Article Contributed by Michele DeKinder-Smith
Every female entrepreneur dreams of the day her preparation meets opportunity and her own good luck is born. In her dreams, she knows exactly what she’ll do when presented with an opportunity, and exactly how the cards will fall when she takes it. But in real life, opportunity often seems to come out of nowhere and all the confidence she felt in those dreams disappears as she’s faced with the very real question: how do successful women decide what to do with new opportunity?
A new study from Jane Out of the Box, an authority on women entrepreneurs, recently revealed five distinct types of women in business. Each of these five types – each Jane – has a unique approach to running a business. As a consequence, each of them has a unique combination of characteristics and factors.
This article profiles two of those Jane “types” and the ways they may respond to a new opportunity.
Go Jane Go is passionate about her work, and has no problem marketing and selling herself, so she has plenty of clients—but she’s struggling to keep up with demand. She may be a classic overachiever, taking on volunteer opportunities as well, because she’s eager to make an impact on the world and may really struggle saying “no”. Because she wants to “say yes” to so many opportunities, she may even be in denial about how many hours she actually works during the course of a week. During the worst of times, Go Jane Go may tend to run herself ragged or feeling guilty about all the things on her “to do list” that aren’t getting done quickly enough to satisfy her exacting demands.
Although, as a Go Jane Go, you might be tempted to take on any new opportunity because you know you’re good at multitasking and you feel obligated to make it work, wait! Think about whether you really want to get into a new venture and all that comes with it.
Because you’re so good at what you do and you know all the fine details of your business and how it runs, you have a hard time delegating sometimes. If you know you’re going to take on this new opportunity and then feel overwhelmed because you won’t feel comfortable assigning any of your workload to someone else, maybe this isn’t the time to do it.
Because you’re such a hard worker and demand perfection from yourself, you work long hours. Do you have the time to deal with any new activities this opportunity will undoubtedly create? Before you accept this challenge, use some of your valuable time to determine whether the new opportunity is realistically feasible, given your time constraints. Especially, consider the cost to yourself in accepting the new assignment – will you push yourself to your breaking point? If so, it’s OK to let the opportunity gracefully pass you by – because of who you are, there’s undoubtedly another right around the corner.
If it turns out that the new opportunity will work with your calendar, commit to delegating wherever possible – and make sure you’re also taking care of yourself in the process.
Accidental Jane is a successful, confident business owner who never actually set out to start a business. Instead, she may have decided to start a business due to frustration with her job or a layoff and decided to use her business and personal contacts to strike out on her own. Or, she may have started making something that served her own unmet needs and found other customers with the same need, giving birth to a business. Accidental Jane enjoys what she does and is creating a satisfactory level of income.
Taking on a new opportunity as an Accidental Jane may mean transitioning into a different Jane type (often Jane Dough or Go Jane Go). That means making your business more of a focus in your life. Before saying “yes,” determine if that’s what you really want.
A new opportunity may mean putting more time into your business. As an Accidental Jane, your lifestyle is very important to you.
If the opportunity is very appealing to you, ask the question: How can you make it work on your terms? How can you structure the work so that it doesn’t impinge much on your time? Can you let go of something else or can you delegate part of this work?
Further, ask yourself: Am I charging as much as I could? Accidental Jane may sometimes be a little out of touch with her industry’s going rates. As workload and opportunities creep up, she should continually think about increasing rates to make the work more profitable.
Finally, if new opportunities get you excited, start building your company for the long-term vision so you can maintain your lifestyle while also taking on more work. Envision how your company might look in 3 years if you say yes to the kinds of opportunity you are facing right now. If what you see in your vision excites you, begin building a plan that will help you manage that future business without letting it take over your life. If what you see doesn’t excite you, because you are simply happy and content with your business as it stands today, then be prepared to say no to an opportunity at least occasionally.
Whether you’re a Go Jane Go or an Accidental Jane, it’s important to know what you’ll do when you’re presented with an opportunity. Explore all the implications and possibilities – then decide whether you want to take this opportunity and deal with the outcomes.
About the Author
Michele DeKinder-Smith is the founder of Jane out of the Box, an online resource dedicated to the women entrepreneur community. Discover more incredibly useful information for running a small business by taking the FREE Jane Types Assessment at Jane out of the Box. Offering networking and marketing opportunities, key resources and mentorship from successful women in business, Jane Out of the Box is online at www.janeoutofthebox.com
Category: Entrepreneurs
Article Contributed by By Karen Armon
Are you a $100K+ executive who is thinking about leaving Corporate America and starting your own coaching or service business?
