrepreneurs need to be ambitious -- hungry for success. Investors look for opportunities to make more money, so they need to see that the business owners they invest in are equally eager to make money.
Ambitious people are far more likely to create goals, and are far more tenacious when it comes to facing problems. They’re also future-focused, allowing them to make wiser long-term decisions than if they were merely concerned with day-to-day operations. You have to want success to earn success.
Obviously, it’s hard to change your personality on a dime, and you don’t want to pretend that you’re someone you’re not. But you can, through careful considerations and “putting your best foot forward,” showcase the personality traits you have that make you a best fit for the business.
Don’t be afraid to acknowledge this directly in conversation, and tell stories about your past experiences that prove your worth as an entrepreneur as potential investors engage you and try to get a better feel for you as a person.
As an entrepreneur if you think the secret to getting more clients or more sales is more traffic to your website–think again.
These businesses listen to “pros” who tell them that they need to attract more visitors to their site or spend thousands in paid search ads to draw in more potential customers.
Its not that that is bad advice it’s just premature advice. I mean who doesn’t want more traffic and visitors to their website?
I’m going to explain why this is like buying a new engine for your car when all you really needed was a tune-up. By the end of this article you will have actionable steps to tune-up your website and get more out of your existing traffic without spending a dime on more traffic.
Welcome to the specialty of conversion rate optimization (CRO). CRO is the technique of using analytics, user feedback and testing to improve the performance of your website.
This really boils down to understanding what visitors really want when coming to your site and providing it to them.
How Conversion Rate Optimization Can Help Your Business
For example a typical website could have the following KPIs:
Increase website visitors by 25%
Increase email opt-ins by 10%
Decrease bounce-rate (the percentage of visitors to a particular website who navigate away from the site after viewing only one page) by 15%
According to KISSMetrics 50-90% of all website visitors visit a site once and never return. What if there was a way to make more of those visitors stick around?
CRO optimizes existing traffic to maximize the conversion to a particular goal (or KPI).
This means instead of spending more money acquiring more traffic via paid search (PPC) or organic SEO techniques, you are simply becoming more efficient with the traffic that you already have.
For example, let’s say that your blog (or website) gets 100,000 unique visitors a month and you are struggling to collect more email optins. If you acquired 1000 emails for every 100,000 visitors your email conversion rate is a measly 1% (100,000/1000=100 or 1% of 100,000).
Improving your email opt-in rate by 5% takes your email list from 1000 emails to 5000 emails–a significant boost. So without any new traffic you were able to increase your email list simply by increasing your conversion rate of existing traffic!
So how can this be done and what’s the reason why most conversion rates are low?
This could be for dozens of reasons such as a hard-to-see email optin form; an unattractive color scheme; low-quality images; cheesy stock photos or perhaps the biggest issue I see these days–a poor call-to-action.
For instance, having an email form that simply has Name, Email and a button that says “Submit” is typically not very compelling and does not tell the user how there life will be better if they sign-up.
In other words it does not answer the “what’s in it for me” question that we all ask ourselves.
After reviewing many dozens of websites and blogs for CRO here is my list of top recommended best practices to maximize conversions:
Have a Clear Call-to-Action (CTA)
You know a good CTA when you see one. Its usually a large, bold and highly visible tagline or a short phrase that quickly communicates either what the site is about or what value the site will provide for you. Some great examples:
DigitalMarketer.com: “Traffic. Conversion. Engagement. Which do you want to boost today”?
Upwork (formerly Odesk): “Where will great work take you? Find freelancers to tackle any job, any size, any time.”
VideoFruit: “Step-by-step formulas to grow your business”.
Place Your Email Opt-in “Above the Fold”
If your CTA is clear and your intention is to collect an email address–the best location for the email form is above-the-fold (or visible without having to scroll down the page).
This psychological growth hack couples a compelling CTA with the logical next step–filling in your email address.
How many times have you found yourself on a great site but had to hunt around for an email signup form? Most people are lazy (yes even yours truly!) so make it easy for them to get your message and sign up for your list with a form in clear view.
If you cannot embed your form or have limited HTML experience consider a free email pop-up form like SumoMe. Just make sure that it’s visible and has a compelling CTA and also most times a great bribe like a free ebook or report does wonders for CRO!
Make Sure Your Site is Fast
According to WebIris.org, “47% of users expect your web page to load in under two seconds” and “57% of users will abandon a page if its load time is 3 seconds or more”.
Now that Google recently updated their search algorithm to factor in whether a site is mobile-friendly, sites that fail this test are given lower rankings in Google search from mobile devices.
