We Americans love our “get rich quick” stories.

We eat up news reports of entrepreneurs who have struck it big “overnight” – wondering how we ourselves would handle the sudden influx of wealth acquired through a startup buyout or IPO.  And we’re incredibly susceptible to products that promise quick riches (no matter how illogical their roadmaps to achieving wealth might seem).

We love these stories because we’re all inherently lazy – we all want to do the least amount of work possible, while earning as much money as possible.

But unfortunately, this type of laziness – when left unchecked – can seriously derail your entrepreneurial dreams.  The bottom line, hard truth of the matter is that running a business (whether successful or not) is damn hard.  It’s hard work – day-in and day-out.

If you can’t handle that heat, get out of the industry.  But if you’re willing to work hard to turn your entrepreneurial dreams into success, here’s what you need to know… Continue reading

Last week, I shared with you six great skills that you can learn from six of the greatest entrepreneurs throughout history.  But if you think that six skills alone are going to take you from wannabe business owner to entrepreneurial success, you’ve got another thing coming!

Today, I want to wrap up this series with another six important lessons that you need to learn if you want to make it with your own company.  Start working on these skills within your own life and I guarantee you’ll see faster progress – no matter what your business goals might be! Continue reading

I’m not sure if there are any other occupations out there that require as many skills and abilities as it takes to be an entrepreneur.  If you’re a pilot, you need to be familiar with the operation of your aircraft – but you don’t have to source its parts, build it and then sell it to an airline in order to be successful.  If you’re an engineer, you might draft plans – but then you pass your designs off to others to see them brought to reality.

That’s not to say that these fields aren’t important or challenging – just that they’re not as all-encompassing as entrepreneurship.  When you’re a solo business owner, every aspect of your company’s operation falls on your shoulders.  You’re a visionary, yes, but you’re also a project manager, team leader, administrative assistant, sales person and more, depending on what the day calls for.

Given how complex the work of an entrepreneur can be, I want to take the next two weeks to break down some of the skills that you must have to be successful in this type of business.  And since I’m a sucker for case studies, I’ve paired each skill with an example from a great entrepreneur throughout history.

Hope you find them helpful when it comes to cultivating your own skill as a business owner!
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If you want to run a startup, you have to be an effective leader – no ifs, ands or buts about it.

As a entrepreneur you’ll be called upon to lead in a variety of different situations.  If you have employees, it’ll be up to you to motivate your workers to give 110% to their tasks and to finish priorities in a timely manner.  But even if you’re flying solo, you need the charisma of leadership to convince mentors, partners and investors to believe in your vision and provide the support that’s needed to meet your startup goals.
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When I think about the things that have made me successful in the field of SEO over the past 5-6 years, I don’t list my technical knowledge or the proprietary ranking techniques I’ve developed as being the most important contributing factors to Single Grain’s achievements.  Sure, both of these things have played a huge role in my ability to help website owners optimize their online performance – but there’s one element that’s been even more critical to the results I’ve been able to achieve.

Can you guess what this often overlooked skill might be…?  It’s good communication!

More than anything else, learning to communicate well has enabled me to turn my business dreams into a reality.  If that sounds too cheesy to be realistic, consider all of the following different ways in which my communication skills have contributed to my success:
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Sure – I understand that running a business is difficult.  If you’re a company owner, you likely have hundreds of different items already on your “to do” list – from developing and testing your product to reaching out to consumers using various online and offline marketing strategies and more.

However, if you spend all of your time focused on your own internal affairs and put no energy into consuming the content that others have created, you’re missing out on a huge opportunity to learn and develop as an entrepreneur.  To get in the habit of making ongoing education a priority in your business, check out the following blogs, find a few that you like and set a goal to check in with their posts at least once a week for best results.
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Being a business owner is challenging.  Not only do you carry the enormous weight of transforming a vision into reality on your shoulders, you do so while also attempting to balance these business pursuits with your personal life, managing a workforce and handling the financial ramifications of business ownership.

Unfortunately, given all of these competing demands, it can be easy to let bad business habits sneak into your daily life, undetected.  To prevent this from happening, you must be vigilant in guarding against the following business mistakes – all of which can threaten your growing company if left unchecked.
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If you think about it objectively, entrepreneurship doesn’t make a lot of sense.  Sure, there are cases of well-off people launching successful products or services with no risk to their own financial well-being.  But many of today’s entrepreneurs are those who have put their careers, family lives and personal stability on the line to pursue a business idea that – realistically – has only about a 50% chance of succeeding over five years.

But despite the logical argument to be made that we should all stay home, work our steady jobs and never deviate from the traditional “college-to-career” path, plenty of would-be business people still make the leap from corporate life to their own ventures.

In fact, according to research on entrepreneurship in the US compiled by the Gallup Business Journal, “nearly half of all jobs are in the small-business sector, and small businesses accounted for 65% of the net new jobs created between 1993 and 2009.”  Given the uncertainty that this particular path entails, that’s a pretty large number of people willing to take on the risks of entrepreneurship!
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