Making the decision to venture out, take the risk and become an entrepreneur is hard, whether it’s because you can’t find a job in this tough economy or you’re simply tired of working for someone else. And, believe me I know.
In 1992, I decided to start my own business after being laid-off twice in the same year. Now, the idea was not completely new to me. My father, grandfathers, and many uncles on both sides of my family were bit with the “own-your-own-business bug.” Although, I knew exactly what I was getting into and even though I come from a long line of entrepreneurs, I still faced the same questions and fears that you’re facing right now.
Below, I show you how I made my decision to start my executive coaching business 17 years ago. And this process still works today as I ask my clients the same seven questions when they tell me that they want to transition from executive to entrepreneur.
The Top 7 Questions I Asked Myself Before Transitioning From $100k+ Executive to an Entrepreneur
Question #1: What is your motivation for becoming an entrepreneur?
Your motivation to become an entrepreneur must be strong enough to carry you through the ups and downs. Wanting to work part time while taking care of your children, trying to work as a 1099 until a better opportunity comes along, or having nothing better to do are poor motivators for starting your own business.
Question #2: What is your background and experience at work?
If your experience is in a back-office function or you’ve never had the experience of working directly with customers, you need to think about how you will acquire these skill sets. This does not mean that you need to master the art of cold-calling, but you must know how to close a deal.
Question #3: What strategies and tactics will you use to find leads?
More than anything, you need to hit the ground running. You need to find potential customers fast so that you can make deals happen. My advice is to delay building your marketing materials – including your website, brochures, and tools – until you know where and how to reach potential customers.
Question 4: How will you address the three big challenges of Money, Product and Pricing that every new business faces?
Under capitalization is the biggest reason company’s become bankrupt within the first year. You need to know how to finance your start-up. Personal cash reserves, credit and loans from family and friends are the most common methods.
Building a product or service includes the time and money needed to develop these materials and you need clarity about what your target market wants and needs. Take the time to learn through your network before you spend large amounts of money on prototypes that may not sell.
Pricing is the hardest challenge of all. My advice is to slightly under price your product and/or service to enter the market and as you prove your worth and brand, you can raise your prices over time.
Question #5: What course of action will you take to make your business successful?
This question goes to the heart of your commitment and what you are willing (and not willing) to do to make you a successful entrepreneur. Going into any new venture requires you to evaluate your discipline and diligence as it relates to your desired level of success.
Question #6: What are you going to do to market yourself?
Marketing yourself is all about the process of gathering strangers into your network and bringing them to a state of interest. This requires strategic planning that enables potential customers to engage in you, experience your value proposition and build trust before turning them into a potential sale. Building a website or a social networking site is not enough.
Question #7: How long will you stay involved in your business before you receive a consistent revenue stream?
Given that most businesses take nine months to a year to build a healthy and consistent revenue stream, you must look at your finances and determine what you will do in the meantime. Key questions include: How will you supplement your income requirements? What can you do to drastically cut your break-even point? How will you make up the difference?
There is also a personal side to building a business. You must transition from an accidental entrepreneur to taking your business seriously in order to be successful. And your family must be willing to give you the time and the resources to get your business off the ground.
Becoming an entrepreneur is one of the most satisfying, challenging, exciting endeavors any executive can do. If you want to take charge of your career, build something that gives you long-term control and provider yourself with the ultimate in freedom and flexibility, then making the transition from $100K+ executive to entrepreneur is well worth the effort.
About the Author
$100K+ Executive-Level Career Coach Karen Armon prepares leaders around the world for their next move. Her popular book, Market Your Potential, Not Your Past is a hit among executives who want a clear-cut, systematic game plan that drives careers forward. Now get her new FREE eBook, “Ten Micro-Trends that Impact Executive Careers Today” at http://www.marketoneexecutive.com/ebook.asp and take a critical look at today’s marketplace.
Entrepreneurs have a knack for seeing opportunities where others don’t. If you see 2010 as a good time to start a business despite the recession, then you may have an entrepreneurial perspective. Now you need to know if you have some of the other characteristics of successful entrepreneurs.
What helps entrepreneurs these days is that virtual business models put more emphasis on talent and less on administration and infrastructure. After all, e-commerce solutions can give you an instant storefront presence and credit card processing services can handle your receivables, and SEO can give you access to online customers with a minimal up front investment.
