Be A Great Entrepreneur

An inspiring guide to achieving success and fulfilling your business potential

Alex Macmillan

• Publisher: Teach Yourself
• Year: 2010
• Print ISBN: 9781444100648
• eBook ISBN: 9781444129106
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Entrepreneurship
• Index: Business

There is no hotter topic than entrepreneurship in today's world of business and this is the perfect guide for anyone wanting to develop their entrepreneurial skills and fulfil their business potential. Containing lots of practical advice, it also features interviews with successful entrpreneurs who have a wealth of experience to share. Coverage includes the different types of entrepreneurial opportunity out there, how to maintain passion, persistence and personal drive and how to outskill your competitors. There is also a final chapter on how to maximise the value of your business for selling, should you decide to move on to other challenges or to retire. Written by a leading expert on entrepreneurship, this is a must-have for anyone looking to be the next Alan Sugar!
NOT GOT MUCH TIME?One, five and ten-minute introductions to key principles to get you started.
AUTHOR INSIGHTSLots of instant help with common problems and quick tips for success, based on the author's many years of experience.
TEST YOURSELFTests in the book and online to keep track of your progress.
EXTEND YOUR KNOWLEDGEExtra online articles at www.teachyourself.com to give you a richer understanding of entrepreneurship.
FIVE THINGS TO REMEMBERQuick refreshers to help you remember the key facts.
TRY THISInnovative exercises illustrate what you've learnt and how to use it.

1

What if your entrepreneurial dream happened?

In this chapter you will learn:

• what exactly an entrepreneur is
• how employees and entrepreneurs think differently
• how to be successful in your own business
• what can stop you from becoming an entrepreneur
• the importance of being happy and successful

‘Every time something happens, positive or negative, I ask myself, where is the opportunity here?’

Richard Lowden, founder of Green Motion Car Rental

‘Business opportunities are like buses, there’s always another one coming.’

Richard Branson, founder of Virgin

A few years from now

You made it. You finally escaped the rat race – built yourself a business to become financially free. You now have the choice to continue and grow or sell out and take a capital gain, enough to retire on.

Imagine now going to estate agents to choose your ideal house with all of the facilities and features you always dreamed about. You tell the agent the location you had in mind: perhaps in this country, perhaps abroad, you know the one. You have waited a while for it to be ready and you are going to pick up the keys now and pay for it in cash. As you walk up the front drive, you feel absolutely fabulous on what you see as the first day of how you always wanted to live with everything you have always wanted. The house is just the material reward; the personal satisfaction of having built a successful business gives you a buzz. You remember all those people who warned you of the risks, told you that you had a good, well-paid, secure job.

The house looks marvelous, you cannot wait to go in. You step in; yes, it looks good, feels good, it even smells good, of newness and quality. It is a beautiful day and the sun is shining. You cannot wait to take a swim in the luxury pool. As each moment passes you can feel your excitement growing.

From your favourite music selection you choose something upbeat and positive that suggests success. The feeling of excitement grows as you switch on the music. Your mind fills with images of your new villa with its breathtaking view over the sea from the hot tub. Designed to your specific requirements it is literally perfect. As you continue to enjoy your day more and more, you notice the office workers hurrying back from lunch. Not for you ever again; you are a successful entrepreneur, you are free. Your mind wanders as you take in the expected luxuries and total freedom of the weeks and months ahead.

Feeling like a million pounds, you hope secretly to pass by certain people you know, those who said you would never do it, who never gave you support when asked. You call a few close family members and friends, and invite them around for the house warming. You order chilled champagne and lie back in the pool with a big SMILE on your face. You toy over all the things you are going to indulge in over the next couple of weeks, months, years. An occasional thought wanders back to those you have left on the 7:32 to Waterloo that morning.

The most pleasant feeling though, is that of success, coupled with the rise in self-esteem and pride. It has not been easy, but you have made it. You think back to your moments of doubt and hesitation, thankful that you did not give up or chicken out. You think back over the obstacles you overcame and feel very proud of your success. You also think of those you love the most and what you are now able to do for them.

Americans call the above ‘dreambuilding’. Write down what you would want when you have achieved success, then go out and taste it now. By doing this your mind sets up the future you are working towards. Involve all your senses to achieve a real sensation. Go out and visit your dream house, test drive your dream car, look at brochures for your holiday of a lifetime. The taster gives firm images of what motivates you, making them real: a sort of future memory. Research has found that this simple idea is not only pleasant, it does increase motivation and focus and keeps you on track to achieve the future you desire.

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Insight

Your personal dream may be entirely different. It may be at a higher level of personal satisfaction or knowing what you have created is adding value. It must be specific and fill you with passion and drive. It will be the focus that sees you through to success.

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Progress now

Write down what you would do on becoming financially free in your own business.

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You will never have to work again, although you probably will want to, as you love your work. What you have worked for has turned from a dream to reality. For the next week at least you are going to soak up the reality on the beach, in the finest restaurants, with someone special to you. You are going to spend and spend: fashionable designer clothes, made to measure, parties, sports. You ponder a while on what you want to buy, knowing that money is no object now. Those months of focusing your money on investments ensure that your ‘pot of gold’ is constantly refilled and you can now afford to indulge yourself and still grow your wealth.

Back to the present. If the above appeals buy, read, re-read, live and breathe the book that is currently in your hands. Work, study, do the exercises, visit the online resources, make the commitments and decisions. It is the answer, the guide book, you have been looking for. Get this thing called entrepreneurship done. Stop thinking, procrastinating, and go for it. This book is the route map that will guide you through. Everyone reading this book can become a successful entrepreneur. The only thing that can stop you is if you give up along the way.

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Insight

Your entrepreneur success is a decision. One that you make alone. You need to make that decision emphatically with a real determination, commitment and a ‘no going back’ attitude.

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What is an entrepreneur?

People have different understandings of the term ‘entrepreneur’. The motives of an entrepreneur are numerous: some are purely focused on making money; some are totally focused on developing their innovations, and money is just the mechanism that allows it to happen, or even a side effect of success. Most entrepreneurs are after both. So when is an entrepreneur successful? Does making more money make an entrepreneur more successful? What do you think? Part of being an entrepreneur is doing your own thinking, making your own decisions!

There are two distinct aspects of an entrepreneur.

1. Someone, who through creativity, innovation, foresight and discovery, can identify commercial opportunities around him or her.
2. Someone practical who sees and exploits opportunities for making money successfully.

This includes the self-employed, small business owners, those embarking on setting up their own business, investors, artists, software writers, inventors, authors and songwriters.

In many successful enterprises these two elements are often found in two people. This is not surprising as practicality and creativity can, but certainly not necessarily, be opposites. In both cases, practicality and creativity are skills you can acquire from these pages. I will show you how to set yourself up to recognize opportunities that you are currently missing. Then comes the practical steps you must go through to turn these ideas into profit.

You have an entrepreneurial dream and wish to progress to the next level. You may not have even started in sales terms, but the idea is there or perhaps just the determination or desire. This means you have the spirit of an entrepreneur and that flame of enterprise needs to be nurtured and grown to a glowing furnace of fun and success.

Who wants to be an entrepreneur?

Back in the 1990s, working in my own recruitment business, I was requested by my staff to produce a list of questions to ask new candidates. One of them gave us an interesting and unexpected result.

The question was:

‘If we could get you any job in the world, and put on your CV any necessary qualifications, skills and experience, as if by magic, what job would you want?’

The interesting and unexpected result was:

Out of the first 1,000 people we asked, 912 of them said that their dream job was to run their own business.

Hence the reason and target for this book. Many people want to be entrepreneurs, the economy wants more entrepreneurs to secure the future, and yet most people who want to do it never do. So my question is, and the answers in this book focus on the question: ‘How can you become a successful entrepreneur?’

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Insight

Are you more creative or more practically inclined? To be a great entrepreneur you need an element of both. If you are strong on one side you should consider a partner with the opposite attribute.

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Explore this book and follow its treasure trail of tips: they have worked before and can help you achieve your dreams. Find answers to questions like:

• How do successful entrepreneurs think about money?
• How do successful entrepreneurs make decisions?
• How do successful entrepreneurs motivate themselves?
• How do successful entrepreneurs recover from setbacks?
• What is it that they do, and you can do too, that gives them their success?

Who will benefit from this book?

This book is aimed at those that want to start or have started their own enterprise and wish to create personal wealth from it. It covers entry routes, finance, venture capital, marketing, personnel, training, exit routes, etc. I will cover these aspects from a practical ‘how to’ and a ‘what you should do now’ perspective of techniques which have been proven to work. We will take lessons from both some of the most famous entrepreneurs and many who I know personally.

• Is this you?
• Want to escape the rat race?
• Want to be independent and financially free?
• Have a great idea you are sure would work?
• Spotted a gap in the market?
• Want to start your own business, but don’t know what?
• Running a business but don’t know how to get it to the next stage?
• Have an idea but don’t know how to turn it into a business?
• You want to be rich?
• Have an overpowering desire to work for yourself?
• Tired of working to build up somebody else’s business?
• Realize that while you are paid just for your time you will never make any real money?
• Want to do something on your own but are scared of the risks?

This book will provide you with all that you need to teach yourself.

Read and grow rich

This book can be your transition from dream to reality. This book is the spur that moves you forward with confidence.

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Progress now

The book is full of ‘hows’ in addition to the ‘wha...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Meet the author
• Only got a minute?
• Only got five minutes?
• Only got ten minutes?
• 1 What if your entrepreneurial dream happened?
• 2 What type of entrepreneur are you?
• 3 Entry routes
• 4 Seeing opportunities
• 5 Maintaining passion, persistence and personal power
• 6 The power of negative thinking
• 7 Going to plan?
• 8 Turning knowledge into entrepreneurial advantage
• 9 New skills for the new you
• 10 Streetwise sales and marketing
• 11 Success mentor
• 12 The Time Bank
• 13 The happy entrepreneur
• 14 Going for it!
• 15 Letting the genie out of the lamp
• 16 Escaping the rat race
• 17 Exit routes, selling your business
• Taking it further
• Glossary
• Index