6 Smart Ways to Ease Into Entrepreneurship

Makalah Hukum Bisnis

6 Smart Ways to Ease Into Entrepreneurship

These days, nearly everyone I know wants to be in business for themselves. Oh yes, anyone who has got a good idea now wants to translate it into a solid business as quickly as possible. Without additional planning and preparations, many usually take the plunge and quickly crash out as fast as they launched in. That is the frustrating part but there is always a very viable way out. That way is to gradually ease into business as an entrepreneur. It is more like "learning the ropes" while putting your product or service in the market place. These are six smart ways you can use to gradually ease yourself into entrepreneurship.

1.      Start small. Your dreams might be very big but it is advisable to start small. It takes planning, plenty of time and efforts to be able to compete with big businesses. If you start small, you can afford to make any mistakes and discover any gaps in your service which can be corrected as you go along. A big mistake made early enough could wipe you out completely. When you start small, you can avoid such pitfalls.

2.      Make effective use of cold calls. There is no serious marketer selling anything worthwhile who can avoid making cold calls. It is a way of gauging your confidence level and generally testing the "selling mechanism." Cold calls will enable you to understand that rejections and acceptances are all parts of the "selling concept." With that, rejections no matter how many should not therefore discourage you from making the next call. If you are able to master which pitches work best and which do not work at all, you can make amends by making more cold calls. With time, you will discover the right number of cold calls you must have to make in a day to get the desired results.

3.      Practice selling. According to Robert Louis Stevenson, "everybody lives by selling something." You can never become a good entrepreneur if you are unable to sell. You must therefore make it a point of duty to practice selling. It is by no means easy to walk into the office of a potential client who is a perfect stranger to make your pitch. It is even more difficult if you have never done it before. If you know your product or service well enough, you will be able to prepare very well before you approach anyone for a sale. Selling and more selling is the best way to practice selling. The more of it you are able to do, the better at it you become with time.

4.      Exhibit at a conference or trade fair. This is one quick way to interact and get noticed. People generally look for what they have heard about. All you need do is to be sure that the fair is well-attended and is relevant to your business. You can then device a way to attract people to your stand. The more the number of people you manage to attract to your stand, the better your chances of making a sale. At the very least, even if you are unable to make sales at that particular fair, you would have succeeded to expose your product or service to potential customers.

5.      Start a blog. Not everyone can blog but blogging helps to expose your unique knowledge to others. The more authoritative and unique your blog is, the more interest others will develop about you and what you are offering. The web is awash with millions of blogs which provide the very wide range of information daily competing for the attention of readers. If you can, it is good to add your blogs to the lot as a way of widely exposing you and your business. You can promote your website and blog on your business cards and signature box in your emails.

6.      Join professional associations. The reason for this is to be able to make maximum use of the networks which professional bodies encourage and promote. If there is a professional association in your area that relates to your industry, you should join and try to participate in all its activities. These associations can quickly become master-mind groups serving you as mentors. The regular meetings you will be expected to attend with these professionals are very good opportunities to make the much-needed contacts to enable you to turn cold calls into warm calls.

Learning by doing is the best way to ease into entrepreneurship. There is nothing anyone tells you relating to how to go about it which usually turns out exactly the way it was said. Without attempting, you can never master the ropes. That is why the experience counts a great deal. Easing into entrepreneurship however has to be gradual so as not to quickly make too many serious mistakes that could stop you dead on your tracks. The key is to start small then wobble and fumble along but be sure you never quit.

Sule Yesufu, a Certified Speaking Professional, is a Strategic Partner in S D Y Management Consult, a firm of Investment, Small Business and Entrepreneurial Consultants. He is a Published Author and a Newspaper Columnist. An expert in Small Business and Personal Development, he focuses on communicating his ideas and thoughts mostly through his Training Seminars and popular free blog. He offers useful tips on Self-Improvement, Personal Finance, Entrepreneurship, Current News, Politics and Business in Nigeria, the most populous and vibrant country in Africa.