So now all you need is the right set of skills and characteristics. Consider whether you have the following ingredients of successful entrepreneurship:
1. Talent.
You should be able to identify at least one area of ability that makes you stand out from the crowd. This can be anything: technical expertise, sales skill, marketing insight, or logistical know-how. Since small businesses are talent-driven, you have to start out with the belief that you have the raw material with which to compete and succeed. It helps if your skills happen to be in areas with growing demand, such as health care or computer technology. If you have medical knowledge or a skill such as Web design, you may have a little wind at your back.
2. A new or different perspective.
“Me-too” businesses have a tough time making a mark, especially during a weak economy. Your business should be founded on the idea that there is a better way to do things. Ideally, you should have enough experience in your chosen industry to be familiar with the normal way business is done, and to have developed some unique insights as to how that can be improved. Being able to clearly articulate a differing perspective should be central to your business plan. In turn, it should also become the vision you communicate to everyone you hire, and the selling proposition you use to pitch potential customers.
3. A business network of connections and affiliations
Experience is valuable not only for knowing how other companies do things, but also for helping you form a business network that will get your new company up and running more quickly. Remember, people–especially business-to-business customers–can be reluctant to do business with a start-up. You should have some contacts who respect you enough personally to take a chance on your new business. Of course a network of contacts can also help you identify potential investors, suppliers, and talented employees. If you need to build your network think about joining a business community of interest.
4. A war chest.
Don’t start your business venture unless you have identified sufficient funding to not only get started, but to keep your business running through the inevitable lean months at the beginning. Many businesses are forced to go under just as they would be starting to gain some momentum, simply because they underestimated the amount of time it would take for profits to start rolling in. Funding can be from your own savings, outside investors, or loans. Of course, external sources of funding are harder to come by in a recession, but you can use techniques such as virtual offices to reduce the need for this type of funding.
5. Ability to take risk.
You should start any new business with a commitment to succeed, but an acceptance of the risk involved. Entrepreneurs are often people who are willing to trade a sure thing working for someone else for even a risky chance at running their own show.
6. An eye for complementary talent.
Once you start hiring people, you should think in terms of rounding out the team rather than looking for people just like yourself. It can be a mistake to have too many would-be leaders in one organization. If you have an independent and visionary outlook, you might do well to complement that with a strong administrator who can take care of the details.
7. Persistence.
Not only does it take a long time for a new business to gain traction, but entrepreneurs often don’t succeed on their first try. As long as you have confidence in the first two items on this list–your talent and your unique perspective on the business–you should be willing to keep trying.
If you follow college football, you’ve probably run across Ohio State a time or two. Their football program is very old and very prestigious.
But I’m still cringing at the thought of watching them get beaten by Oregon at the Rose Bowl. (Yes I’m fairly certain they’ll lose although I do hope I’m wrong.) As a Big Ten fan, I’m really tired of watching Ohio State get hammered in these big, national games.
(Of course, if MY team, the Wisconsin Badgers, would ever actually beat them in conference, maybe all of this would be different but I digress.)
For the life of me I couldn’t figure out what was going on. Why did Ohio State win so darn many games only to consistently embarrass the BigTen in big out-of-conference games? Jim Tressel is an excellent coach. Isn’t he?
Well, this year I finally got my answer. Yes Jim Tressel is an excellent coach. But he plays not to lose. He doesn’t play to win.
And that, my friends, is why he loses the big games. Because those teams come to win. And Tressel is coming not to lose. (And that’s why he’s probably gong to lose to Oregon at the Rose Bowl because Oregon has been playing to win all season.)
So what exactly does it mean to play not to lose? Well it means playing very conservatively. You punt the ball rather than going for it on 4th and short. You go for the field goal rather than the touchdown. You build very strong defenses. You commit very few penalties. You have a very well coached team.
It also means you don’t take chances. You don’t have quarterbacks that heave the ball down the field in broken plays that can result in an interception or an 80-yard touchdown. You also don’t win a lot of shootouts. And if your game plan isn’t working, you don’t have a lot of options because winging it isn’t something you do.
And you’re also pretty uninteresting to watch. (Sorry Buckeye fans but it’s true.)
Now, can you win games playing not to lose? Absolutely. Tressel has a very respectable record. (Much better than my Badgers.) He’s won the Big Ten Title nearly every year.
The problem happens when he gets to the big games. Now I’m not a coach nor did I ever play football but I do watch a lot of it and here’s what I think happens. If you’re not able to prevent Ohio from executing their game plan, you’re toast. If Ohio can execute their game plan, they’re going to do it very well and probably beat you.
But, if you throw a wrench in that game plan, if you throw them off, well then Ohio has a problem. They’re not good at improvising nor do they take chances. And if you don’t take a chance, especially when the chips are down, you’re probably not going to win those games.
