Are You Really Ready to Be Your Own Boss?

Source: Smart Money . com

Ask yourself these six questions to find out if you are ready? My answers in bold.

  1. Are You Starting a Business by Choice, or Necessity?  Necessity, I wouldn’t be happy doing anything else.
  2. Do You Like Risk?  No, I love it!
  3. Do You Have the Patience of Job?  Job took it to an extreme, but I don’t need everything to happen today.  Tomorrow is soon enough.
  4. Are You More Flexible Than a Yoga Instructor?  I was a sales-guy. No one is more flexible than a sales person at the end of the quarter.  BTW, always buy your cars the last week of the month.
  5. Do Your Organizational Skills Put Martha Stewart to Shame?  Speaking of extremes - I am organized enough to stay out of jail.
  6. Are You Prepared to Tap Your Inner Workaholic? Sleep is over-rated. 

Quotations from Famous Entrepreneurs on Entrepreneurship

Get up and make your own opportunity!!!

Source: About . com 

“The cover-your-butt mentality of the workplace will get you only so far. The follow-your-gut mentality of the entrepreneur has the potential to take you anywhere you want to go or run you right out of business–but it’s a whole lot more fun, don’t you think?”
– Bill Rancic

“When you reach an obstacle, turn it into an opportunity. You have the choice. You can overcome and be a winner, or you can allow it to overcome you and be a loser. The choice is yours and yours alone. Refuse to throw in the towel. Go that extra mile that failures refuse to travel. It is far better to be exhausted from success than to be rested from failure.”
– Mary Kay Ash, founder of Mary Kay Cosmetics

“The critical ingredient is getting off your butt and doing something. It’s as simple as that. A lot of people have ideas, but there are few who decide to do something about them now. Not tomorrow. Not next week. But today. The true entrepreneur is a doer, not a dreamer.”
– Nolan Bushnell, founder of Atari and Chuck E. Cheese’s

“Entrepreneurs are risk takers, willing to roll the dice with their money or reputation on the line in support of an idea or enterprise. They willingly assume responsibility for the success or failure of a venture and are answerable for all its facets.”
– Victor Kiam, best known for his “I liked it so much, I bought the company” ads for Remington electric shavers

“I had to make my own living and my own opportunity! But I made it! Don’t sit down and wait for the opportunities to come. Get up and make them!”
– Madam C.J. Walker, creator of a popular line of African-American hair care products and America’s first black female millionaire

 

This one is my favorites.

“My son is now an ‘entrepreneur’. That’s what you’re called when you don’t have a job.”
– Ted Turner, broadcasting entrepreneur

Top 10 Ways You Know You’re An Entrepreneur

Here is a great list that I stumbled upon.  I agree with most of them. 

Source : Startup Spark

  • You’re passionate. Passion counts for a whole lot when it comes to being an entrepreneur. Without it, you’re dead before you even start.
  • You’re always looking for opportunities. Entrepreneurs are opportunity-seekers.  Everything is an opportunity. Failures are even an opportunity.
  • You always think to yourself, “I can do that better.” You might know nothing about the retail business, but every time you walk into a big box store you have a thousand ideas on how to make it a better experience. Combined with your eye for opportunity, you can’t help but believe there’s a better way of doing things.
  • You want to live your work. Work isn’t a means to an end. It isn’t a way of collecting a paycheck and going home. You’re dreaming of something more than that, where you can live and breathe work. Not because you want to work more, you want to work smarter. You want your work to mean something. You want to experience something more than shuffling to the office at 8am, leaving at 5pm and forgetting what happened for that day.
  • You’re dreaming miles ahead while focused on what you’re doing right now. You’re a dreamer, but not a daydreamer. You’re dreaming a plan ahead while working constantly at achieving success on the details today. You’re a big-thinker but you don’t lack the ability to focus on details. Accomplish the little tasks is moving the ball forward for you…towards the big dream.

Continue reading “Top 10 Ways You Know You’re An Entrepreneur”

Women Entrepreneurs and Risk

This article is was written for women, however its conclusion applies to all.  “When we stop looking at ambition and risk as an enemy of life balance and see it instead as a way to achieve it, then perhaps we’ll be ready to start thinking big.”

 

Kristi Hedges
Entrepreneur . com

A thought-provoking Harvard Business Review article I once read by Anna Fels asked “Do women lack ambition?” It found that women pursue their goals only after they’ve satisfied the needs of their family, including caring for children and elderly parents. It also found that women underestimate their abilities (while their male counterparts overestimate them) and are therefore less likely to pursue lofty career goals.

Here’s what else studies repeatedly show us:

  • Only 1.8 percent of women-owned businesses in the U.S. have revenues above $1 million per year, according to the SBA.
  • Women lag behind men in their willingness to seek bank financing for their ventures.
  • Women are far less likely to receive venture capital. In my own experience, I’ve only seen two women receive it, and one was replaced shortly after the check cleared.

Whether or not you buy any of this–and certainly there are always exceptions–the fact remains that female entrepreneurs are less likely to take the big risks to get the big rewards.

More …

A Business Without Sales is a Hobby

My first business failed, because I had no clue about Marketing and Sales.  I had the “Field of Dreams” mentality.  If I build it – they will come.  That’s a common trait amongst many first-time entrepreneurs, especially ones with technical backgrounds.  Graduating with a Bachelor and Master Degree in engineering, I believed that the world evolve around my designs.  Little did I know - if the world didn’t know about my designs – there would be no need for my designs.

It’s simple a fact of entrepreneurship -  the fastest track back to a J.O.B. is no sales. Before launching my next venture, I would go on to attain an MBA and make a career change to Marketing and then Sales.  I will always be able to leverage my formal and on-the-job training, however some sales skills can be learned from everyday life.

Here are four sales lessons Mary Cantando, a Business Growth Advisor for Women’s Entrepreneurs Inc., learned from her family:

Continue reading “A Business Without Sales is a Hobby”