The reason is that Google prefers to reward mobile-friendly sites with higher search rankings as there are considered more user-friendly and thus have lower bounce-rates as they are easy to see and navigate on a mobile device.
You can test your site in seconds with the free Google Mobile-Friendly Test Tool. Just type in your site URL and within seconds it will not only tell you whether your site passed or failed but also why it failed and exactly how you can fix it! You can send the results and recommendations directly to your web guy or gal to action ASAP.
Get Your Meta Tag Act Together
Despite popular belief Google isn’t physic. In fact the primary way Google indexes and categorizes your site is via metadata. Metadata is information that helps explain what your web page is about.
For example, let’s take a look at the Google search below for “blogtrepreneur”:
Here is a breakdown of the meta data:
Title Tag: “Entrepreneur Blog | Blogtrepreneur – For Busy Entrepreneurs”
Meta Description: “blogtrepreneur is a leading Entrepreneur Blog, helping you turn your entrepreneurial dream into a reality with the absolute latest tips, news and advice!”
The takeaway is that if you don’t give your page a title and meta description not only will Google have a hard time figuring out what your page is about but people will too.
Now let’s see an example of a title and meta description that is quite vague and more than likely not optimized to describe the page using the search term “eco friendly shower head”
What is this search result trying to communicate? What is its CTA? Why would anyone ever click on it?!
The bottom line is that using descriptive metadata that clearly communicates why a person should click on the link helps to maximize conversations and also helps Google understand what the page is all about enabling a more relevant search experience.
For a quick check of what you blog or website’s meta data looks like for each page go to Google and type site:www.yoursite.com.
It will list all the pages that Google currently has in its index and the Title and Meta Description for each page (if you gave it one). Be sure to update any pages that are unclear to make them more descriptive and clickable.
In short better CRO means more business, more leads and better converting traffic. A higher conversion rate means greater ROI and is much more cost effective than trying to find more visitors.
Most sites don’t have a traffic problem, they have a CRO problem. The tips above although just a partial list of the many other factors can get you well on your way to higher conversions and a growing business.
3 Things Successful Entrepreneurs Have in Commonby Ivan Widjaya
There are a lot of different factors that can come into play when determining whether or not an entrepreneur will be successful. So many of these factors are beyond the person’s control, and it can feel like the decision is out of your hands. However, there are some things that all entrepreneurs have in common, and they can play a large role when determining their success.
If you want to be a successful entrepreneur, make sure you have the following three traits to give yourself the best shot.
1. Passion
An entrepreneur without passion is doomed from the start. When you are starting up your own business, there is going to come a time when things get tough. You are going to want to give up, and you are going to wonder why you even bothered to try this endeavor. When this time comes, it is your passion that will help get you through it.
Having a strong passion for what you are doing will carry you through those rough days, and it will keep you focused. Take Jenny Ta for example (have you seen her company Sqeeqee.com?) In an interview with The Huffington Post she stated “I have a passion to innovate, seeing a business from the ground up. Seeing the growth, the wealth that I am able to build that would benefit a number of my staff and team members.” It is this passion that drives her to continually grow her business, and make it the best it can be.
Before you start any new entrepreneurial adventure, be sure there is a strong passion for it at the base. Without this, you’ll quickly find a reason to give up and move on.
2. Desire To Learn
A strong desire to learn can be what separates a good entrepreneur from a bad one. To be an entrepreneur, you must always be looking for better ways to do things, and new things that you can learn that will enhance your business. Your competitors will be doing this, and if you fail to do so, you’ll quickly find your business going by the wayside.The most successful entrepreneurs in the world are constantly learning, even if it has nothing to do with their business at the outset. You have no idea what skills or information will come into play, so casting a wide net is not a bad idea. And if even you don’t use a skill that you learned, you are still developing a learning habit, which will make learning more in the future easier.
3. Organized
As the leader of a business, you are going to have a lot on your plate. If you are not organized, things will quickly get overwhelming. The best entrepreneurs have systems in place that help to keep everything organized, so that they can keep their company running at full capacity. If you are not an organized person, you may find it helpful to hire someone to manage this aspect of it for you.
No matter how you choose to go about it, just find a system that works for you, then stick to it. You don’t want a business to fail simply because you couldn’t keep everything straight.
Now over to you!
And there you have it, 3 things that successful entrepreneurs have in common. As we said, there are many things that go into making a good entrepreneur, but these are three of the most basic. If you can start with the three things mentioned above, then you are putting your business in the best starting position to succeed.
