Don’t waste your pain. Your pain is your platform. Creative opportunity recognition is the hallmark of an entrepreneur, but it does not stop there. Over the past 10 years, our team has trained, coached and mentored over 500 entrepreneurs (conservative estimate) to develop ideas, grow businesses and scale business models. However, as a purpose driven organization, we measure our success by the potential we develop and the lives we impact, not by the number of client entrepreneurs who use our services.
In our workshops and training programs, we continue to witness first-hand the demise of many good ideas falling to the wayside and emerging businesses not survive market contact; good strategies remain untested and market assumptions not proven. We have also seen stellar products / services and working business models buckle at the first signs of stress and businesses paused, shuttered or sold within six months. Of course, many businesses and entrepreneurs excel, but there is no guarantee that a great business today will be a stronger business tomorrow, or a developing product / service today will be a winning product / service tomorrow. Just as each person expresses in a dominant sense, one of the five love languages (acts of service, physical touch, words of affirmation, gifts, quality time), when it concerns entrepreneurship and business, the dominant factor for success continues to be mindset – to conceptualize, to start, to develop, to grow, to challenge, to pivot, to refresh or to stop.
Through the various stages of business conceptualization, development and execution (and I dare add life), an entrepreneur (or any person) may find him/herself sailing or sinking in one of these six stages:
1. Standing aside:
A period of comfort or pain marked by reflection, dissatisfaction or observation best described as wishing, wanting and watching others. Words are sometimes used, but this period brims with inaction (passivity) and sometimes finger pointing. General feeling of inertia, stumped by circumstances beyond his/her control. You step sideways to allow someone else to advance instead. An important period that comprises a scan of the environment.
2. Stirred up:
A period of agitation. Circumstances or situations are sufficiently uncomfortable that it necessitates action. At this stage, a person may now find a problem intolerable but possible to be solved. At this stage a person begins to believe there is some utility in action, and that the risk of success outweighs continued inaction. However, if there is accelerated speed and knowledge deficiency, the fuse can burn out and a misdirected missile launched.
3. Support:
If you were not previously developing a network of mentors and professional contacts, you now turn to your immediate allies to ‘pitch your proposition’ – your friends and family members. These are your first allies to expand or contract your sphere of influence, hopefully through market research, but generally through feedback and contributions of time. Your network is now your net worth to test, revise or roll out your proposition.
4. Step up:
Leadership by dint of work, will or force. After a competitor scan and market research, you now step up with a differentiated offering. The proposed solution (product / service) should offer relief or improvement to lives and livelihoods, at a price that others are willing to pay. It now falls to the minds, hands and hearts of consumers and prospective markets to choose or reject the offering. Business fundamentals, strategies and human resources are critical at this stage to develop and maintain momentum.
5. Step back:
No business or strategic plan survives market forces and customer contact. Even as an idea develops or a business emerges, there is a continuous interplay and delicate balance between stepping up and stepping back. Sometimes it may even require stepping down, for another more qualified specialist to take the wheel. S/he who is determined to hold fast to the way things were or should be, risks restricting the business. This period is marked by change at various levels and to varying degrees.
6. Stand out:
Shine like a diamond – the hardest naturally occurring substance found on Earth. Tested by time (adversity and prosperity), you are now in the big league of heavy hitters, with an offering that stands out among competitors and a cash/investment runway to test in other markets. Whether you are in a niche or mass market, you are either the big fish in a small pond or a small fish in a big pond. Do you know only a diamond can scratch or cut another diamond? Collaborate or dominate, this is the long game.
…Shine like a diamond – the hardest naturally occurring substance found on Earth…
In our current Coronavirus-coping times, whether you are an employee, employer or an entrepreneur, mindset is your driving force to survive or thrive, and to step up during periods of setbacks. Sailing or sinking may be felt with your heart, but it starts in your head. Some things might be on pause during these times, but other things might also be accelerated. You have to want to win. You have to decide to win. Adjust the sails according to the wind. Bad sailors break the mast.
