Adventure

Here I am again, with part four of Entrepreneurship Journey: A-Z . In this article, I am going to walk you through steps that will help you develop the best relationship with your customers. This strategy is to help you build loyal customers, help you generate income for your business. Lastly, it will help you understand your customers’ needs so you will offer them the product or services they desire.

The Customer Red Zone

Stay away from the free zone.

There’s going to be a time when your friends or family members will walk to your business office and want to try out your products or services and most often you may want to offer it to them for free. Trust me if you start or continue doing that, your business will not go any further. You are running a business and not a charity organization, so whatever product or service they request, ask them to pay for it. Some might indeed see you as a bad person but no, you are doing the right thing, and those that truly love, and care for you will support what you are doing by paying for it. It is fine to give them a discount, however; it should cut across all of your customers, and not just to your friends or family members. Again, don’t offer your products or services for free, unless you are doing a promotion, because the more you do that the more they will less value your business. People respect the things they pay for more than the things they get for free.

Attend to your customers with professionalism.

I previously mentioned that you should not offer your products or services for free. On the contrary, attend to all of your customers as customers, with respect, and caring no matter, who they are. Do not say “oh this is my brother he can wait let me attend to other people first” that is wrong. They are paying for your products or services so you have to respect them and attend to them as needed regardless of the relationship you have with them, even if they choose to wait, do your best to attend to their needs ASAP. Always create a professional atmosphere for your customers, and that will make them value your business.

Create a personal relationship with your clients.

Try to have a positive personal relationship with all of your clients. Welcome them with a true loving smiling face, greet them, and ask them “how are you doing today”, (but keep this conversation short and professional so they don’t feel insecure). Try to know their name and call them by that.

Remember their favourite products or services, and recommend the best to them. When they purchase something make sure you are grateful by simply saying “Thank you, (With a true smile)” and when they are leaving make sure you say goodbye, something like (Goodbye Miss Mary, we hope to see you soon). Doing these little things will make your customers feel happy, and they will always want to come back because they feel welcomed, and because of that, they will choose to buy from you other than your competitors.

Ask for feedback from your customers.

As an entrepreneur, your purpose is to solve people’s problems, and to better do that you have to be open up to people, ask for their honest feedback, and take all feedback with an open mind regardless of the outcome, good or bad. Whenever you have a new product or service, have a select few trustworthy customers to try your product or service, and ask them to give you feedback, some feedbacks might be negative but constructive.

Listen to what your customers say, focus on their needs, and create products or services you want to use yourself. Let them know that they are free to give any kind of feedback, negative or positive. It is for your good.

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According to a survey, the majority start a business for some specific reasons such as:

To Earn a lot of money.

The flexibility of being their own boss.

The control over decision making.

To pick the team they want to work with.

To solve their own problems & others.

Know your WHY.

Listen! This is very important. Before starting your adventure, you have to know your WHY, why are you doing this? Who are you doing it all for? Is it for yourself to make you happy? Is it for your loved ones? Are you doing this to help save humanity or the society you are living in? Whatever it may be just make sure you love doing what you are about to do, because your WHY and the LOVE you have will keep you going. No matter the struggles, the failures, the pains, the obstacles, the setbacks, haters, naysayers whatever. If you have a passion for what you do, nothing will stop you.

Do what you believe is great work, not what your parents say, or your society says. Follow your heart your mind is designed to keep you safe, only your heart can take you out of your comfort zone. One last thing, whatever you are doing make sure it will benefit others, not just yourself.

Entrepreneurship is not about having a big business; entrepreneurship is about solving problems that affect yourself and others, at the same time creating opportunities.

Entrepreneurship is not about getting rich quick, it’s about how you can make life better for everyone. Focus on adding value, because value attracts capital.

Build a Great Team

Make your staffs your top Priority.

Most business owners think their clients are their top priority which is very wrong, because as the CEO you may have little or no time to interact with your clients, because you are busy taking care of the top priorities, and delegating tasks. Your staffs are the people that are responsible to take care of your clients, and you are the one responsible to take care of your staffs. Your focus is to make your staffs happy, be friendly to them, say nice words to them, and motivate them.

Your staffs spend most of their time on your business, so you have to make the working environment very friendly, and welcoming, not as hell.  Let them feel at home, see them as your family, let the love flows. If you can make your staffs happy, they will make your clients happy.

The reality is if you train your staffs well, they will leave you, I mean, they got better skills now, so why not apply for that dream job, at that dream company that pays the highest salaries they ever wanted? However, if you treat your staffs well, they will have a reason to stay.

