Launching as an entrepreneur and start-up business takes a great deal of effort. What’s more, it’s one of those situations that always requires a greater level of investment (both energetic and financial) than we imagine.
When you’re thinking about taking the leap, it’s useful to look at your situation from a broad perspective. Executive coaching online can be a great way to sound your idea out. What’s more, as your coach questions you closely, your ideas become more refined and focused, giving you a greater chance of success.
By widening your view, you can open opportunities you might not have considered. Coaching can support you in expanding your perspective, giving you an insight into what’s possible. Besides, we can only benefit from preparation when we’re working to lay a golden egg!
Starting Out With The Best Mindset
The reality is that many people start thinking about setting up a business because they’re unhappy in their job, or when they’ve lost their job. Honestly, moving away from what we don’t want rather than towards a what we do can be an unhelpful start point.
Moreover, we can often find ourselves replicating our employee behaviour. For example, doing what we’re good at rather than doing what we enjoy.
This is fear-driven behaviour based on the idea that there is not enough money in the world, specifically, not enough for us to do what we love!
Actually, we can do what we love, if that’s the direction we want to take. In essence, it’s planning and preparation that gets us there.
More importantly, we want to honestly assess where we are in our lives. That is to say we must be honest about our family commitments, what kind of lifestyle we want to lead, and what we’re willing to sacrifice or not to achieve our dream. Being as clear and honest as possible before we leap ensures we develop a sustainable business that works in all areas of our lives.
Entrepreneur And Start-Up: Where Do We Begin?
Surprisingly enough, it doesn’t always begin with the business idea itself.
Firstly, it’s useful to understand your career values, what’s important to you about your working life going forward, and how you can align with those values.
Next, you might want to consider the type of business you want to set up. Do you want to sell a product, or do you want to sell you and your time? There are so many articles out there telling you to make ‘money in your sleep’ by selling a product. However, it’s useful to consider whether that is appropriate for you.
What's Appropriate For Who You Are?
You may want a business that connects you to others and makes you a reasonable income. If that’s the case, you may want to sell your expertise and your time. This decision is worthy of a long ‘thrashing session’!
Furthermore, if you’re planning to become and entrepreneur and start-up, it’s a big shift to go from being part of a company where we tend to have one main role. When we run a small business, we wear many hats, and deciding what to keep in-house and farm out is critical.
When you feel comfortable and certain with these two areas, it’s time to consider the WHAT and the HOW.
Entrepreneur And Start-Up Needs Testing & Feedback Mindset
What’s really important is that you become increasingly comfortable with the idea of testing. What we sometimes forget is that selling ourselves is totally different from promoting ourselves when we work for a company. Indeed, when we work for others we use the brand, product or service as an emotional barrier between us and the client. When you’re selling your own business, you’re passionate about and deeply connected to the impact it has on others. Quite simply, it feels different. Moreover, when business goes well the reward is so much greater and when we face challenging it can feel so much bigger.
What’s more, when we launch a business, whether in the same or a different field to the one which we may have been working in as an employee, testing is really important. We test specific approaches to find out what works and what doesn’t. If we’re prepared for some of our tests to be unsuccessful then we become emotionally prepared to manage feedback – whatever that feedback is! We allow ourselves the freedom to gain feedback rapidly, be philosophical, analyse it, and use that feedback to guide us towards a newly-refined approach that places us in the optimum position to succeed.
Consider Your Resources: Time, People And More
Unless you set up your business with a large amount of financial backing you’ll probably find yourself challenged in terms of resource. You may find yourself successfully selling your services and then finding the time to do the administration of your business will seem like a lesser priority. It isn’t, and yet how do you find the time?
What’s more, if you’re starting from a position of me, myself and I, as you grow you’ll find yourself juggling, constantly chasing your tail and balancing your time between delivery, selling and administration. There will come a point where you will want to delegate out to people, even if they don’t do it just the way you want it done. This leap of faith will support you in delivering your services more effectively and it requires emotional disconnection to keep your sanity.
Further disconnection is required when you decide where and with whom the most effective place to direct your attention is. It’s important to resist the urge to work take up every opportunity if you’re time challenged.
Keep an overall goal in mind and assess every opportunity based on whether it supports you in achieving your higher-level goal or distracts you from it. This is easier said than done and we’ve learned this through the price of experience.
Find Out More About Working With Fire Dragon
Thinking about setting up as an Entrepreneur and Start-Up business? If you’d like to work with people who ARE Entrepreneurs and appreciate the unique mindset, behaviours and planning required to achieve goals, get in touch by email at nlpforbusiness@firedragonlanka.com.
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