How Successful Entrepreneurs Handle Failure

How Successful Entrepreneurs Handle Failure

There are many differences that separate the winners in business and life from those who are struggling and falling by the wayside.

One big difference is how they handle failure.  Successful entrepreneurs have a positive mindset around the experience of failure.

When they fail, they look at it as a result.  They took "x" steps and produced "y" result.  "Y" didn't work, so it's back to the drawing board to change the formula and try again.

Many new business owners don't make it out of the gate because as soon as they fail, they figure, "Who am I kidding?  I knew it wouldn't work" and then quit!

If everyone had that mindset, we wouldn't have electricity, airplanes, vaccines ... actually, we'd have pretty much nothing!

Every single success in this world was preceded by one, two -- a thousand failures!

Babe Ruth set a record for the most home runs.  Did you know he also had the record for the most strikeouts?

Thomas Edison failed more than a thousand times before he perfected the light bulb.

If you're not failing, you're not pushing yourself enough.  You are remaining in your comfort zone and cannot expect to reach the level of success you're capable of.

Failure is what allows you to learn and grow.  If you quit as soon as you meet with failure, you will always remain exactly where you are.

Albert Einstein once said, "You cannot solve a problem with the same level of thinking that created it."

And, "The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result."

What these statements teach is, in order to overcome failure, you must think differently and act differently. It is what separates the ordinary from the extraordinary!

You might have to seek out guidance from someone else who can offer the expertise you need.  You may need to inject new perspectives and talent by forming a team around your project.

Fear of failure is one of the biggest obstacles that hold new business owners back.  Failure should not be feared, but embraced because a life lived in fear is a life half lived.

If you're stuck and unable to move forward because of fear of failure or because you have failed in your previous attempt, bring someone else into the mix to offer support and guidance.

Tweak your plan and give it another go.

Engrave the words of the following masters into your mind and never, EVER give up.

Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new. - Albert Einstein

He who fears being conquered is sure of defeat. - Napoleon I

Problems are not stop signs, they are guidelines. - Robert Schuller

2006 © Laurie Hayes - The HBB Source

Do Engineers Make Good Entrepreneurs?

Do Engineers Make Good Entrepreneurs

Today I'd like to talk about the skillset required to start a business.  Specifically, do you need to have a background in engineering?

I hear this used most frequently as an excuse.

"It's just too technical for me to understand."

"I was never good with numbers."

"Things have changed so much since I was in school."

But at the end of the day, these are just that: excuses. I'm here to tell you that engineering is not only NOT required to start a successful business, it could actually hurt your chances!  And this is coming from someone who has their degree in engineering!

1. Engineers are preoccupied with what is possible and what isn't.  Entrepreneurs don't care what others consider possible, and frequently attempt the impossible.

2. Engineers are focused on the present.  They have a problem in front of them and they solve it.  Entrepreneurs are focused on the future.  They see the problem in front of them as a minor distraction on the way toward a larger goal.

3. Engineers feel that if they can make the best product, the company will be successful.  Entrepreneurs realize that it is often the company with the best marketing and financial statements that wins, not necessarily the best product (sad but true).

I've never seen an official study done, but historically speaking, pure engineers who start companies don't do too well.  Nikola Tesla, the inventor of AC electricity and the radio, Charles Goodyear, who made the first rubber that could be used year round, and Johannes Gutenberg, who created the printing press, all died without a cent to their name.

If you happen to be clueless when it comes to technical subjects, don't despair.  You can always pay someone to do the things you don't know how to do.  And it's getting cheaper everyday. (check out www.elance.com or www.guru.com)

If you are a brilliant engineer who is interested in becoming an entrepreneur, then there is also hope for you.  Simply realize that technical work has very little to do with running a successful company, and devote yourself to learning the skills of business: marketing, communication, and cash flow, to name a few.  Your engineering background will still serve you as an advantage, but it won't be a key to your success.

Most entrepreneurs realize at some point that their time is much too valuable to be spent on the everyday technical problems.  Don't let your educational background (or lack thereof) hold you back from starting a business!

Empowering Your Manager

"So much of what we call management consists in making it difficult for people to work."
- Peter Drucker

Managing is often equated with controls rather than leading and developing a business.  The manager feels more comfortable and secure when they are able to put in strict controls on everything that happens in a business organization.  This is so especially of Senior Managements where the controls and directing becomes so severe that it erodes any creative freedom for the middle managers to work towards achieving the goals set out for them.

Here are a few simple prescriptions to get the best out of your managers.

Empowering Your Manager

Avoid Centralizing Decision Making

This is perhaps one of the best ways to achieve totals control.  You feel by centralizing decision making you will be able to avoid wrong decisions.  While this may be so to some extent who is to prevent your own wrong decisions.  Unless your managers are able to make mistakes and learn from them you will never be able to develop expertise through experience.  Centralizing decision making is also the surest method to kill your business growth.

Provide Working Space

The top management often entrust tasks and responsibilities to their subordinate managers.  More often than not any specific time frames which are comfortable to achieve the given responsibilities or tasks are discussed.   However in their anxiety or aggressiveness and sometimes over enthusiasm you start chasing your subordinate for action and results.  If you do it too soon and too often you are severely limited the working space of your managers.  They may be spending more time in complying with your commands rather than focusing on operational priorities and important tasks.

