Are you shy? .... That's great !

6 Secret Weapons of Shy Entrepreneurs

There’s a misconception that all entrepreneurs are extroverts — boisterous or bubbly personalities who are always the life of the party. But they’re not. And even those who are extroverted can be shy.

There is a distinction. Introverts feel rejuvenated after they take time to be alone. They often enjoy quiet activities like reading their favorite book or spending time with a close friend. On the other hand, extroverts like to spend their free time among people, but shy ones are less likely to open up to a new acquaintance right away.

Shyness doesn't have to be debilitating nor does it disqualify you from becoming successful. In fact, shy entrepreneurs have one big advantage over their extroverted counterparts: they almost never overtalk or over-share. Effective listening is the most important skill any entrepreneur could have and it’s a talent that comes very naturally to individuals who are shy.

If you consider yourself a shy entrepreneur, here are some ways you can cultivate your strengths.

1. Show, don’t tell

If you’re naturally shy, you most likely don’t enjoy public speaking, even on a small scale in a boardroom. Don’t risk embarrassment by trying (and most likely failing) to pitch an executive off-the-cuff. Instead, when you pitch a client, show them what you can do for their business. Create a presentation that speaks for itself and doesn’t rely so heavily on your ability to make the perfect pitch.

2. Prepare, prepare, prepare.

Write and practice your elevator pitch before you ever need it. You never know who’ll run into on the way to lunch or as you wait in line for coffee. If you get the opportunity to introduce yourself to a potential client or investor, simply deliver your speech as if you’re speaking to a friend. You’ll come off more natural the next time you need to introduce yourself and your company to a group.   

3. Hire your employees wisely.

You are your own best business card, but it doesn’t hurt to have a strong sales team to back you up. Especially for positions in marketing and sales, hire people whose strengths are your weaknesses. Make sure the people you hire share your vision but embody skills you lack.

4. Use technology to your advantage.

If you’re extremely shy, try having a meeting with your your clients via technology. You may be more relaxed and find it easier to communicate through IM, Google Hangout and Skype. You’ll be more comfortable if you plan to follow-up with a face-to-face interaction.

5. Show genuine passion.

Real passion, the kind that makes your eyes light up and drives you to keep working, is contagious. Your passion for your business and your customers will set you apart and make others notice you. Skip the small talk about the weather and share your passion with others. Share with your clients and customers how and why you started your business and what you love about it.

6. Push outside your comfort zone.

It’s not always about who you know, but who knows you. Even if the thought of attending networking events makes you feel uneasy, attend them anyway. Make a goal to attend one or two every month. Introduce yourself to at least one new person at each event. You may be surprised at the number of doors you’re able to open simply by being at the right place at the right time.

Successful Entrepreneurs Do These 5 Things Daily

There is a saying that there are only three types of people in the world: those who watch what happened, those who wonder what happened and those who make things happen. 

Entrepreneurs fall into the last category, of course. They are change agents, people who don’t see the world as it is but as it could be. Entrepreneurs don’t sit on the sidelines and wish for a better world. Rather they go out and create it. They don’t wait for things to be different. They are the difference.

Being forward thinkers, entrepreneurs continually push themselves to become better and do better. They are game changers. They ooze confidence and inspire greatness.

Today is a great day to become an entrepreneur because the price of admission into this elite club is free and yours for the taking.

Do you really want to succeed as an entrepreneur? Follow these five steps and you’ll be well on your way to developing the leadership qualities it takes:

1. Willingly fail and reflect.

“Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better,” goes Samuel Beckett's line. It's not always easy, the trying again part.

Another important thing is taking time to reflect on what went wrong. In the book The Call of Solitude, Ester Schaler Buchholz says, “Others inspire us, information feeds us, practice improves our performance, but we need quiet time to figure things out.”

In his book, Fail Up, radio broadcaster Tavis Smiley recalls lessons he has learned through reflection. He sheds light on these so-called failures that were, in hindsight, his best teachers.

You’ll only learn by failing over and over again. When you do this, you’re able to grow. And in spite of life’s inevitable setbacks, you’ll come out the victor.

2. Embrace and confront your fears

According to author Brendon Burchard, fear can be categorized in three ways, which all relate to pain. The first is loss pain, which happens when you’re afraid to move ahead because you fear you’ll lose something valuable.

The second is process pain, which inevitably occurs every time you try something new. You have to go through the process of learning to deal with it.

The last is outcome pain. This involves not getting the outcome you desired.

Burchard insists that people need to overwhelm their fears. Just as an army invades its enemy from every side, a person should do the same with fear, attacking it from every side, as if going to war. 

