New Age Entrepreneur – Overcome These 6 Obstacles

Entrepreneurship has been growing in popularity the world over. The benefits in my opinion far outweigh the cons so I've written this article to overview my personal opinions in hopes of helping others. Procrastination is probably the number one defeating tendency that cripples many would be entrepreneurs before their journey ever even begins. I've created my own top Six List to help others overcome what can hinder success as a budding entrepreneur. Entrepreneurship Obstacle One: It's Easy. Its human nature to make assumptions and it’s no different when an individual judges an entrepreneur on a superficial level. They dont necessarily recognize the hard work and perseverance that a person may have gone through on their journey to success. When we recognize a successful business lets use a restaurant for a hypothetical we immediately tend to think of the obvious. We may simplify it believing if we had a good chef, great food along with a busy location presto instant success. This is looking at the potential opportunity at its most basic level as an entrepreneur you must learn to dig deeper into the mechanics of the operation to determine what actually makes it tick. A great example in staying with the same hypothetical would be to consider the HR skills to acquire great people, followed by the training requirements needed than onto marketing and learning how to get people through the front door in the first place. Negotiating a lease on the commercial space required in addition to the kitchen equipment. Setting up payroll, employee benefits and more are just some of the mechanics that make the business you’re seeing successful. By understanding what it takes and what’s happening behind the scenes is what sets entrepreneurs apart. Obstacle Two: Entrepreneurship is Hard. The term contradictive may be running through you mind just about now but let me explain and define what it is I'm conveying here. Entrepreneurism is like architecture and it does require a valiant effort and the right building blocks to really achieve great success. Writing and following a properly structured business plan will be worth its weight in gold. Remember failing to plan is planning to fail so a business plan should never be overlooked or ignored. Achieving success comes down to executing a well thought out plan. Taking predetermined steps that will guide you through the tough times and allow you to thoroughly enjoy good times. Many will immediately dive into the exciting aspects of starting a business then become intimidated with all that’s required on the backend. The reality is that it’s only as difficult as you choose to make it. There have been countless successful entrepreneurs and if you have a willingness to learn and follow the proper steps you can easily find yourself among there ranks. Obstacle Three: Most New Businesses Fail Most of the stats will indicate that an enormous amount of new business start ups will ultimately fail within the first 5 years. True Entrepreneurs do not focus on such negativity if they did how many new businesses would even bother making the attempt. If you’re among those fortunate enough to have children would you ever tell them not to bother trying because they will only fail. Of course not so dont let yourself be shackled by the same short sighted limiting beliefs. Your success and your failures will all be a learning experience building on your confidence to ultimately suceed. You success will not be predetermined by some run of the mill statistic that's been a common household quote regarding new businesses for decades. Always remember that the number of people succeeding will always be less that the volume of people failing. Negativity travels 4 times faster than that of positivity so bad news seemingly is always recalled first and in turn becomes an obstacle you must mentally overcome to succeed. Your only focus should be on positioning yourself within the 1% of entrepreneurs who achieve success and forget about the other 99% in other words only focus on your most desired outcome. Obstacle Four: The Risk is High. The word risk has many different meanings and will be interpreted very differently from person to person. For example starting your own business is not going to kill you but how many of you even think twice about jumping in your car when driving is actually far more risky if we were to sit down and label it. We as entrepreneurs can not eliminate risk it comes with the territory but we do our best to minimize it through proper research and development and following a business plan with the greatest chances of achieving the success we desire. Risk if often times mistaken as fear of the unknown. When you understand how to accomplish something you dont see much risk in it however when you have no idea it seems far too risky and can prevent you from even trying. The most effective way to reduce risk is through knowledge. The more you learn and understand the less risk you in turn feel because your confidence in your ability to accomplish the task increases. This doesn’t have to all reside on your shoulders, sometimes the best way forward is to mirror the actions of someone else who has already achieved what you want. Reach out to successful entrepreneurs and try to better understand the steps they took and how they managed to get from point “A” to point “B” it can be a very enlightening experience. Obstacle Five: I Need Large Amounts of Capital to Make it Work. This statement again is not wrong if you’ve been considering a traditional brick and mortar business model that requires a facility, staffing, inventory, warehousing, renovations, payroll etc. However the game changer for many fledgling entrepreneurs has been the internet and its ability to obtain global reach and recognition on minimal budgets by eliminating these traditional costs. The new age entrepreneur recognizes the potential of this new medium and can leverage it to huge profits that any brick and motor business would love to realize in their bottom lines. By eliminating all of the main start up costs a new age entrepreneur can begin cultivating his or her ideas almost immediately. The internet has over 2 billion users interacting with it so as a potential marketplace its power is undeniable. Obstacle Six: Entrepreneur's Are Born Not Made. This is a statement that holds many people back and is extremely self defeating even though it could not be further from the truth. We can create any number of excuses for ourselves and blame others successes on things such as being born into a rich family, enhairiting the family business or that success simply runs in their blood. No one is born an entrepreneur and the skills that ultimately achieve success can all be learned and duplicated by anyone willing to put fourth enough effort. Sure it's easier if you fall into the family business or come from wealth and I don’t deny it’s questionable if the individuals that do would even be successful in the first place in not for these circumstances. The argument could also be made that these people were able to mimic and learn entrepreneurship skills starting from a very young age instilling the belief that they could in fact do it to. Believing you can in the first place is absolutely essential if you’re ever going to be truly successful within any aspect of your life. The lesson here is to stop focusing on what you don’t have and start focusing on what you’re able to learn and to nourish the belief system within yourself that you can indeed accomplish anything in life you set your mind to. Conclusion To become an entrepreneur and achieve the success you desire in life is not an insurmountable goal and can be achieved by following a solid plan and obtaining quality advice from others who have walked the same path before you. Stop letting lack of funds prevent you from dipping your toes in the entrepreneurship pool. Trust me you don’t want to look back in 20 years and regret the fact that you never even tried, I honestly believe that's a fate worse than failure at least in my humble opinion. Remember that your journey may not start where you intend to finish and by this I mean for you to explore the opportunities that are available to you now. So you don’t have 200k in start up capital to open that store or franchise you’ve been dreaming of so instead look in to the many online opportunities available as a stepping stone towards the greater goal. Entrepreneurism is a life long journey of learning and with the many steps you learn and apply along the way is what will ultimately allow you to realize you goals however lofty they may be. My father always use to tell that I could do anything I put my mind to and these are words I still live by today. Shoot for the moon and even if you come up short you'll still be among the stars. rnEntrepreneurship is much more than just another job it is truly a way of life and one that I highly recommend. Good luck and I wish you the utmost success with all your endeavours.