If you are not providing sufficient working space for your managers you are surely heading towards disaster as important tasks may be getting neglected to escape from your frequent and aggressive follow ups.

Listen to Your Managers

While experience is an asset it also makes one arrogant and conceited.  Sometimes one tends to believe because he is the superior, he always right.  The Boss Is Always Right principle looks good only on posters.  It doesn’t work if you want to build a Professional organization.

Cultivate the ability to listen to the voice of your managers.  Most times they know better as they are more familiar with the ground realities.  If you decide on their behalf and just issue orders, you will have clerks in the guise of managers as you have killed their initiative.

Don’t Get Into the Nitty Gritties

Once broad goals and objectives are set with specific time frames and key results are outlined leave your managers to perform.  If you get into too many details and meddle with the execution at every stage, you may be sure to mess up the entire process and ultimately the results.

The key to managing effectively is to empower people across the management structure so that they feel part of the responsibility and ownership.

Entrepreneurship A Leap Of Faith

 A Leap Of Faith

Entrepreneurship is a multifaceted adventure that, without a doubt, closely resembles a roller coaster ride.  When you begin an entrepreneurial journey or “ride,” you are aware of the gamut of experiences, both disappointing and rewarding, that you will encounter as you undertake this challenge.

Entrepreneurial challenges are not unlike most challenges in life.  Hard work, long hours, and anxious moments are just a few of the characteristics of the journey to most successful outcomes.

Reoccurring questions often roam the business mind, and---although they may be phrased in a variety of ways---are basically centered on these four primary issues: more sales, more cash, more time, and more of the “right” people.

Starting your own business is an undertaking that requires more than vision, inspiration, sweat equity, money and determination.  It is a leap of faith that demands that you let go of everything that is safe, comfortable, and proven.  It is getting “outside the box” in the biggest way possible.

Beginning a new business venture can be risky, dangerous, and harrowing.  However, with the proper preparation, the appropriate knowledge, and the counsel of a mentor or a trusted advisor, it can be a liberating and an extremely rewarding experience.

There’s a reason why many of America’s most successful people are entrepreneurs who started their own business and then saw them take off to unimaginable heights.  There’s a reason why the Horatio Algers of the world continue to inspire thousands of entrepreneurs every day.  

There is a reason why some of America’s greatest companies started with an idea, with meager seed capital, and with an individual who had a maniacal belief in the potential of an idea, and--- along with determination and perseverance--- saw it through to success.

However, for every success, there are hundreds of failures.  The statistics are not only sobering, but downright frightening. More than half of all businesses started today will fail. The failure rate is astounding.  Take a look at recent U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data, and this is what you will discover:  After two years, across all sectors, 44 percent of all new businesses are no longer in business.  After four years, 66 percent no longer exist.  And, these survival rates don’t vary much by industry.

What do the statistics tell us?  That most new businesses—whether they’re founded on the most brilliant idea since the theory of relativity or production of a mundane but exquisitely necessary manufacturing component—are making fatal mistakes that will ultimately lead them to bankruptcy.  This much is certain. If more than half of all new ventures fail, there are lessons that are not being learned.

Home Based Business Network Marketing

Home Based Business Network Marketing

Numerous businesses are going to offer you the opportunity to become a distributor of their products or service. While many offer this opportunity free of charge, others may charge a fee similar to a franchise fee, due to their willingness to set up a website with you name on it and by offering you instruction on how to make it succeed. 

Regardless of their motives behind the willingness to share their knowledge, you do have the opportunity to share in the wealth of internet business operations. Where many people make the mistake in getting involved in a home based business is they believe that just by filling out the online forms and paying the franchise fees they will start making money immediately. 

They do not think about they came to be involved in this opportunity, that someone was marketing this plan to them and in order to grow their new business, they are going to have to market it to others. 

There are numerous ways to do this, such as old-fashion advertising, handing out business cards or even putting you web address on the side of your vehicle to be seen while you drive to the grocery store. All that may be good to draw a half dozen people or so to your new business venture, but to help it really grow will take network marketing to succeed. 

Oil millionaire J. Paul Getty is often quoted as saying he would rather have one percent of the efforts of 100 people than 100 percent of his own efforts, and that is the basis of network marketing. The Kirby vacuum cleaner company devised its own form of network marketing as far back as 1935 before the word was oined and the concept totally understood. That company knew that to sell their sweepers, a personal presentation was needed.They had a few dealers with whom they shared the profits of their sales and using their proven methods they taught others to sell the sweepers and each person who was brought in a sales representative could also share in the profits off the efforts of others. 

While a few people may make a lot of money in a short period of time with network marketing, most grow their business slowly. First, they must learn the business and how to market it as their own home based business. By devoting a set number of hours every day or every week they learn from the company sponsoring them how to market the product or service they are selling. They can then train others to be successful, teaching them to market the product or service and make money from their sales as well. The more people they have working under them, the more money they can make.