Let’s admit it: entrepreneurship is hard. Many people speak about the excitement of creating their very own business (if you are reading this article now, most probably you may be thinking in the context of starting an Amazon business), but rarely will they tell you about the harsh realities of having a start-up. It is often until the hype of really starting out died down, then all the negative emotions set in: you will find yourself overwhelmed with anxiety, uncertainty and doubtful of your business’s sustainability.
That’s definitely what I consider as ‘getting off on the wrong foot’. Too many times, I have seen the light in inspiring entrepreneurs’ eyes dimmed down – and I really hope that YOU will not be the next one. Thus, I decided to come up with these 5 guiding principles of how to start an entrepreneurship right. Hopefully, this can motivate you to continue on this meaningful entrepreneurial journey.
Once you see that you can generate revenue from your business, you will naturally feel more confident to go on. Thus, I find that it is absolutely important for you to put in more effort at generating detectable income, especially if you are just starting out. After all, revenue – and in relation, cash flow – should always be the top priority for any business. Any experienced entrepreneur will tell you that cash flow is the circulatory system of a business, and before you invest more money in your venture, you want to make sure that you are maintaining a decent enough amount of cash flow so that your business is not in constant survival mode. So it’s really time to let go of the idea of making money while you sleep, and start WORKING HARD RIGHT NOW!
For a start, I will recommend retail business owners to concentrate on doing better product development and having a more targeted sales approach. For example, if you are an Amazon seller, you should start by researching for better-selling products, then go for optimizing your listings on Amazon’s search page. Other marketing strategies like engaging influencers to help promote your products are useful, but they should come in much later after your business is more or less steady. Trust me: if you focus on cash flow initially and stay in the game long enough, you will soon achieve that dream of owning a business that produces ongoing, consistent and predictable revenue in the long term.
Here is the next guiding principle to have a smoother entrepreneurial journey.
Most entrepreneurs wrongly believed that the trick to getting more sales is to explain the technical nuances of how they are better than their competition. Truth is, NOBODY CARES ABOUT THAT. Most of the time, customers are making decisions based on emotion, not logic. Hence it will be way more effective to attract their attention if you can show them that you believe in something different, rather than all the typical slogans which everybody else is shouting.
Sharing your spiritual vision is what will help you create the foundation of a unique market positioning. Focus on what you believe, and spend the majority of your marketing efforts communicating that into the marketplace, and you will soon find yourself pulling your tribe from the masses.
This will be the fourth principle to have a more fulfilling business venture.
Once you are more or less sure of being able to foresee the upcoming trends in your business, you will find the fear of financial insecurity and fear of being unable to sustain your business on a long-term basis you initially had become gone. You will begin to operate your business with a much higher level of confidence, creativity, vitality, and energy, and that’s when everything naturally begins to change for the better. Hence, always remember that before you proceed on to more extensive marketing strategies like creating a social media following, publishing of e-books and whatnot, find a way to create predictability in your business – be it to maintain consistent cash flow, generate reliable leads and reaching out to more customers – and trust me, eventually, you can have it all.
Finally, this is the concluding principle of how to have a more fulfilling business venture.
For example, when you think that you are doing well for your business (or anything else), you will tend to notice evidence that supports it and be less mindful of anything else opposed to it. You will find then that you have better clarity and more creative ideas to sustain your business. Subconsciously, you will also make decisions that in turn support your business’s development.
The sad truth is, not many entrepreneurs acquire such mindsets (and hence you see that there’s only really that few successful persons in the world). Such powerful mental processes require lots of consistent efforts and practice, but many entrepreneurs wrongly put their focus on finding “magic pill” strategies which can only produce fleeting and short-term effects. Hence, it is important that one should align his or her brain to achieve business success. Remember, the brain is a goal-achieving machine, and until you learn how to remove the pattern of negative bias from your mind, it’s difficult if not impossible to produce success.
Check out my other blog posts available here:
Principle 1: Ditch Irrelevant Opportunities and Hold Fast to Your Spiritual Vision
As entrepreneurs, I have a knack for seeing opportunities, but not every opportunity is mine to pursue. Let me tell you now: if you want to achieve success, you will at some point in time need to eliminate the many “ooh shiny” options out there. Ask yourself honestly what you envision for your life. It’s something more than ‘passion’, but rather a goal that you’d be willing to die for, that single opportunity that you will burn all bridges for and go all-in on – and that’s what I meant by your ‘spiritual vision’. Your spiritual vision is the change you want to see in the world, one that is tightly connected to your life experiences. It’s bigger than just making money, and – some may even say, their spiritual visions are even bigger than their entire existence. This is something that you will be willing to commit your whole life on. In turn, getting on journeys aligned with your spiritual vision will help to bring out the best in you, and you will never, ever regret working for such a purpose. In essence, your spiritual vision is something that is non-negotiable no matter what kind of situations you are faced with. Once you identify it, hold fast and carry on. This is the only way that you’re going to be willing to work the long hours, overcome the consistent challenges and get back up when you get knocked down (which will happen). Figure out how to create your business around it, and you will eventually see success coming your way. Here’s the second principle to have a rewarding entrepreneurial journey.Principle 2: Generate “Now” Revenue and Maintain Cash Flow
Nowadays, I see many newbie entrepreneurs getting more interested in developing long-term business strategies that, in actual fact, never create sufficient short-term revenue or cashflow. Take a look around, and you will see many ‘so-called’ business mentors pitching their business lessons around ideas like ‘generating passive income’, ‘growing a social media following’, ‘making awesome product launches’, etc. I admit that these ideas are attractive and will work for SOME to a certain extent. However, always keep in mind: when doing business, maintaining a passion for your work is the only way to keep going. And how should you do that? The answer is simple: MAKE MORE MONEY!