For Shark Tank host Barbara Corcoran, public speaking was her Achilles' heel. But she overcame it by going to war. She volunteered to teach a real estate night course in front of a small group of students to overcome her fear.

3. Practice self-discipline

 This is the ability to delay instant gratification and the ability to work hard now to reap benefits later. When Academy Award-winning actor Jamie Foxx was a boy, hisgrandmother routinely made him take piano lessons even though all he wanted to do was go outside to play. He had no idea that those lessons would lead to his eventual success. To this day, he continues to hone his craft and disciplines himself to practice playing the piano for two hours many a day.

No one sees the years of hard work you might put into an endeavor. They only see the outcome. If you want to reap the rewards of tomorrow, you must put in the work today.

4. Get some sleep

Shortly after the debut of her eponymous news site, Arianna Huffington collapsed from exhaustion and lack of sleep. She’d been working 18-hour days because she was so committed to growing her company. When she collapsed, she hit her head against a desk and found herself lying in a pool of blood.

In her book Thrive, Huffington details the ordeal and says it was a painful wake-up call. She knew she had neglected sleep and took steps to correct it.

When you get the sleep you need, you’ll feel more energized, charged and ready to tackle any problem entrepreneurship throws your way.

5. Give to others

In his book, Give and Take: Why Helping Others Drives Our Success,Wharton Business School professor Adam Grant teaches the idea of generosity in a professional setting. 

For centuries, people have focused on the individual drivers of success: passion, hard work and sheer will. But things have changed. Success is increasingly dependent on how we interact with others and how much we give them.

According to Grant’s research, the most successful people are those who consistently give. Grant takes this to heart so much that he not only puts in long hours as a professor, but also as many and sometimes even longer hours giving and helping others. 

That ancient book, the Bible, was right all along: Happiness comes from giving.  

How to motivate employees as an entrepreneur

ave you ever bought a new gadget or toy for your kids or yourself and seen that mildly annoying “batteries not included” sticker?

Getting the right batteries for your new gizmo is similar to finding the right motivation for your employees. The end goal is the same: energy for action, but you need the right connection to trigger that flow of energy.

1. Focus on the bigger picture.

One of the most universal motivational triggers is connecting a current action with a bigger vision. For example, when you started your business, it’s very likely that you had some motivation beyond having a business for business’s sake. You might have wanted freedom to build a better life for you and your loved ones, to help people or to make the world a better place in some way. What drives you is the bigger picture, not the daily to-dos.

Your team is no different. If you’re seeing a lack in motivation or productivity, it’s probably because they’ve lost the connection between what they are doing and their “why.” Actively search for their “why” during conversations, so that when there is a lull in motivation, you can be there to remind them of the big picture. Help them see how their puzzle piece fits in to build a larger picture.

2. Emphasize the importance of process.

Sometimes teams procrastinate because they don’t think there’s any harm in putting off certain tasks. Little do they know that what seems inconsequential to them is actually a cornerstone for your next steps. You might need to explain the chain of events that are necessary to accomplish the big goals. No step is unimportant. Like they say in theater, there are no small roles, only small actors. In your business, there are no small steps, only small thinking. Of course, this only applies if you don’t have unnecessary redundancies. If you do, it’s a good idea to do an audit and clean out the cobwebs of your procedures.

3. Pay attention to what excites them.

The best kind of motivation doesn't come from you; it comes from people themselves. When you’re having a conversation with someone, pay close attention to what they say and how they say it. Chances are, they are giving you clues on how to best motivate them in that moment.

I like to call these clues "keywords." They are words or phrases that stand out from the rest. Keywords are more charged when spoken. The person will lean in or sit up straighter. Their voice might get louder or more pointed. Their eyes might widen when they say their keywords.

For example, I was running a communication training session for a small group of company leaders. I could tell that one person was not receptive to the training. During our first break, I approached him and asked for his thoughts.

“Don’t get me wrong, the training session is great and all, but you've got to understand that there’s been a lot going on with the company and I just don’t see how this helps us move forward.”

When he said the words “move forward” his gestures and voice accentuated his point. After a little more discussion and keyword investigation on my part, I concluded that forward motion, progress and the future were big motivational triggers for him. He also hated anything that had to do with feeling stuck, reviewing past events or repeating himself.

Bingo!

I spent the remaining five minutes of the break making a case for how the training helped his company move forward, achieve their goals and even help his employees progress further within the company. After our brief conversation, he was extremely attentive and participatory the rest of the day. When you detect more energy behind certain words, latch on to them and use those keywords to help your motivational efforts.

