WARNING: 20 percent of small businesses will fail within the first year of being open.
With this statistic in mind – and if you’re still interested in starting your own business – you’ll need to have an entrepreneurial mindset.
But if you haven’t been thinking like an entrepreneur, you may not know what this mindset looks like. Take a few steps forward with these tips.
What Is Entrepreneurial Thinking?
Being an entrepreneur means always developing, creating, and running your own business. You’ll need to be in a certain mindset to achieve these goals.
A good entrepreneur will take advantage of all of the mistakes, failures, and challenges that come along the way. They’ll also be able to see new opportunities and use new skills to help them succeed in the future.
When you have this mindset while you’re running a business, you’ll be able to hit all of your goals and create a sustainable business. However, there are a few things you can do to create this type of thinking.
Create a Structure
One of the biggest challenges an entrepreneur faces is that there is no existing structure in a startup. If you’ve worked at other jobs in the past, then you’ve likely had a good routine where you get up for work at a certain time, take a lunch, and then leave at the end of your eight hours.
When you work for yourself, there isn’t this structure that’s built into your day to hold you accountable. Working for yourself can be great, but you need to create a structure and fill in your day if you want to achieve your business goals.
Once you set your own schedule, you need to stick to it. You should also come up with a structure for your client’s onboarding process. When you have a sales and onboarding plan, you’ll be more consistent and set your business up for success.
Keep in mind that when you’re creating a structure, it needs to be balanced so that you’re not burning yourself out. Many entrepreneurs will work from the morning through the evening without even realizing it.
If you burn yourself out, you will have a hard time elevating your business.
Welcome Fear
To pick up on one of Winston Churchill’s famous thoughts, many of us have a paralyzing fear of fear itself, but it’s an important part of entrepreneurial thinking.
Good entrepreneurs welcome and embrace fear.
You can master fear and use it as a tool; it will help you go in bold directions that may further your business.
There can’t be rewards without any risks.
Fear could signal a bad business move, but it could also just come from excitement and uncertainty. A good entrepreneur will evaluate the fear and determine if it’s valid or not.
Set Goals
You also need to be able to set goals. You should write your dreams down or say them out loud. When you understand your goals, you can then create a roadmap to accomplish them.
It can also help you reflect on your direction and accomplishments.
Talk About It
You might feel uncomfortable talking about your business and your plans, but when you’re running your own business, you must be comfortable talking about it with almost everyone.
You need to be okay with talking about your business when you’re meeting strangers or talking with family or friends. You should tell anyone who will listen to you about your business; word-of-mouth is the best form of marketing.
Before you start talking with people, make sure that you understand your business inside and out.
You need to come up with an elevator pitch that will sum up your business in just a few minutes. This way, you can grab people’s attention and tell them all they need to know about your business. Make sure you practice your pitch a few times before you start using it.
Don’t Be Afraid to Ask for Help
One mistake that new entrepreneurs make is that they don’t ask for help or get advice. Their pride can sometimes get in the way, but it always helps to have a second pair of eyes.
A mentor or business advisor like a business coach can help validate that you’re on the right path. If you’re not, they can make recommendations to help you get there.
In addition to getting advice, eventually you need to learn how to delegate tasks. You won’t be able to run your business all by yourself, and if you try, you’ll end up getting burned out.
It can be hard to pass your business tasks onto someone else when you’ve built so much of it up from the ground, but you need to shift your mindset to be able to trust other employees.
Stay Humble
A good entrepreneur will also stay humble. A cocky entrepreneur is likely new to the game and thinks that they’re on top of the world.
However, veteran entrepreneurs will have faced a few challenges that will humble them. You’ll save yourself some disappointment and bad decisions if you start out humble.
Don’t be too proud to accept advice or support. You may even want to talk to another entrepreneur to get advice on how to build something brand new.
Even the best entrepreneur will have angry customers and problems with employees and products, and they’ll make mistakes. When you stay humble, you can get through these challenges a little bit easier.
Be Decisive
Entrepreneurs will also need to be decisive. You’ll need to make a lot of decisions, and if you can’t make them quickly, your business will fall behind.
Thankfully, if you’re not good at this, it can be an easy thing to practice. Start small, like deciding what you want to order at a restaurant. Then, work your way up to making large decisions for your business.
Don’t Fall In Love With Anything
Often, the business that you’re starting at the beginning isn’t the business that you’ll end up with. The market will change, and you’ll have to be flexible and change to meet your customers’ needs.
That’s why it’s important to not fall in love with your business at any point in time because it will likely change. If you fall in love with it, you may not be able to view your business objectively and might not make the best decisions for your business.
You’ll find yourself trapped in a fixed mindset, unable to see any opportunities or chances in front of you. This can also prevent you from innovating.
When you adopt an entrepreneurial mindset, you’ll also be looking for solutions to solve customers’ problems. This might mean that you need to adjust your service or product.
Some entrepreneurs will be stuck on their original idea, even if it’s not a good idea. When you have flexibility, you can transform your business into a product or service that your customers will be interested in.
Assess Yourself
You must be honest with yourself. If you can’t be honest, you might miss some blind spots.
You shouldn’t be afraid of criticism, even if it comes from yourself. You should be objective.
If you have a setback, don’t let it ruin your progress. Use it as an opportunity to grow and evaluate your business. Make some improvements and then re-examine them to see if you need to make adjustments.
How Do You Know When You Have This Mindset?
While these steps can help ensure that you have an entrepreneurial mindset, you may be wondering how to know you have achieved this goal.
You’ll know that you’ve achieved it when you’re proactive and taking charge of things. If you’re making things happen while still being strategic, you’ve likely been in the right mindset.
You also want to have a growth mindset and feel comfortable with any uncertainty, change, and ambiguity.
Lastly, you need to be comfortable taking risks, but you need to be careful and calculated.
Discover More About How to Build an Entrepreneurial Mindset
These are only a few things that will help you build an entrepreneurial mindset, but finding a business advisor can also help get you thinking right.
When you have a good business coach and consultant on your side, you’ll be able to make the right moves for your business.
If you’re interested in learning more about hiring a coach-consultant who can help your business avoid missteps, adopt an entrepreneurial mindset, and build a foundation for raging growth, get in touch.
Would I be crazy to suggest that we set up a time to talk? Mark R. Steinke 1.610.768.7774 Email Me [email protected]