So, now over to you: Please name one thing that you want to add to the small list above, and why is it important for an entrepreneur to have for achieving success.
IT'S THE FIRST AND MOST IMPORTANT QUESTION EVERY WOULD-BE ENTREPRENEUR ASKS THEMSELVES: SHOULD I QUIT MY DAY JOB TO START MY OWN BUSINESS? WE TURN TO THREE EXPERTS TO SORT OUT IF IT'S THE RIGHT TIME TO TAKE THE LEAP.
When you hate your job the idea of jumping ship to start your own business seems like a no-brainer.
But if you have a well-paying job you actually like the question becomes a little more tricky. For this week's question we turned to leadership coach Lolly Daskal, Leo Widrich, the cofounder of social media app Buffer, and resident entrepreneur at the United Nations Foundation (and Most Creative Person) Elizabeth Gore.
I am 28 years old and I have a solid career path. I have a management position with a great team, and I make a comfortable living. However, I recently started dabbling in a side venture to start my own business. It ended up not working out, but now I am wondering what I should do: Stay the course in my current career or jump off the ledge and commit fully to doing my own venture?
I think my problem is trying to juggle too many things at once, if I focused all my efforts on one, I think I could succeed.
Appreciate any and all thoughts on this matter.
Your truly,
Kevin
Kevin,
Without having much detail on what kind of venture, it is hard to help you think through the best solution in your particular situation. But in general, for a person who is trying to start a new venture and wondering if they should quit a current lucrative position, my short answer is no.
As a business consultant I always coach my folks never to leave one job or business before their new venture is successful and lucrative. Otherwise it can lead to a roller-coaster ride. I believe you can use your current day job as a springboard to your new venture if it is done right.
The best you can do is to create a plan that literally funds and creates your freedom. Here are some basic points to get you started:
Ask the right questions.
Ask yourself questions to make sure you’re thinking about the right key business decisions and are on point about what you are creating.
Why am I starting a business?
What kind of business do I want?
Who is my ideal customer?
What products or services will my business provide?
Am I prepared to spend the time and money needed to get my business started?
What differentiates my business idea and the products or services I will provide from others in the market?
Where will my business be located?
How many employees will I need?
What types of suppliers do I need?
How much money do I need to get started?
Will I need to get a loan?
How soon will it take before my products or services are available?
How long do I have until I start making a profit?
Who is my competition?
How will I price my product compared to my competition?
How will I set up the legal structure of my business?
What taxes do I need to pay?
What kind of insurance do I need?
How will I manage my business?
How will I advertise my business?
Write a business plan.
Every successful venture has a business plan, a written description of your business's future. That's all there is to it—a document that describes what you plan to do and how you plan to do it. You can find a wealth of good business plan templates and models online.
Become two people at once.
You mentioned that your current job is a good one. To stay where you are while also pursuing your own business you need to become two people: one who is currently successful, working at a great job with great people, and another who follows a very strict plan with deadlines and goals every day to make your new venture—your freedom plan—is a success.
Customize your time.
Time is one of your most precious resources. To gain serious momentum for your new venture, learn to customize your time with SMART goals:
Specific: Know exactly what you want to accomplish.
Measurable: Know how you will demonstrate and evaluate the extent to which the goal has been met.
Achievable: Make yourself stretch, but not beyond your abilities or time frame.
Relevant: Tie your goal to your key responsibilities and objectives.
Timely: Set target dates for goals and subgoals.
Work your ass off.
Starting your own venture is not easy. But working hard every day and taking action one bold step at a time will bring you steadily closer to making it happen.
Get help.
Hire someone who knows how to get you from where you are to where you want to be. Holding on to your steady corporate paycheck can help give you funds to hire a coach to help you with time management, business planning, and preparing you for the ups and downs of entrepreneurial success.
Build a safety net.
Until you are able to establish a solid stream of income from your side business, you don’t really want to quit. When you’ve got a few months of expenses stashed away in the bank, you can feel freer and not as fearful about moving forward. Even if things don’t work out, you know you can survive. With a safety net you can be bolder with your decision making and take more risks. It makes work much more satisfying when you know you are putting your freedom in the bank.
Deal in patience.
Everything worth having takes time, and patience, passion, and perseverance are important foundational elements for an entrepreneur. When you deal in patience, you can take steps every day to work on doing something to improve, build, and construct your new venture.
Set a date.
Lay out a plan to build up your side business into a full-time gig, and highlight the specific date you want to quit on your calendar. Give yourself an incentive to have your new venture up and running by the date you’ve picked.