Once you see that you can generate revenue from your business, you will naturally feel more confident to go on. Thus, I find that it is absolutely important for you to put in more effort at generating detectable income, especially if you are just starting out. After all, revenue – and in relation, cash flow – should always be the top priority for any business. Any experienced entrepreneur will tell you that cash flow is the circulatory system of a business, and before you invest more money in your venture, you want to make sure that you are maintaining a decent enough amount of cash flow so that your business is not in constant survival mode. So it’s really time to let go of the idea of making money while you sleep, and start WORKING HARD RIGHT NOW!
For a start, I will recommend retail business owners to concentrate on doing better product development and having a more targeted sales approach. For example, if you are an Amazon seller, you should start by researching for better-selling products, then go for optimizing your listings on Amazon’s search page. Other marketing strategies like engaging influencers to help promote your products are useful, but they should come in much later after your business is more or less steady. Trust me: if you focus on cash flow initially and stay in the game long enough, you will soon achieve that dream of owning a business that produces ongoing, consistent and predictable revenue in the long term.
Here is the next guiding principle to have a smoother entrepreneurial journey.
Principle 3: Differentiate yourself by Sharing your Spiritual Vision
For any entrepreneurs, standing out from the crowd and differentiating themselves is essential. It allows them to get an edge over the competition, and charge premium prices rather than compete for the lowest selling price. The ability to differentiate will allow entrepreneurs to truly build a strong following, which in turn gives his or her business all kinds of competitive advantages and thus take the game to the next level. However, as an Amazon seller, you can be sure that you can probably throw a rock and hit somebody who’s doing the same thing. The Amazon market is getting more and more saturated – and so, how should you differentiate yourself in such situations? I will advise: share your spiritual vision (refer to our Principle 1) or simply, share what you strongly believe strongly for to your prospects.
Most entrepreneurs wrongly believed that the trick to getting more sales is to explain the technical nuances of how they are better than their competition. Truth is, NOBODY CARES ABOUT THAT. Most of the time, customers are making decisions based on emotion, not logic. Hence it will be way more effective to attract their attention if you can show them that you believe in something different, rather than all the typical slogans which everybody else is shouting.
Sharing your spiritual vision is what will help you create the foundation of a unique market positioning. Focus on what you believe, and spend the majority of your marketing efforts communicating that into the marketplace, and you will soon find yourself pulling your tribe from the masses.
This will be the fourth principle to have a more fulfilling business venture.
Principle 4: The Power of Predictability
For any business owner, it is essential to be able to predict what may happen to his or her business. This is like an innate ability which will guide one to avoid pitfalls and form a route to success, Predictability in one’s business refers to the ability to foresee where to generate leads, customers and revenue. One can start to develop predictability in his or her business by testing out a few strategies and finding one that kind of works (mind you, there is no one strategy that works for everyone), and then follow up by repeating that strategy. Meanwhile, he or she should improvise that strategy and test out more strategies that compliment it. It’s a game of trial-and-error at first – but soon, you will get to observe patterns and trends along the way to help you develop your unique ‘business sense’.
Once you are more or less sure of being able to foresee the upcoming trends in your business, you will find the fear of financial insecurity and fear of being unable to sustain your business on a long-term basis you initially had become gone. You will begin to operate your business with a much higher level of confidence, creativity, vitality, and energy, and that’s when everything naturally begins to change for the better. Hence, always remember that before you proceed on to more extensive marketing strategies like creating a social media following, publishing of e-books and whatnot, find a way to create predictability in your business – be it to maintain consistent cash flow, generate reliable leads and reaching out to more customers – and trust me, eventually, you can have it all.
Finally, this is the concluding principle of how to have a more fulfilling business venture.
Principle 5: Tune Your Brain for Success
Mindset is 90 percent of success. The thoughts and ideas you have, the way you perceive the world, and the subconscious coincidences that you create in your life are all fundamentally aligned with what you believe. As such, it is of utmost importance that you ‘tune’ your brain to have a successful mindset – and then your business will get better. How should you go about doing this then? It’s very simple in theory. Firstly, you need to understand that the brain is a goal-achieving machine. To have a successful business, you have to ‘wire’ your brain to believe that your business is going to work out. Think back to your schooling years when you were doing experiments for your science lessons. The basis of experiments is that you have to prove if an assumption, or a ‘hypothesis’, is correct. Similarly, when you next consider your business, think of every belief you have about it as a hypothesis that your brain is trying to prove.
For example, when you think that you are doing well for your business (or anything else), you will tend to notice evidence that supports it and be less mindful of anything else opposed to it. You will find then that you have better clarity and more creative ideas to sustain your business. Subconsciously, you will also make decisions that in turn support your business’s development.
The sad truth is, not many entrepreneurs acquire such mindsets (and hence you see that there’s only really that few successful persons in the world). Such powerful mental processes require lots of consistent efforts and practice, but many entrepreneurs wrongly put their focus on finding “magic pill” strategies which can only produce fleeting and short-term effects. Hence, it is important that one should align his or her brain to achieve business success. Remember, the brain is a goal-achieving machine, and until you learn how to remove the pattern of negative bias from your mind, it’s difficult if not impossible to produce success.
Check out my other blog posts available here:
