You need to develop five habits to become an entrepreneur that takes decisive action.
Come up with easy, simple ways to test ideas.
You must develop the habit of asking the right questions about your business ideas.
Then you formulate easy ways to test your ideas to see if they’ll work.
Why? Because when you are starting a business, you need to find out as quickly as possible- if your product or service will sell.
You need to develop a product that you can sell to your business.
But before you roll out your product, you want to know in advance if your customers will buy them.
The only way you can know your product will sell is to find simple, easy ways to test your products.
Learn to spend more time selling
The most important thing a business does is sell products and services to its customers.
And that is what you must do as an entrepreneur when you start your business.
You must learn to spend less time thinking about or spending money on items like business cards, getting a trademark name, or leasing an office.
Instead, you must focus on making the first sale, then another sale, and so forth.
Selling is the essential thing that will make your business grow. All other activity you do to start your business is secondary.
I think it’s worth repeating that…
You must focus on making your first sale and then keep selling until your business becomes profitable.
A successful entrepreneur acts quickly to make the first sale because he knows that selling is the lifeblood of a business.
You must capitalize on the first mover advantage.
Have you ever heard the word “early adopter”?
An early adopter is someone who, in addition to buying or using a company’s product, will provide candid feedback.
Early adopters are known as trendsetters because they have an advantage over others by adopting a new way of doing things.
One reason highly successful companies surpass their competitors is because they are early adopters of innovative technology or way of doing business.
As a result, companies that are early adopters win- because they have an undue advantage over their competitors.
For example, Amazon is a business that has capitalized on being an early adopter.
When Jeff Bezos started the idea of having an online mail-order bookstore, he was exploiting the power of the Internet to provide goods and services for his customers at a lower cost.
The traditional book publishers were slow to identify the advantage of the Internet in enhancing their business.
By the time, major publishing houses realized it…their market dominance had been usurped by upstarts like Amazon, Barnes, and Noble
Another example of capitalizing on first mover advantage is what Pierre Omidyar, founder of EBay Inc., did with online auctions.
Before the Internet, most people would donate unused gifts, clothes, and memorabilia to charity or throw them away.
eBay capitalized versatility of the Internet to create a platform for everyone to buy and sell unwanted items.
EBay then grew its business by also creating a payment platform using PayPal so that members could have hassle-free transactions
Learn to make the right decisions rather than make decisions right
To be an action entrepreneur makes the right decisions.
Making the right decisions means when you are faced with a situation that requires taking action:
You weigh things quickly and then take decisive action.
The opposite of making the right decisions is trying to make decisions right. This means you get bogged down trying to make sure everything is perfect before making a decision.
The result of trying to make decisions right is analysis paralysis, procrastination, and delay in starting your business.
The solution to procrastination is adopting the “ready, fire aim” approach to your decision-making process.
Here’s how you use the ready-fire-aim style to make business decisions:
- For example, when you want to start a business, try to know as much information about the business, to the point you are confident that you know enough to start
- then you start a business or take a decision not to pursue a business idea
- Assuming you started a business and you realize your assumptions were not correct. You Quickly take action to make amends and move on.
Rapidly convert learning to action.
Successful entrepreneurs are fast learners. In addition, most highly successful entrepreneurs are practical learners who quickly use their learning to improve their businesses.
The greatest mistake you can make starting your business is:
Wasting time attending seminars, getting higher degrees, and taking home courses on your business. Without converting what you learned into tangible action.
I have a friend who is ever attending business seminars and buying business books but, up till today, has not started his own business.
On the other hand, I know a friend who learned graphic design in his spare time and started a graphic design business. His part-time business paid for his college tuition.
I have been caught trying to learn about a business without converting my learning into action.
The solution: avoid spending too much time on learning without action.
You should spend 25 percent of your time studying.
Spend 25 percent of your time practicing.
Spend the remaining 50 percent of your time applying what you learn to improve your business
The bottom line is that starting a business requires time, capital, and energy.
Highly successful entrepreneurs have learned how to become super productive by taking decisive action.
You can also succeed in starting your business when you learn to take decisive action.