The Process For Becoming An Entrepreneur
The Process For Becoming An Entrepreneur
I’ve told him time and again that most people don’t mind fuzzy statistics. He keeps telling me that 58.9 percent prefer to have accurate numbers. Who can argue with math like that?
For example, Dan tells me that the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts that within the next 10 to 15 years 50% of the American workforce will be working in non-traditional careers. Instead of being a nation of nine-to-fivers we will be moving toward a union of consultants, freelancers, contractors, temporary workers, and telecommuters; and don’t forget part-time and fulltime entrepreneurs.
Other surveys over the years have shown that a good portion (sorry Dan) of Americans dream of starting their own business. And who would expect them to wish otherwise. Business ownership is, after all, the American Dream, the pathway to success, the road to financial freedom: for some people (and no, I don’t know the exact number, Dan).
What the surveys don’t say is that the majority of those people who yearn to be entrepreneurs aren’t qualified to start a business and even if they did make it past the initial startup phase they’d be out of business within a year.
So if you’re among those who are contemplating a move into business now or in the future how can you be sure if it’s the right move for you? Before you chuck an absolutely good career working for someone else to chase your own business dreams, you need to figure out if the life of an entrepreneur and the running of a business are really for you.
I’m often asked if there is a process that one should follow to go from worker bee to entrepreneur wannabe (a process rather than just "diving in head first" as it were). There is a process and it begins with a huge dose of self-assessment.
You should take stock of where you are in life; what your responsibilities and commitments are; who you are as a person; what your passions, talents, goals, and skills are; and most importantly, what makes you happy.
Forget all that hogwash about starting a business to be your own boss and to be financially independent. The only legitimate, long term reason to start a business is because that’s what makes you happy. If the comfort of a 9-to-5 paycheck makes you happy, keep your job. It’s as simple as that.
So let’s look at the process beginning with the first question you should ask yourself: Are you really cut out to be an entrepreneur? Not everyone is physically, emotionally or mentally equipped be an entrepreneur and even if you think you are at this moment, you could be wrong in the long run. We’ve discussed entrepreneurial traits and skills several times before so I won’t go into great detail here. If you’d like to take a simple quiz to gauge your entrepreneurial aptitude visit my website at http://www.timknox.com.
Step two in the process is to decide what kind of business best suits you. Don’t pick a business just because you think it’s easy to get into or is the most lucrative or has the best chance for success or offers the greatest rewards. You should choose a business because it fits your personality and goals. Remember that happiness thing I mentioned earlier? You could have a thriving cash cow business, but if it’s a business that you hate running with customers that you hate dealing staffed by employees you can’t seem to manage, the money is not worth the heartburn.
Step three is figuring out how to fund the business you’ve chosen. This is the brick wall that repels most new entrepreneurs. Many business ideas have died while waiting on funding. You can go the traditional routes of raising money: use your savings, tap into friends and family, mortgage your house, cash in your 401K, seek angel investors and venture capitalists. All have their advantages and disadvantages. I’m a huge fan of bootstrapping, i.e. starting with as little out of pocket money as possible and using creative strategies like partnering, extended credit terms, bartering, and vendor financing to fund and grow the business.
Step four is to write a detailed business plan. Again, this is a subject I’ve covered in-depth several times over the years, so I won’t go into great detail. There are lots of books and software packages that can help you create a business plan. You can also contact organizations like SCORE and the Women’s Business Center for assistance.
Next time we’ll continue this discussion and look at the remaining steps in the process like finding a location, lining up relationships with vendors and distributors, creating a marketing plan, hiring employees, and a few other things that will help you get started.
I’m sure most of you (probably 72.5%) just can’t wait for that.
The Process For Becoming An Entrepreneur - To learn more about this author, visit Tim Knox's Website.
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When it comes to careers and business, my radio show partner and author of the best selling career advice book "48 Days To The Work You Love," Dan Miller, is a walking, talking encyclopedia of precise industry statistics. While I’ve always been comfortable using such statistically noncommittal terms as "many, most, and some," Dan prefers to remember and espouse accurate numbers.
I’ve told him time and again that most people don’t mind fuzzy statistics. He keeps telling me that 58.9 percent prefer to have accurate numbers. Who can argue with math like that?
