First Step Marketing

Flexibility

Nothing about running a business is predictable. People who tend to thrive as entrepreneurs are those who were bored as employees because they knew exactly what they would be doing when they got up in the morning.

There are chaos junkies, and then there are those who view life through a rigid viewfinder. Somewhere in that vast middle are entrepreneurs, who need to borrow a little from each side. After all, once you’re running your business you need to be flexible enough to change your strategy when powers beyond your control flex their muscles, yet you need to stick to your guns when forces all around you are compelling you to change. Again, it’s a question of balance, and you should expect to make mistakes while you try to find your own best middle ground. It’s all a part of the entrepreneurial life.

Drive to Succeed

How badly do you need to win? What are you prepared to do in order to get there?

As an entrepreneur, you will at times be called on to break all the rules and do whatever it takes to grow your business. This could range from tapping out your personal financial reserves to hopping on a plane and flying all day to win over a new account.

Do you give up easily when a hard challenge looms? Or do you lick your lips with relish, knowing that you will be pushed to well beyond your limits in order to succeed at a given project or task? Though this may appear to be a skill that some people are born with, it’s not. Frequently it’s the people who are the most unenthusiastic about their responsibilities when working for someone else who break out with incredible energy and ideas when they start their own businesses.

A People Person

Whether it’s coworkers, colleagues, or clients, and even if you spend most of your day working by yourself, you’ll still need basic people skills to communicate with customers and to let them know about your business in the first place. If your business is the kind where you are surrounded by people all day long, you may tend to compensate for the overload by playing a hermit at night.

Try to keep in touch with your people limits so that you know when you need to take a break. Otherwise, you could lose a customer along with your temper when you start to approach the breaking point. Always keep in mind that you should treat every person you meet in the course of doing business with the same kind of attention and respect that you expect from other people.

A Sense of Humor

This is perhaps the most valuable skill you could ever have as a business owner. Sometimes life gets so absurd, and the challenges involved in running a company become so great that a time-out for laughter is necessary. Laughing at it all not only helps you regain your perspective, but it also provides several of the same physical benefits as does exercise. Peter McLaughlin says that “laughter stimulates many of the same positive physiological changes as exercise: deeper breathing, lower heart rate, decreased blood pressure, and a general feeling of relaxation. Humor engenders a powerful, even somewhat miraculous sense of balance, perspective, and joy that allows you to flourish in the midst of a tough business environment.”

So go ahead and laugh: it’s good for you—and your business.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 15th, 2008 at 9:53 pm and is filed under Business Management, Career Management, Home Based Business, Jobs, Startup, financial. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.