4. Use positive reinforcement

One of the best ways to lay the groundwork for future motivation is to acknowledge and reward successes. If you motivate someone to take action, but don’t acknowledge the accomplishment, they will be jaded when you approach them again in the future for something else. Recognition of past successes is a motivator for future progress. Failing to do so can lead to bitter and defensive employees.

Leaders need to be a constant source of motivation. Your team should come to you to recharge their batteries, not leave feeling more drained. Pay attention their needs.

precautions !!

• This is a lot of hard work, so be prepared for the challenges associated with your field. Please know your strengths and weaknesses, and plan accordingly!

Bring your business plan to a perfection point...

before moving on; this will make your business run a lot more smoothly. Here are some advantages of a perfect business plan

• Success is never completely assured but a solid business plan will help you enormously. Entrepreneurship is still a gamble even when the spreadsheet tells you in advance precisely how much money you will make but it gives you a basis from which to start.
• No one plans to fail, but you must always have plan that could be put in action in the event of failure. Planning for a failure is always better than failing to plan.
• You can hire someone very cheaply, perhaps even a virtual assistant to run the business for you, since the plan spells out exactly what to do.
• If you find yourself stuck trying to get something "just right", it may be time to chalk it up to risk and move forward. Use your judgement, but don't be afraid to fail!

Network is a must !

Hang out with entrepreneurs. By meeting entrepreneurs socially, you gain contacts and hear about opportunities.

• More importantly, you learn how entrepreneurs think. You pick up their attitudes, their nose for opportunity, their willingness to explore every idea and its opposite (they know that often both work), the great diversity in their styles.

Sell it !!!!!

Sell and distribute your product. If you're getting revenue, then you're in business. You're testing your theories about the market, you're finding out what really works and what doesn't, and you're getting fuel for more ideas and improvements. If you're not getting revenue, then it's all in your head.

Get investors

Pitch your idea to any potential investor to get money to start your company. If you have a good idea, they will love to invest their money in your company.

• Make a PowerPoint presentation (or something of the sort) explaining why your product is the best, including each part of your business plan in the presentation.
• Tell them how much your estimated gross profit is and how much percentage of that they will earn in interest. Many VCs (venture capitalists are not set up to make you successful. A wonderful success for you might be to earn $80,000 a year doing work you love.
• Starting small and pleasing a small number of customers at first is a high-probability way to get there. A VC will not allow such a success to happen, because a VC's strategy is to become a billionaire by rolling the dice on many low-probability but potentially gigantic-returning businesses. The price you pay for taking on a VC is control: control of your dream. If you can get the business started without spending a lot of money, that might be your best route.

Or, don't write a business plan...

A business plan is a work of fiction, anyway. If you don't have much experience in business, or the market is new and unknown, a business plan might be a waste of time, or, worse, a path to self-delusion. Plan just enough to make your first sale.

• The main thing is to make at least one customer happy, and complete the entire cycle of "make product, sell product" as quickly as possible. Then you will have a business, and then you might be in a position to understand some problems of the sort that extensive planning can help solve.

Write a business plan

Include details and descriptions, and plan everything out realistically. Take your time and evaluate your product at each section. The sections of a good business plan include:

• Product description: develop your product. What will it look like? What materials will you need? Make your product eye-catching.
• Market Analysis: Who is your market? Where do they shop? Where are they located?
• Competition: Who is your competition? What are their strengths? How will you beat them?
• Marketing: How will you market your product? What kind of image do you want to display? Where will you advertise? What is your tagline? What is your packaging like?
• Sales: Where will you sell? How will you get your customers to buy? When will you sell? What is your estimated sales forecast?
• Manufacturing: How do you make your product? Explain this in detailed steps. What materials do you need to make your product? When and where will you manufacture? What is your COGS (cost of goods sold)?
• Finance: how much money do you need to start your business? What is your gross profit?

Think of a great idea.

Most businesses start with one compelling idea — whether it's a service people need, a product that would make life easier, or something that combines both. Remember that ideas don't matter, it's what you do with them that counts!

• If a great idea comes to you, evaluate if it is realistic. Think of cost, manufacturing time, and popularity.
• Always be open to different ideas. Ask and record if people would actually buy the product.
• If you don't have an idea yet, it is a good start to think of your target market first. Then brainstorm a list of things like places they shop, and things they might really like. Narrow the list down to about three items, keeping cost, manufacturing time, and popularity in mind. Find the easiest, most realistic product you can offer.

Where to start...

If you want to start a business but don't know where to start, don't worry--you are not alone. In fact, given the new economic reality of our time, more people than ever before have found the "job" they thought was waiting for them doesn't exist. Others have come to the conclusion that they would rather create work they love, constructed to fit with their own life goals. No matter what the motivation is to be your own boss, you can start today.