For example, Dan tells me that the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts that within the next 10 to 15 years 50% of the American workforce will be working in non-traditional careers. Instead of being a nation of nine-to-fivers we will be moving toward a union of consultants, freelancers, contractors, temporary workers, and telecommuters; and don’t forget part-time and fulltime entrepreneurs.
Other surveys over the years have shown that a good portion (sorry Dan) of Americans dream of starting their own business. And who would expect them to wish otherwise. Business ownership is, after all, the American Dream, the pathway to success, the road to financial freedom: for some people (and no, I don’t know the exact number, Dan).
What the surveys don’t say is that the majority of those people who yearn to be entrepreneurs aren’t qualified to start a business and even if they did make it past the initial startup phase they’d be out of business within a year.
So if you’re among those who are contemplating a move into business now or in the future how can you be sure if it’s the right move for you? Before you chuck an absolutely good career working for someone else to chase your own business dreams, you need to figure out if the life of an entrepreneur and the running of a business are really for you.
I’m often asked if there is a process that one should follow to go from worker bee to entrepreneur wannabe (a process rather than just "diving in head first" as it were). There is a process and it begins with a huge dose of self-assessment.
You should take stock of where you are in life; what your responsibilities and commitments are; who you are as a person; what your passions, talents, goals, and skills are; and most importantly, what makes you happy.
Forget all that hogwash about starting a business to be your own boss and to be financially independent. The only legitimate, long term reason to start a business is because that’s what makes you happy. If the comfort of a 9-to-5 paycheck makes you happy, keep your job. It’s as simple as that.
So let’s look at the process beginning with the first question you should ask yourself: Are you really cut out to be an entrepreneur? Not everyone is physically, emotionally or mentally equipped be an entrepreneur and even if you think you are at this moment, you could be wrong in the long run. We’ve discussed entrepreneurial traits and skills several times before so I won’t go into great detail here. If you’d like to take a simple quiz to gauge your entrepreneurial aptitude visit my website at http://www.timknox.com.
Step two in the process is to decide what kind of business best suits you. Don’t pick a business just because you think it’s easy to get into or is the most lucrative or has the best chance for success or offers the greatest rewards. You should choose a business because it fits your personality and goals. Remember that happiness thing I mentioned earlier? You could have a thriving cash cow business, but if it’s a business that you hate running with customers that you hate dealing staffed by employees you can’t seem to manage, the money is not worth the heartburn.
Step three is figuring out how to fund the business you’ve chosen. This is the brick wall that repels most new entrepreneurs. Many business ideas have died while waiting on funding. You can go the traditional routes of raising money: use your savings, tap into friends and family, mortgage your house, cash in your 401K, seek angel investors and venture capitalists. All have their advantages and disadvantages. I’m a huge fan of bootstrapping, i.e. starting with as little out of pocket money as possible and using creative strategies like partnering, extended credit terms, bartering, and vendor financing to fund and grow the business.
Step four is to write a detailed business plan. Again, this is a subject I’ve covered in-depth several times over the years, so I won’t go into great detail. There are lots of books and software packages that can help you create a business plan. You can also contact organizations like SCORE and the Women’s Business Center for assistance.
Next time we’ll continue this discussion and look at the remaining steps in the process like finding a location, lining up relationships with vendors and distributors, creating a marketing plan, hiring employees, and a few other things that will help you get started.
I’m sure most of you (probably 72.5%) just can’t wait for that.
The Process For Becoming An Entrepreneur - To learn more about this author, visit Tim Knox's Website.
