Fear is natural feeling for every entrepreneur but you should not allow direct your life or business. A lot of people fail in business because they allow the fear of something to hinder their success. Any entrepreneur who want to grow in business should avoid the following fear; READ ALSO: 36-Year-Old Zuckerberg Now Centibillionaire (See How. As an entrepreneur, it’s natural to face criticism at every step. This may put you in a tight spot on many occasions. Being confident about what you are doing and having a convincing approach is what you need to do. As an entrepreneur, it is your job to sell your ideas to your customers and your team.
Owning and running your own business isn’t always as rosy as it seems. It’s a challenging task that comes with its own ups and downs. Though these harsh challenges might seem insurmountable at first, they prove to be rewarding as they mould you into a successful entrepreneur. Where other people might see impenetrable barriers, successful entrepreneurs will see exciting challenges that need to be embraced and overcome. Your confidence in the face of hardship and your ability to deal with challenges with a positive outlook will determine your success in the long run.
As Alexander Graham Bell said, ‘Before anything else, preparation is the key to success’, mentioned below are 5 common obstacles entrepreneurs tend to face and how you can prepare yourself to overcome them:
1. Funding
Every entrepreneur dreams of kick starting or growing their own business, but usually has little capital to do it with. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce recently interviewed a group of entrepreneurs about the biggest challenge they face while starting a business and a majority of them stated that access to capital was their biggest difficulty while starting out.
What is important in this situation is to not get overwhelmed by the challenge of seeking financial backing. Instead, face it head-on as that will be the first step towards achieving your dream. In 1985, when Howard Schultz, founder of the successful Starbucks chain, was seeking investment for his business, he spoke to 242 investors in a year and 217 of them said no. Even though he recalls the experience as being very disheartening, he continued to believe in his idea and pitched it to even more investors. Ultimately, he had the patience and the perseverance to get that one yes and Starbucks became what it is today. So if there’s one learning every business entrepreneur can glean from Schultz’s story, it’s that you must be patient and persevere hard even in the face of rejection, for doing this is the only thing that will help you overcome this challenge.
2. Attracting customers
Marketing your business in order to attract potential customers is one of the biggest challenges entrepreneurs face while setting up their business. Starting out, your marketing budget may not allow you to reach as wide an audience as a multinational corporation might. Still, if you have the advantage of attracting customers with your pricing and quality of service that big multinationals cannot provide, you will soon find yourself attracting a loyal base of customers in no time. Other important factors that will help you develop a strong marketing strategy is to define your target customer and identify their needs in order to better market your product to them.
3. Recruiting the right people and trusting them
Hiring the right people for your organization is as important as reaching out to the right audience. It can be a tedious process for entrepreneurs and even after it is done, delegating tasks to them after having developed a company from scratch may become a huge challenge for founders. Letting go of the need for perfection and control is understandably tricky. What one must do in such a situation is to step back and look at the big picture. One must let go of the need to control every small task by hiring people they trust who would do justice to the job, and then trust them with these tasks.
4. Managing costs
Reining in operating costs while ensuring that your business continues to grow can be a challenge for even the most successful entrepreneurs.But to become successful, you must learn and implement policies that will help your business save money. The better you are at mitigating your expenses, the greater chance you have of becoming a successful entrepreneur. This is when renting out shared office space comes in handy. Statistics show that coworking spaces can be great for start-ups and entrepreneurs as they help them cut operating costs by providing a flexible space perfect for running business operations. By opting to work at coworking spaces like 91springboard, businesses can save up to 30%, which in the overall scheme of things can mean huge savings for new companies with a lot of expenses and operational costs. Also, studies show that employees thrive in coworking spaces due to the culture of collaboration and community. Thus, coworking spaces aren’t just an affordable solution but can also provide you with greater networking options.