I see a lot of business owners acting super hard on their staffs (like my high school teacher did) thinking being hard on their staffs is what makes them take your business seriously. No, they will never take your business seriously, they are only going to grow to hate you, and all that tension you give them, guess who’s going to end up having it? Don’t you get it? Your staffs will act the same way towards your clients. Just like in school, some teachers tend to be hard on their students, thinking it will make their students take their schoolwork seriously, but the reality is, they will only end up hating school, and hate that teacher in particular. You can`t make people do what you want, they will if they choose to. The more you continue bossing around, acting superior the more you will push them away. The best way to make people do things is to give them a reason to, encourage them, be open up to them, have them understand what your business means to you, and how it will benefit lives. Don’t give them a reason to stay only for the paycheque, give them a reason to stay because they believe in your idea.

Many of you will say, well I am the boss, and that’s why I am paying them. No, that’s not why you are paying them. Paying them for their favour doesn`t mean you should try to control their lives. Yes, you read that right, they are doing you a favour. Honestly, the majority of your staffs have an idea of starting their own business, so if they suppress their heart burning desire, and choose to work for you, they are doing you a favour. Have you ever asked yourself why entrepreneurship is 0n the increase? Some of the reasons are because most business owners suck, they take advantage of people, try to control their lives, and the truth is, no normal human being wants that. No amount of money gives you the right to make people do what`s against their will, and if you think I am wrong let me give you a shocking reality.

God created you, he gave you everything, and you have no idea how he created everything that he gave to you. You gave him nothing in return for what he did for you, but yet he wholeheartedly gave you something you feel so superior to give to others just because you think you are the boss. Theirs’s no amount of superiority in any human being that gives them the right to hold on to the FREE WILL God gave to all of his creations. If God can give free will to every human being, after all, he did for us, who are you to deny that right to humanity?

Build a friendly relationship with your staffs.

There are times you will give your staffs some tasks to do and some of them have no idea how to go about what you have given them. They will be so scared that they can’t tell you that they don’t know how to do it, because you may shout at them or in the worst case fired them. Therefore, the best thing they could do is spend hours doing it the wrong way, and you will be up there thinking everything is fine which they are not. To avoid such, you have to build a friendly relationship with your staffs so they can walk to you whenever they have problem with the task you gave them, Make them feel comfortable talking to you, asking you for help whenever they need it. Create an atmosphere for your staffs wherein they will feel safe to talk, ask, and do things. Let them know it’s fine not to know everything and it’s fine to ask for help when they need one. Be a leader, not just a boss. Give your staffs the confidence to stand in front of you and say, Sir! You gave me a task to do and I have no idea how to go about it. That will not only make them honest with you, but it will allow you to save your company from dying, and give you the time and opportunity to look for the person that can do it better.

Lastly, when you find that someone, the best thing you can do is let them teach the staff that was unable to carry on with the task, and don`t fire them just because they were bold enough to be honest with you. Instead, encourage them to learn more, that’s what leaders do.

Hiya! People, I hope y’all had an awesome read on our first post of the “Entrepreneurship Journey: A-Z”. Missed it? or New here? Cool! No hard feelings for coming late, however, you should read it Here  to get a clear understanding of this topic. I hope I am making sense? Alright, lets ride…

My advice to all startup entrepreneurs.

Now, why is it I am sharing this with you?

I want you to know that being an entrepreneur is more than just starting a business. There are sacrifices you must make, and it may not go right all the time, the guarantee for things to go wrong is more than the guarantee for things to go right. You have to take risks, calculated, and educated risks.

If you are not a rich kid, that mommy and daddy are willing to take care of your finances while you are working at your startup, I suggest you get a Job. You can still have a job while you are working on your startup bit by bit.

Don`t let anyone fool you, going into entrepreneurship isn`t always the first thing to do. If you have already discovered your passion and you think you don`t have to work for someone but yourself, my friend you are mistaking.

Listen, it’s not a good idea to let someone fund your startup at the initial stage unless you don`t care about decision making or what may happen to your startup. Because if you have someone fund your startup at the initial stage that means they own it as much as you do, or maybe even more than you do. Your ideas are nothing without the power to execute it. You don`t expect someone to spend their money on your startup and let you make the decisions, that’s nearly impossible.

Okay, what about if you are a rich kid, and you have money to fund your startup, is it okay to go ahead?

Money is not the only problem here, you understand? Do you know why the majority of start-ups do fail? Even when they have access to funding, have the skills to create their products and services? Starting your own business is hard, it sucks you know. There are a lot of ups and downs, obstacles, haters, naysayers, setbacks, self-doubt, and most of all you will have to reach rock bottom countless times.

You need to have the skills to run a business, manage your staff, take care of your client’s needs, and all. Running a start-up is difficult. So try and learn about all these not just on paper or school education. Running a start-up required hands-on, practical skills. You need to know how to manage your expenses, budgeting, marketing and sales, teamwork, and more of leadership skills. Don`t kill your dream by trying to learn all these on your startup, you will just start suffocating yourself because you have no one to guide you. Experience is better than just knowledge.

The Adventure Begins.