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Kim CastleWith nearly two decades in the advertising and design business, with clients like Domino's Pizza, General Motors, Direct TV, Pedigree, Wolfgang Puck, Higher Octave Music, Hollywood Celebrity Products, Disney, and Paramount, as well as thousands of entrepreneurs around the world define, structure, communicate, and position their business for greater profits, BrandU(R) co-creators Kim Castle and W. Vito Montone discovered that entrepreneurs could experience the same power that big brands command for a fraction of the cost with the world's only process-based results-drive Integral approach to business creation. BrandU(R) is helping entrepreneurs grow with the power of extreme clarity from idea...to brand...to market(TM) and helping one million entrepreneurs become successful and whole so that they can make a difference in the world. Are you one of them? If you want to experience clarity all the way to the bank(TM), get started now at http://www.brandu.com. - Visit Kim Castle's Website |
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Dave KurlanDave Kurlan is the founder and CEO of Objective Management Group, Inc., the industry leader in sales assessments and sales force evaluations, and the CEO of David Kurlan & Associates, Inc., a consulting firm specializing in sales force development. Dave has been a top rated speaker at Inc. Magazine's Conference on Growing the Company, the Sales & Marketing Management Conference and the Gazelles Sales & Marketing Summit. He has been featured on radio and TV, including World Business Review with General Norman Schwarzkopf, in Inc. Magazine, Selling Power Magazine, Sales & Marketing Management Magazine and Incentive Magazine. He is the author of Mindless Selling and Baseline Selling – How to Become a Sales Superstar by Using What You Already Know about the Game of Baseball. He created and wrote STAR, a proprietary recruiting process for hiring great salespeople, and he writes Understanding the Sales Force, a popular business Blog and is a contributing author to The Death of 20th Century Selling and 101 Great Ways to Improve Your Life, Volume 2. - Visit Dave Kurlan's Website |
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Dianne CramptonDianne Crampton is an executive leadership coach, team culture consultant, author and president of TIGERS Success Series, Inc. Dianne has been helping CEO's and Executives connect their employees to their core values and goals for over 20 years using the trademarked TIGERS team culture process, which stands for trust, interdependence, genuineness, empathy, risk and success. To download a free white paper on behaviors that build strong teams and behaviors that will predictably tear them down go here. Dianne's contribution to the 2010 Pfeiffer Consulting Journal (an imprint of John Wiley and Sons Publishers) entitled TIGERS Hearted Teams is available in November 2009. Her new book TIGERS Among Us: 5 Winning Business Team Cultures And Why, Three Creeks Publishing will release in March 2010. To receive publishing discounts, subscribe to the free TigerTracks Newsletter here. - Visit Dianne Crampton's Website |
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Cheryl MatthynssensCheryl is a life skills coach, licensed Chemical Dependency Counselor and a 20 year entrepreneur. Cheryl's dedication to achieving a life of balance led to her expanding her teaching from the simple managing of life's daily challenges to adding financial well being as well. A direct marketer with DrinkACT, she is gaining ground in the online community with her concepts of making sure business owners, entreprenuers and employees have well rounded life styles. She opened up a small affiliate site - The Balance Guide- to help others find resources for mental and emotional well being. Visit Cheryl's blog to see more of the diversity beyond business she has began offering online at www.thebalanceguide.blogspot.com - Visit Cheryl Matthynssens's Website |
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Stephanie RobeyStephanie Robey is President and CoFounder of Pivot Positive, LLC - an Internet marketing business focused on helping people start work at home ventures. Previously, she was employed at The Search Agency with over 20 years experience in graphic design and 10 years experience in online marketing. She was responsible for launching the Conversion Path Optimization (CPO) unit where she and her team have conducted hundreds of optimization tests for online companies across multiple verticals. She is a successful entrepreneur having started and sold 2 companies and remains on the board of directors of the third, PhotoSpin.com Stephanie began her career in the direct marketing realm creating and producing direct mail for many of the major cable television companies and directly attributes her understanding of Internet marketing to those early offline experiences. Stephanie is a graduate of San Diego State University with a BFA in Graphic Arts and also holds an Executive MBA from the Graziadio School of Business and Management at Pepperdine University. Read Steph's Blog Meet Steph and Dave Sign up for our Free 7-Day BootCamp: Self Employed & Rich - Visit Stephanie Robey's Website |
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Jay Kubassek(Jay's Full Bio: EvanCarmichael.com/jaykubassek) In five years, Canadian-born entrepreneur Jay Kubassek went from selling mufflers at a Midas franchise to revolutionizing Internet marketing with the 2004 launch of CarbonCopyPRO, a online marketing education company, now worth over $20 million with customers in over 160 countries.
As an independent film producer, his upstart film fund Aliquot Films is currently producing a films with Spike Lee and Abel Fererra (starring Ethan Hawke and Dennis Hopper.)
Jay's entrepreneurial spirit is irrepressible. He’s the owner of five companies, a professional speaker and trainer, international real estate developer/investor, extreme sport enthusiast and emerging philanthropist. Jay resides in NYC with his wife Jamie, son Milo and dog Cooper. Visit Jay's official website: www.JayKubassek.com - Visit Jay Kubassek's Website |
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