There are more than 25 million startup businesses in the US and they are responsible for US job market growth.
According to the Small Business Administration, small-scale companies added 1.4 million new jobs in the year 2014 and 39% of those jobs were added by very small firms.
Despite such impressive statistics, a large number of small businesses are destined for failure. Experts believe as many as 96% startups will fail within first 10 years. A smart entrepreneur is one who fights against all odds and becomes successful.
How to Become a Successful Entrepreneur
How do they succeed? They follow the below-listed smart tips on how to become a successful entrepreneur:
Social Media for Networking
Networking is invaluable in business, especially when it comes to small business success. Industry insiders have “been there, done that.” If you can forge a network with them, your chances of success will greatly escalate.
The best way to create a network is attending industry meetings, tradeshows and business summits. However, small businesses lack the privilege of sitting next to the big guys in business summits. Hence, they have to depend on referrals and testimonials from previous clients.
Using social media is the smart way to build a network with industry influencers. LinkedIn is the defacto meetup place for professionals. A premium membership can give you access to the CEOs and CFOs profiles. You can send them add request upfront or at least get their contact details and then proceed to build a network with them.
Besides LinkedIn, Twitter also helps. Visit the Twitter profile of successful entrepreneurs, comb through their followers list and notice how they interact with them.
Someone said it right, to become wealthy you need to connect to wealthy people. Social media does this for you.
Discover Wealth-building Secrets
The unsaid rule is nobody wants to share their secrets with you, especially when it comes to building wealth. Very few reveal their strategies. One of them is Sam Ovens. He’s from New Zealand and he explained with great details how he overrode frustration and obstacles to become wealthy.
Sam is not alone. The promised boat came for all those who patiently waited, faced their fears, had a vision, had realistic goals and relied on teamwork. Yes, there have been entrepreneurs who failed despite ticking all these checkboxes. They failed because they couldn’t build their brand.
This is the best kept secret to building wealth. All the top brands including Google, KFC, Starbucks, Walmart, Amazon, Apple have a human-like persona. They have donned the humane avatar, which is compatible with the human-era in branding. Brand building can hook audiences and finally lead to wealth-building.
Arrange VC Funding
Securing VC funding is critical to small business success. Venture capitalists not only pour money but offer mentorship. But in order to be a candidate for venture funding, your business needs to have a strong proposition.
The 2015 Product Hunt Singapore Meetup produced some innovative strategies for startup firms. One of these strategies was deliberately letting a product fail, only to identify its shortcomings. Small businesses can adopt the same approach when they seek VC funding.
Don’t expect the first VC firm to usher in all the money your business needs. Expect refusal instead. When your business’s candidacy is refused, identify the reasons that led to the candidacy being declined. Uniqueness is an important requirement. Make sure the product/service you are offering is not a copycat and a degree of innovation is involved.
Embrace Automation
An entrepreneur can become wealthy in two ways – by making sky-high profit or by cutting down the business operating cost. The benefit of embracing automation is he doesn’t have to choose one. Automation ensures both.
Automation lowers cost in more ways than one. Cloud-based application eliminates the need to have a physical office. If you find that extreme, at least you can hire staff from different parts of the world. It doesn’t end there. You can even eliminate the need to have physical computers and WiFi access point.
Automation fast tracks your marketing efforts. Despite a surge in adblocker usage, Ads are still the marketing driver. Automation brings entrepreneurs programmatic advertising, letting them zero in on the most targeted demographics and impress them with customized action statements.
Put simply, not embracing automation is a grave mistake for aspiring entrepreneur. Automation falsifies the adage that lowering cost and innovation don’t go hand in hand, ultimately benefiting startups.
Overcoming Mobility Challenges
Enterprise mobility is an umbrella term. It lists all the challenges that a wannabe entrepreneur is likely to face. Among the 7 key mobility challenges, I discussed earlier, small businesses are most ill-equipped for IoT and lead nurturing.
IoT technologies, especially machine-to-machine (M2M) solutions are quite expensive. So, small businesses have valid reasons for not adopting it. But the BYOD agenda can be a harbinger of IoT as different employees may bring different devices and syncing and integration between them may force the business owner to migrate to IPv6.
Harnessing automation helps in these areas, but here are two things that are even more important:
- The entrepreneur’s willingness to set up a mobility-driven environment at work. A small business needs to have a vibrant atmosphere. Mobility ensures vibrance.
- What’s even more important is an open environment where information are shared quickly among the employees, barring classified information about the company. Information sharing has its benefits and leads to entrepreneurial success.
You can adopt a mobile-first approach just in case you prioritize enterprise mobility.
Summing Up
Everyone dreams of becoming a successful entrepreneur. But very few actually put in the effort. Dreams turn into reality when one acts upon those dreams. The five tips discussed here makes the job a little bit easier.
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This article, “5 Smart Tips for How to Become a Successful Entrepreneur” was first published on Small Business Trends