Mastering the role of the entrepreneur is an ongoing journey. You will never be perfect, but you can begin to practice the right skills to assist you on your journey towards success. Whether you’ve been in business for years or are just starting out, the role of an entrepreneur requires a mix of creativity, resilience, strategy, and luck. In this post, we will explore key entrepreneur skills you can begin to practise to help you improve yourself, your business, and your team.
Define Your Role
This is the first and essential step to knowing the role of an entrepreneur. In order to know where you’re going, you have to define it. It can be hard to differentiate between what your responsibilities are as an entrepreneur as most of the time, especially in the beginning, it feels as if you are making it all up as you go along!
Vision to Strategy
Your first order of business, as having the role of an entrepreneur, is to develop your vision. Where do you want to be in 5 years after starting this business? You need to define this vision clearly – I mean to the dot. I’ll give you an example of why this is so important.
Imagine your 5 year goal is financial freedom, to travel wherever you want, whenever you want, and to be able to stop working when you please. Okay, now you start a company because that’s the best way to make money, right? Although, now you’re 5 years in, working 100 hour weeks just to keep the business running. You created a monster you have to feed you time too instead of your dream future because it wasn’t defined properly.
Building a Leading Team
Your business is only as strong as the team you have behind it. You cannot do everything as an entrepreneur. The role of an entrepreneur is to build a team of people who are smarter than you. Different people will know more about finance, marketing, branding, sales, coding, and human resources than you, your job is to find them and combine them using your vision. Think of it like this, imagine you are rowing from France to the UK alone compared to rowing with a team of professional rowers and you as their expert guide. Who do you think will get to the UK faster?
You start building a team by looking at the skills you lack. Yes you could go out there and learn the skill your self if you have the time, but hiring a team is about freeing up your time and growing your business so it will eventually be able to run on automation. Once you have your team built, your job is to inspire them and plant your vision in their minds. This way you can ensure you and your team are on the right track to hit your goals. Building a strong team is a key role of an entrepreneur.
Marketing and Sales: Driving Growth
The first step in your entrepreneurial journey should be to figure out EXACTLY who you are going to sell to. This is crucial as if you just “sell to everyone”, you are equally selling to no one. Alex Hormozi has a very good example of marketing, he says imagine you own a hot dog stand and position yourself in the city centre at 2am on a Saturday night when all the clubs close. It doesn’t matter if your hot dogs taste awful, you are going to sell out.
Start by identifying their why. Why are they going to buy your product, what pain do you solve? Fully understanding your target market allows you to target the right people with the right message. A great way to get started with entrepreneurship these days is to actually not sell anything first, but produce valuable content for free to a target audience.
If you produce content or any other form of value for free over an extended period of time, you will build an audience. The reason why this is so beneficial is because now when you release a product directly to your audience, they are much more likely to buy as they trust you. They are what’s know as “hot traffic” compared to “cold traffic”.
Embracing Technology
If your business is not online today, your chances of survival will decrease significantly. In todays digital age, embracing technology is essential for the role of an entrepreneur. Leveraging technology will make your company more productive, efficient, and drive growth. Let’s explore how you can make the most of technology as an entrepreneur.
Management Software for Operations
Using management software such as Monday or Trello will allow you to streamline operations in your business. They will help keep you stay organised and on track for your weekly and monthly targets. For example, in Monday, your team can assign different tasks to each other and set a deadline, they also receive a notification when a task has been assigned so you can assure they won’t miss it.
Automating Routine Tasks with AI
One of the most effective ways to build brand awareness now a days is to regularly produce content. It has now never been easier to produce content with AI. AI will allow you to create content at scale as you can get Chat GPT to write or create something for you, then you just write it back in your own words.
I would never just copy and paste AI content and showcase it directly to your customers. The reason for this is first of all it’s not necessarily your content, and second you are at the mercy of your chosen social media and search engines. You do not know if in the future these platforms will no longer accept AI content and end up banning all sites and profiles that only produce AI content.
Adapting to the Role of an Entrepreneur
One of the best ways to adopt the role of an entrepreneur is to start identifying and acting as an entrepreneur. What do I mean by this? Well ask yourself, what does an entrepreneur do?
Attend Conferences and Webinars
Conferences and webinars will keep you up to date with the latest business and marketing trends. It will also give you the chance to network with other entrepreneurs in your industry, allowing you to discover new things and connect with new people. Many networking events can be done online now so there’s no excuse to not meet other entrepreneurs.
Hiring the Right Team
This will be the most important aspect of starting your company. Your team will carry you to the finish line. If you adopt the role of an entrepreneur, you need to make sure your team shares your vision for the company as deeply as you do. This will ensure they are as motivated and disciplined to get to the finish line as you are.
To hire a team, start defining what skills you are lacking. You may be a great marketer, but suck when it comes to managing your finances. In that case, hire an accountant. Don’t rush with this process, take time to interview and really find the person you’re looking for.
Conclusion
Mastering the role of an entrepreneur is filled with adaptation, growth and continuous learning. No matter what you do, never lose that child-like curiosity as an entrepreneur. If you want to test a new business idea you’re really excited about, DO IT! Read books, take courses, attend seminars, and stay open to new ideas, as you never know where they will lead you.
Thank you for your time and I hope to see you again in the next post. Also, if you’re an online entrepreneur, be sure to check out our awesome free tools designed specifically to help with your online marketing!