Make quitting your current position happen sooner than later, not with a risky leap but by following a great plan with smart goals and bold implementation, with help and patience.
Let me know how it goes.
Hi Kevin,
When you are lying awake at night and you can't stop thinking, or sitting at your current day job, craving being your own boss, how do you channel that anxiety into strategic questions for how to move forward? Let’s break down these thoughts into the three Ps: Passion, Payments, and the Public.
Passion:
Do you have the passion and drive—the shear will—to launch your company? Being an entrepreneur takes a lot of grit. It is critical to ensure you have the energy to drive forward your own agendas. You will be a giant company of one on your first day—that will grow—but it is on you at first. Make sure your personal life can uphold what you are about to take on. Success starts with you as a leader.
Payments:
Do you have enough cash flow to pay the costs of your business, your bills, and to buy food? Whether you are bootstrapping, have investors lined up, or are lucky to have funds from your family—build a budget before you jump. What are the costs associated with building your company? Be sure to remember your personal costs as well. You are leaving behind a salary and have to pay yourself. Finances and cash flow can be the most stressful part of both your business and personal life—so think this through deeply.
Public
Is this the right moment to launch with your future customers? Timing is everything and is driven by the public ability to pick up a new technology, product, or behavior. You might have the greatest idea and enough funding—but what is the appetite of the world around you? This question is not as black and white as the first two. But it is important to understand consumer trends, competition, and the overall status of the economy and industry you are in.
Hi Kevin,
How do you go about quitting your job, quitting college, or anything else to go on doing that thing that you always wanted to do? The question is probably one of the hardest one to go about finding a suitable answer to that doesn't sound outright crazy. It's in fact such a hard one, that I often see people avoid the question, forever.
I quit college to start my own business. Here are a few things I've learned:
One of the absolute best descriptions of quitting your job with the least risk, is the "Tarzan technique," that Derek Sivers, one of my favorite writers, has so eloquently described before.
"Remember how Tarzan swings through the jungle? He doesn't let go of the previous vine until the next vine is supporting his weight.
So my advice is: Change careers like Tarzan. Don't let go of the old one until the new one is supporting you. And make sure you don't lose momentum."
We sometimes live with the illusion that "if I had just more time to focus on my side venture, it would definitely succeed!" The truth is, at least in my own experience, that having a limitation, both in terms of time and money, around your side hustle can actually be a good thing. It forces you to heavily prioritize and become extremely structured about your decisions.
When we look at things in detail, I found that there are often a few other factors at hand too.
Reducing other commitments first
When people consider "quitting their job, to work on their dream idea," the first thing that I always think about is, whether there is a chance to quit other things first, that might not be as vital as your job to support yourself or your family.
When we look at our lives, we often have a huge number of different commitments, that aren't tied to paying the bills. Starting with reducing some of these first, might be a better way to go, instead of axing your job. If you have five different hobbies that you want to all keep up with, it might be worth letting go of some of these, to make some time to work on your side project that could eventually turn into your company or new job.
Try making a list of all the things you're doing in a given week and think hard on each of these, whether you should keep doing them, or whether there's a chance to dial back on them a bit, at least for the time being.
Examples of making career changes like Tarzan
So, how can you make sure that you don't let go of the old vine, if the new one isn't quite supporting you yet? There are a few ideas, that I've come across that might be helpful:
Work early mornings instead of evenings
Joel, my cofounder and CEO at Buffer, discovered an amazing technique that helped him succeed and launch the first version of Buffer, whilst he still had a full-time job:
"Eventually, I had a big breakthrough which I attribute a lot of my early success to. I realized that I was often trying to work on Buffer in my evenings, after a whole day of work for other people. I wasn't fresh at all, I was often very tired and unproductive. So I reversed things—I started waking up much earlier (around 6 a.m.) and worked for 90 minutes before I started my freelance work, while I was completely fresh."
This is a change so simple, and yet so often overlooked. We sometimes think of just putting in the extra hours in the evening to work on our own success, and yet, when our willpower is depleted and we're tired, we're facing an uphill battle, that most of us ultimately don't win. Changing your routine to mornings can be a great help.
Take a sabbatical at your job, or even an extended vacation
If you still feel that you need to really go all in on your idea, things I've seen work with others before are a sabbatical for a few months. If that isn't an option with your current employer, taking an extended vacation, for as long as you can, could be a great start on where you're going with your idea.
Go chase your dreams, Tarzan-style, from one vine to the next!
