If you have ever wondered how you could become a successful solo entrepreneur, now is the time to try it out. The number of people working as solo entrepreneurs has grown significantly in the last few years. This growth has occurred exponentially as social media, online networking, and eCommerce sites have increased in their popularity. Here are a few steps that will put you on the path to being a successful solo entrepreneur.

Motivation to Succeed

Being an entrepreneur isn’t always easy, in fact, it rarely is. You don’t usually have a supervisor giving you deadlines or a manager giving you new ideas to increase your productivity. As an entrepreneur, you play all of those roles yourself and need to give yourself the motivation to succeed. There are lots of different ways to find that motivation. If you have products that inspire you or entrepreneur goals that you are really deeply passionate about, those desires will provide a large part of the motivation that you’ll need to be successful.

A Positive Reputation

One of the best things that you can do to attract more business or attention to your entrepreneurial efforts is to develop a positive reputation. If your company has a positive reputation for good products and effective service that proceeds you, you’re likely to attract many more customers. An effective way to do this is to get your current customers to leave reviews and spread the word about their positive experiences with your company. If you simply ask your customers, 60% are likely to leave a review.

Cultivate Curiosity and Creativity

Any kind of entrepreneurial work requires a good amount of curiosity and creativity, so do your best to cultivate those attributes in your employees and in yourself. Being curious can lead you to wonder how your company and services can fulfill the needs of your customers and solve the problems that they run into during their daily lives. Curiosity can help you to come up with innovative and unique solutions. Creativity can help you to bring those solutions to life in the form of products and can enable you to market them in an attention-grabbing way.

Don’t Equate “Solo” as “Siloed” 

Consider ways to build up a network of supporting people and organizations. Use membership-driven sites like Alignable and LinkedIn. Consider collaborations and business opportunities to share best practices and lessons learned. One of my favorite s, as I often work with non-profits includes NTEN.

So, don’t be so quick to give up on your entrepreneur ideas. Try out these different steps that will help you to maintain the passion and creativity that your ideas require. As you do so, you’ll be on the path to success as an entrepreneur. Remember that no matter what your experience with entrepreneur work is, you have the potential to be successful as long as you believe in your ideas and yourself.

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Being an entrepreneur takes guts.

It isn’t for the fate of the heart. As you take on the task of building your own business, there will be a lot of hurdles. But while you may be anticipating the external hurdles like financial stressors, you should also consider some of the more personal obstacles that you will have to work through.

Perfectionism

According to YouInc, trying to do everything perfectly can result in tunnel vision. When you have tunnel vision as an entrepreneur, you become more rigid, and it becomes more difficult to adapt when new situations come your way. For example, as a young used car dealer, you will face situation after situation where a buyer backs out or where a seller is late, or where a car has issues that you did not expect.

Learning to let little issues slide to achieve your bigger goals will help you not only move forward and be successful but will also help you feel more motivated.

Fear

Being afraid of failure might also be inhibiting you from building the business of your dreams. For a lot of prospective entrepreneurs, the main fear they face is not being able to make enough money to get the business up and rolling. According to Franchise Gator, not getting the financing needed is a common fear among entrepreneurs. And then, they fear not having success when they finally do.

Figuring out how to combat this fear is different for everyone. But start by developing a solid business plan. Work through the gaps and the holes in your ideas. As you do this, you’ll be able to make your fears into more concrete and specific issues to figure out instead of looming scary amorphous threats.

Stubbornness

Another big obstacle for entrepreneurs is their own stubbornness. When you build a business from scratch, you naturally get attached to it. But becoming so attached to your business and its current setup can result in missing opportunities or becoming irrelevant quickly.

Figure out how to channel your stubbornness differently. According to EBI Career College, instead of trying to hold onto your current business plan when your data shows it’s not working, you should direct that stubbornness towards finding the best way to tweak your business approach to maximize your offerings and attract the most customers.

While working through things like perfectionism and stubbornness will certainly help you as an entrepreneur, don’t let yourself get too hung up about these things. Ultimately, you can position these different obstacles as strengths. And if you work at it and are willing to pivot when necessary, you’ll be able to get your business off the ground.

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Part of a “career” is development—in skills, in roles or duties, and in opportunities for more of whatever you intended to do with that position. If you are looking for ways to access these opportunities (especially in a new career where you are fresh to the scene), start with networking, additional schooling, and side projects to get you the increased exposure you need!

Find Networking Opportunities

Building relationships with people—with everyone—should be your priority in career advancements. Look for opportunities to connect with people within your field. Conventions, lectures, presentations, and regional meetings are chances to network, to introduce yourself and your skills to people who may be able to use them. Talk with everyone you can, and offer your time or resources. Let them know you are ready and willing to work with them on their projects! Networking expands your reach more than a good resume can, so take advantage of these opportunities.

Go Back to School

Another means for further opportunities is to become qualified in more (or specialized) areas. Consider going back to school! Attend training that will certify you in specialized skills, setting you apart from other professionals. The more skills you can offer, the more you will find opportunities to utilize those skills. These “specializations” range widely—you can become licensed in managing human resources in business, in a trade you may look into expanding your options with various materials, or if you want a marketable skill to get you into the community scene you may consider licensure for real estate. Real estate courses typically require several hours of instruction. This is an easy way to add a valuable skill to your resume. Whatever you choose, adding education and certification to your skills set will open many doors for you!

