One of the most common questions I am now asked is why are some business owners extremely successful, while others struggle to make ends meet and never move beyond the four walls of their home office? Before I answer this question, I always ask them why they think some people are successful and others struggle. The common responses include: rich parents, good luck, higher education, smarter, great sales people, hard working and risk takers.
The answer could be any of the above, but no one has ever come up with what I believe is the main reason, which has everything to do with attitude.
When the successful entrepreneur first decided to go into business, many people wished them well but others told them all the reasons why they would fail.
So before they even started their business, they were busy defending their ideas to friends, family, banks, accountants, suppliers, customers and employees.
As the business owner they were responsible for everything. Even if they didn't know the answers, they often had to feign knowledge, stand by their decisions and get the business moving.
So, what is the most important reason why some entrepreneur's succeed and others don't? It is attitude to learning and knowledge. I call this the Entrepreneur's Mindset.
What is the Entrepreneur's Mindset?
Most people just don't get what is required to succeed in business because they focus on the wrong things.A good starting point for understanding where the owner's focus should be is explained by Michael Gerber who wrote a book called The E-Myth.
The E-Myth is short for the Entrepreneurial Myth and Gerber writes that most small business owners aren't really entrepreneurs, they are technicians suffering from an entrepreneurial seizure. The plumber, hairdresser, accountant, butcher, baker and candlestick maker all wake up one morning and decide they are sick of working for the boss. So they quit their job and set up their own business doing the technical work they did as an employee. It is only on the first day in business that they realise the being able to do the technical business work has nothing to do with running the business.
Sales, marketing, human resources, management, money, strategy, technology etc. is all learnt on the run. However, this is the road to mediocrity and often failure.
At some stage successful entrepreneurs realise that they 'don't know, what they don't know' and most importantly, they understand that it is OK not to know. Often after losing money, going broke, or poor health, they realise that although they were the best person doing the work, that wasn't good enough. They needed to develop an Entrepreneurial Mindset and learn how to run the business without doing everything.
The first step to doing this was to admit to themselves (and to others) that they 'don't know what they don't know' but want to learn. They were prepared to ask the 'dumb question', employ people better than themselves, delegate to others, attend seminars, watch DVDs, read books, employ business consultants and ultimately leave behind the technical work they know so well and move on to managing and driving the business.
Based on all the interviews I did and working with hundreds of business owners as a business coach, here is a proven method for creating an Entrepreneurial Mindset.
Prepare your mind
- Admit that you 'don't know what you don't know'.
- Accept that it is OK (Often people can feel the weight lift off their shoulders.)
- Be prepared to start learning.
1. List your three key challenges or frustrations.
2. Decide if you REALLY want to fix ONE of them. Focus is the key.
3. Pick the one you want to tackle first and write it down in a notebook.
4. List what you need to know to give yourself a chance of solving it.
5. Start looking for information and record it in the notebook as you go. 6. Start making changes. (There is never a right time — just do it!) Within one week you should be well on the way to finding an answer by spending 30 minutes to an hour each day doing some research in any one of the following sources:
- Ask an employee
- Use your network. Call your accountant, lawyer or another business owner who has had a similar challenge. Then, ask them if they know someone else you could talk to.
- Search engines i.e. Google
- Television
- Business magazines or newspapers
- Seminars
- Books, audio or DVDs
- Industry association
- Find three experts — meet with each one, discuss your issue and ask for a proposal.