Now you have working experience, I say to you “Well done” it’s now time to hit the go button and start your forever dream adventure.

Hay! Entrepreneur, slow down, we still have a problem here, something is wrong with this journey you are about to embark on. It’s unbelievable but you are going to fail. Nevertheless, must you quit and come work for me instead? Well if you ask me, the answer is yes….

I mean YES you don’t have to quit, everyone knows when you try something new there is a possibility you will fail. However, falling and learning from your mistakes is what keeps you going, it helps you grow. Failure is not the opposite of success; it is the process of success. Always know that Success is a choice and failure is required. The word entrepreneur is known as RISK TAKER, everything about entrepreneurship is taking risks. As an entrepreneur you have to be a believer, might not be the religious believer, however, you have to believe in your dream, although there will be obstacles, setbacks, failures, etc. You have to believe that everything is going to work out just fine.

As an entrepreneur, you have to program your mindset to focus only on the end goal, who you will become in the end. That will keep you going. You very well know there is more possibility to fail than to succeed. However, you do it anyway, because the greatest risk in life is to not take a risk.

Entrepreneurship

Well hello there!

You are currently in a university or still in high school, and you are thinking about how your future is going to be like.

I get it, as a child, I used to constantly keep questioning myself about my life. I was so curious about my future from the very start. Then I started questioning myself about what I should do and what I should not do.

Maybe you are experiencing the same, constantly asking yourself the same questions about life, that I used to ask myself a long time ago.

Are you going to work for someone, or are you going to create your own business, so you can create jobs for others! Well, both are fine, however, seeking a job in someone else’s business is a great start. But does that mean you should settle for it? Nope, I don’t think so. Always find a way to expand your creativity and go beyond your comfort zone.

What is an Entrepreneurship?

Many people when they hear the word Entrepreneur or Entrepreneurship the first thing that will come to their mind is building a big business. Unfortunately, we will be going on a different direction here. Entrepreneurship is not about building a big business, it is not about getting rich quick, it is not about becoming the best in the world. Here is what entrepreneurship is about.

True Entrepreneurship is all about identifying a problem, and provide a solution to that problem. Entrepreneurs measure their impact on humanity not in likes but in the lives they touch, not in popularity but in the people they serve. Therefore, if you are the kind of person that wants to get rich or successful within a year, I am sorry to tell you that entrepreneurship is not for you.

Becoming an entrepreneur is so easy; you do not have to build the next Uber, or the next Facebook to become an entrepreneur. You just have to look within yourself and ask yourself these questions. What are the things I am unhappy about, in what areas of my life do I need to improve, and how can I provide solution to these problems that are affecting my life? When you get answers to those questions, there you go! You’ve just become an entrepreneur, you’ve just got an idea. Now implement that idea into your life, find a solution to your problems, and if that solution works out for you, if it produces a positive result, my friend you just have to share that with the world and if it works out for people then you can officially call yourself an entrepreneur. Entrepreneurship is all about providing a solution to human unhappiness.

To the Entrepreneurs

Those with entrepreneurial mindset, I believe it’s a great choice you are about to make that will change your life forever. Right now, you have this great idea, and it is driving you crazy. Your mind is like; “I have to get out there right now, and start working on my idea, you know it’s better to work for myself than to work for someone else”.

If that is what your mind is telling you right now, trust me it might be taking you to the wrong part, just yet. You might be the person that always get the best grade (Grade A) in school, and now you have this great idea, and all you want to do is kick start and lunch your ideal business right away. Do you know its not just the idea that makes up the business? Do you know what you learn from school is far different from the practical work in a business?

To be an entrepreneur you need to know what it takes, the sacrifices you are going to make. This is why you need to learn the skills from someone or somewhere. You need somewhere else to learn, know the ins and outs. You might want to know why it is so important to learn from somewhere else. The answer is simple, if you can handle someone else’s business well that means you can handle yours. In addition, you will get to meet people from different places with different skills and that will be an opportunity to learn from those people. But most especially, making mistakes in a big company may have little or no impact, however, making those mistakes in your startup, may crush it for good.

One thing I want you to know is that every boss was once a worker. No matter how small your position will be (while working for someone) always know that it’s not what you have that makes you great but what you give. Therefore, wherever you are, just give the best you can, and never seek recognition. If you strive for greatness, success will follow you. As the saying goes “The one who works for more than he is paid, will always be paid for more than he worked” So I am saying to you, do not do it for the money but for the experience. Besides, you don’t necessarily have to shut down your startup just because you have to work for someone. Have your startup as a side hustle if possible, and have somewhere else where you can get real experience, and helps you pay your bills. Do not worry about when you should go big, you will know when you are ready.

Lastly, one thing I know about entrepreneurs is that they don’t want to play by other peoples rules, but I have an advice for you, “Play by the rules of the game, until you can create your own game, and only then you can make your own rules”. Go big or go home.