Are you a first-time entrepreneur? Then, you must be feeling overwhelmed, wondering how to make the business make sense. Starting your business can be exciting but also challenging. You will experience so many challenges but you will also learn how to navigate them.
Today, we share five strategies to help you achieve success on your entrepreneurial journey.
- Plan!Plan
As the common adage goes, if you fail to plan, you plan to fail. First-time entrepreneurs fail to plan, a common mistake made by all people generally. Planning allows you to think broadly about your business. What do you need, when do you need it, and what is the financial cost. The financial cost will require you to make a 1-3 year plan. Make those projections, and see whether the business is financially viable.
Also, it helps you plan what to buy in terms of equipment; how to hire staff and how much to pay them. What location to get as you plan for rent. How much working capital do you need? Following the plan makes the journey smooth. Adjustments can be done along the way.
- Visually organize your ideas
There is power in visual aids. According to Google, a Visual aid is an item of illustrative matter, such as a film, slide, or model, designed to supplement written or spoken information so that it can be understood more easily.
Visually organise your company’s information and ideas once the research process has been completed. Organise it in a way that is simple to understand.
According to apacentreprenuer.com, “Positive, Negative, and Interesting – It is a scheme that helps to analyze and organize different aspects of an idea. You divide it into three columns, and in one, you fill in the positive points, in another the negative ones, and in the third column write, what you think is interesting and deserves a reflection. Criteria such as utility, acceptability, sustainability, and others can be used to define a point as positive, negative, or engaging. “
Identify the positive, negative and interesting aspects of your ideas. Fill in the gaps. Ask the hard questions. Bring people on board to help you with this process.
Most importantly, visual aids show you what you’re working toward building. They act as the light at the end of the tunnel. They keep hope alive. Each day you work towards the finished product.
- Networking
‘A successful entrepreneur makes new contacts and maintains existing ones to help grow and form partnerships.’-apacentreprenuer.com
Networking is a key ingredient to growing as an entrepreneur. It is at networking events where you meet like-minded people. These people fall into various categories-startups, already existing, established businessmen and women with over 10 years of experience and others with over 30+ years running businesses.
There is room to connect with all these people and glean their wisdom and knowledge.
Once contacts are built, these same entrepreneurs will offer support to your business. Some will become suppliers, others will advertise your products and services which assist in the development of your company.
Uganda has a number of events and associations of which you can be part including BNI, UWEAL and Harvest Money run by New Vision. Churches also have their own business SACCOs and events around them. Civsource has the Grow program for leaders. Worship harvest ministries run Harvest Institute for leaders. There is also the New Generation Mentoring Program that takes on young Christian ladies who desire to make an impact in the marketplace. Join these spaces and meet new people, network and grow your contacts.
- Don’t stop learning
Learning is a crucial aspect of growth. Always be willing to learn. COVID-19 forced entrepreneurs to learn and adapt new ways of doing business. It interrupted the way the world worked thus forcing the world to get innovative. Only businesses that were innovative stayed afloat.
Open yourself up to learning new skills and new ways of doing things. How much do you know about digital marketing? Can you learn from an expert and apply the tricks to your business? How are others making their products better? Learn from them. Always seek to improve your product and give people a better experience.
Study and search for information. Pay attention to trends and do thorough research on them. The business world is dynamic and so is the information about the business. Master your area of expertise.
- Refuse to quit
Rieva Lesonsky, the founder of Growbiz media, said, “Arm yourself with optimism to get past the ‘no’ or the difficulty. If this fails, there is nothing wrong. Don’t repeat the same mistake!’’
Entrepreneurship is a demanding journey that will force you to self-doubt and lose confidence in yourself. It has quitting written all over it. But to be successful takes courage. Sometimes you receive 1000 nos before that yes comes.
According to apacentreprenuer.com, “Not many people realize that before Bill Gates created the incredibly successful Microsoft 3.0, he created Microsoft 1.0 and 2.0, both of which failed – but he kept going. And that determination and unwillingness to give up is what will separate successful entrepreneurs from those who fail. “
In conclusion, entrepreneurship is not all rosy but it is worth it. Put in the hard work. Passion alone is not enough. Apply the five tips above and we hope they lay a good foundation for you to launch a stable business.
Leave a Reply