Start Personal Projects

Combine networking, education, and personal passions by coming up with personal side projects. This demonstrates to employers that you are dedicated to furthering your impact in the field you are in and it gives you a reason to reach out to people in and out of your normal circle who may be interested in investing more! Utilize your resources, stretch yourself, and experiment with new ways of completing tasks. Be innovative! New ideas mean new opportunities to show your abilities to grow as an employee and therefore help grow the business you work for.

Even in a new career, you can find ways to increase your opportunities and develop as a professional. Improve your relationships, knowledge, and ideas. You’ll find doors open for you quickly!

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Are you looking to improve your company in new and innovative ways? There are lots of short-term and long-term goals that you can set for business changes to improve your company. Here are a few suggestions that will help you to make important changes to your business that will encourage your employees to keep working at your business.

Promote Innovation

One of the best ways to progress your business productivity and to keep your employees engaged and interested is to promote innovation in your workplace. Encourage your employees to think outside the box in solving business issues and in creating services and products. Help your employees to feel empowered and capable of making their own innovative decisions. Try to encourage employees to work together rather than competing against each other, as they will be able to help each other to come up with new, innovative ideas. This will help your business work be more enjoyable and your employees feel more fulfilled.

Solve Issues

One of the ways to solve issues in your workplace is to examine the development cycle of your employees. The development cycle includes six stages: Attraction, Recruitment, Onboarding, Development, Retention, and Separation. Ideally, when you attract, recruit and onboard a new employee, you hope to retain them for as long as possible. However, this isn’t always the case. If you identify during which of these stages you tend to lose the most employees, you’ll know how to solve some issues in your workplace. Following a development cycle allows you to see what needs to change and what is working.

Be an Approachable Leader

One of the most important changes that you can make in your company is improving your ability to be approachable as a leader. Employees never like feeling like they are unsupported and unable to ask for help. If your employees feel that you are approachable as a leader or supervisor, they will be encouraged to work harder. One of the great ways to help your employees trust in you is to take one on one time with each of them and learn about their concerns and dreams as well as their personal lives. Your employees are much more likely to approach you with issues or questions if they feel that you care about them individually.

Just Don’t Listen, Hear

When you decide it’s time to get feedback, before you launch, truly ask yourself; “are you open to hearing what they are saying?”. Once you can answer that question. Then and only then, will feedback become not a negative experience. Rather it becomes a positive opportunity to explore new perspectives, revisit previous decisions, and lay out new and innovative changes. It may be uncomfortable, but so is growth.

Start today to implement these different ideas in your workplace. If you personalize these suggestions to meet the needs of your employees, you are guaranteed to see excellent results. Cultivating a happy, trusting environment in your workplace will eliminate a lot of problems and encourage your employees to work longer for your business.

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As a business owner, it can be easy to get burned out of the work you are doing. While you are happy about your company’s success and feel good about its direction, you are still getting tired and feel unfulfilled. This can be a pretty normal thing for managers to feel. Preventing it takes some work and different strategies so things can feel fresh.

Delegate Tasks

Never underestimate the power of delegation. If you have a lot of boring, tedious tasks and you aren’t feeling up to them, it is perfectly acceptable to pass them on to your employees. This can allow you to focus on bigger picture problems to improve your business.

Some tasks are so mindless that they might not even be appropriate for an employee. This is when you should think about automation. Automated tasks are becoming increasingly popular, as it saves company resources and keeps your mind away from repetitive responsibilities like sending emails and starting live chats.

Stick to a Few Things That Work

When a business is doing well, employees tend to overcompensate by trying to do too many things at once. In these cases, it can be incredibly easy to get tired and cave to the many responsibilities you gave yourself. If you feel that you have stretched yourself too thin like this, it is time to simplify.

Reduce the number of products and advertisements you are working on. You should stick with 2 or 3 social media accounts because any more than that can overwhelm you. These are just a couple of examples of simplifying your process. Once you have a better sense of the direction of your company, you could maybe get these parts of your business back up.

Take a Break

Being able to rest and take a step back from work is about more than just preventing short or long term burnout, it is crucial for mental health. Using your breaks effectively can also increase your productivity and general morale. A break could be something as simple as an evening hike outdoors, a walk during your lunch, or getting a coffee with a friend. 

Different break activities will provide different results, healthier snack options, exercise, stretching, or meditation will prove to be more beneficial than candy or coffee breaks. Efficient, regular breaks will benefit office morale and productivity to reduce burnout.

Be Forward-Thinking

One of the worst things that can happen to a business owner is that they lose their foresight. Company managers should express hope and excitement toward the direction of the business, regardless of what it might be facing. If you find yourself burning out, you might be trying to make it day by day.

The best way to tackle a stressful or unpredictable situation is to take them head-on. Set goals and make smaller plans to try to meet them. Let your goals excite you. Talk with your team about them.

Burnout is a real thing for every business owner and content creator. It isn’t possible to always be going at full speed. However, you can overcome some of these challenges by thinking ahead and being grateful for the success you’ve had so far.

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