So what about you? Are you playing not to lose or are you playing to win? Sure you can do well playing not to lose, but you’re never going to play as big of a game as you could be. Play to win, sure you might fall on your face from time to time but you’ll probably end up playing bigger than you ever thought possible.
So what does it mean to play to win or play not to lose? I’ll talk about that more in next week’s article.
As the recession continues to loom and as unemployment rises, we have seen an increased interest in executives wanting to start their own businesses. They want to transition from executive to entrepreneur.
You may be interested in becoming an entrepreneur because you lost your job, or because you have a great idea, or because you cannot find a job you are interested in.
Regardless of the reason, however, you will find there is more information available today concerning starting a business than the average human being can consume in a lifetime. Standard advice includes:
o Prepare a solid business plan
o Have cash for at least six months
o Work with a good accountant and attorney
o Understand your market
o Know your competition
o Have a marketable product or service
This is good advice indeed. But in our experience, business startup success or failure involves more than adhering to these maxims. Here are the things you need to pay attention to in order to avoid sabotaging your business success.
10 Mistakes That Will Hurt Your Chances of Becoming a Successful Entrepreneur
Entrepreneur Mistake #1: Letting fear immobilize you. We believe the number 1 issue that affects the success of a new business is fear of failure, fear of success, fear of criticism, fear of feeling unappreciated and fear of thinking no one will like your product, your service or you. Understand that fear can immobilize you. Learn to recognize it and deal with it.
Entrepreneur Mistake #2: Failure to develop real relationships. Nothing happens until a relationship is formed. No meeting, no sales opportunity, no business. Take the time to build a relationship, and then you are ready to sell.
Entrepreneur Mistake #3: Failure to respond quickly. The quicker you respond, the more responsive you appear. E-mails not returned in days, voice messages ignored, and proposals or sales agreements delayed show that you don’t care about your prospect’s business. Forget the absurd advice that a quick response makes you look eager or desperate for the business. It makes you look – responsive.
Entrepreneur Mistake #4: Becoming a pusher. Nobody likes a pusher. So when your buyer says “yes” – stop selling. And don’t up-sell, which is getting the buyer to buy more than they need. It’s great for short-term profits and terrible for a long-term relationship.
Entrepreneur Mistake #5: Quitting at no. Nobody likes rejection, but sometimes we see it when it’s not there. No is often an initial response to someone the buyer doesn’t know, not a conclusion. Or, it can come from a gatekeeper whose job it is to say no.
Entrepreneur Mistake #6: Getting stuck in perfection. There is no such thing as the perfect proposal, the perfect letter and the perfect response. Good is often good enough unless you are dealing with life and death situations, which most of us are not. The extra 20 percent you put into your product, service, response is neither recognized nor appreciated by the recipient. But the fact that it took you too long to respond is recognized and not in a good way.
Entrepreneur Mistake #7: Wearing your personal beliefs on your sleeve. No one cares about your opinions when you are in a sales situation. Your political, social, sports beliefs should stay with you.
Entrepreneur Mistake #8: Lack of focus. When you are not focused on your employees, clients and prospects it looks like you are not interested or that you are overwhelmed. When there is a lack of focus in your organization, it looks like a version of the fad of the month which quickly blows morale as staff struggles to juggle changing priorities and new initiatives.
Entrepreneur Mistake #9: No executive presence. Executive presence is not about just looking the part. Executive presence is about being the part. It’s about managing your image thoughtfully and not artificially. Like it or not, tired, overweight, out of shape and sloppy people who aren’t aware of current events and haven’t read a book since high school or college present a very different image than people who take care of themselves and are intellectually curious.
Entrepreneur Mistake #10: Not showing gratitude. Becoming a success in your business never happens by yourself. Along the way there are people who share their advice, help you through the tough times, perhaps give you an introduction. Don’t forget them when you become successful. Gratitude has a return.
These are very difficult economic times. Starting a new business can be exhilarating and very rewarding – personally and professionally. Yes you need a solid business plan, financing and a marketable product or service with a strong and compelling value proposition. But you need more. And, you need to start eliminating sabotaging behaviors that will kill your transition from executive to entrepreneur right now.
About the Author:
Management Consultants and Business Performance Improvement Specialists Tony Kubica and Sara Laforest have 50+ years of combined experience in helping budding entrepreneurs accelerate their business growth in record times. Now, they unveil the common, subtle and self-destructive actions that will hurt your business performance. Get their free special report: “Self-Sabotage in Business” now: http://www.kubicalaforestconsulting.com/resources.php