5. Fear of failure
Whether you’re an established entrepreneur or just starting out with your very own business start-up, there’s one worry that concerns every leader – the fear of failure. But this fear might prove to be counterproductive in the long run if you do not learn how to successfully overcome it. Rationalizing your fear and then developing a positive system to learn from your failures can help you become more productive and empower you to view failure as an opportunity to learn instead of a dead-end.
These are just a few of the many challenges that entrepreneurs have to face in their journey to becoming successful business leaders. And though one can adopt various techniques to overcome them, in the end, what’s most important is to have the right attitude and mindset to face these challenges and come out strong as a winner. And as the French playwright Molière said, ‘The bigger the challenge, the more glory in overcoming it’. So, next time an obstacle pops up in the way of your success, face it head-on with patience and perseverance, just like all the successful business leaders you aspire to be like.
Do share your thoughts and personal stories of overcoming challenges in your entrepreneurial journey in the comments box below
- December 16, 2019
- Posted by: Irene Makanga
- Category: Entrepreneurship
Starting from the bottom and striking out on your own can be both quite exciting and frightening too. Here are some of the most common fears of entrepreneurs and how to overcome them.
Fear is a totally normal emotion, but its important to keep it in check and not let it control your life. The greatest mark of a successful entrepreneur is his ability to get comfortable with fear, make objective decisions in the face of it and find solutions. Feelings of doubt, inadeqacy and day dreams of impending failure can have you stuck in a fearful mindset that will prevent you from taking action to move your business forward.
Here are five (5) of the most common fears among entrepreneurs – and some advice from someone who’s been there on how to overcome them.
Fear of Not Being Prepared
The fear of not being prepared makes entrepreneurs take forever to launch their business or complete anything they start. The feel that they don’t know enough and nothing is good enough. Feeling unprepared or feeling like you don’t know enough about what you are doing can cause you to constantly second-guess your every move. It can take away your confidence and hinder your judgment – a distraction you don’t need.
So, when you feel unsure, just ask for help, find the resources or seek feedback from others to help you fill those areas of information or expertise that you feel need to be addressed. We all have knowledge gaps or blind spots in our business acumen.
Don’t be afraid. No one is perfect.
Fear of Feeling Being ‘Found Out’
Deep down many entrepreneurs feel like they don’t deserve the success they have worked hard to achieve or even the oppourtunities come along. These feelings of self doubt embed fear deep inside and ultimately endup limiting how far we can go.
The best way to tackle those feelings of incompetency, not being enough or the feeling that you haven’t earned your place, is to keep an accomplishment list. Though may sound vain, it is best to always remind yourself of how far you have come and the accomplishments you have achieved. This way, you are able to see yourself as capable and well-deserving of the successes you have achieved.
Fear of The Unknown
The world of business and entrepreneurship is filled with unknowns and thats what makes it such an adventure. Typically, we are wired to avoid the unknown because we fear change. We also hate to lose control or be unable to manage potential outcomes. As a result, to succeed we need to take a massive steps towards an unknown outcome which is extremely scarely. Exploring the unknown will change you and may lead you to only two possible outcomes: success or failure.
To mitigate this fear, try to understand what drives your business. This will give you the confidence you need to feel assured when you take any step into the unknown.
Fear of Being Uncomfortable
Entrepreneurship in general is made up of a series of uncomfortable situations where you have to hustle and quicky think on your toes. There are some entrepreneurs who are afraid of being pushed into uncomfortable situations, such as public speaking, asking for payment from clients and more.
5 Fears Every Entrepreneur Must Face Mask
The only way to overcome this fear is not to avoid it, but to push through our comfort zone. This won’t happen unless we get ourselves in the right mindset, working up to face the challenge that lies ahead. Allowing yourself to get comfortable with the uncomfortable and, before you realize it you will be able to be in those situations without breaking a sweat.
Fear of Financial Insecurity
The fear of financial insecurity is what compounds the risk that entrepreneurs face as they must put on the line everything they have to see their dreams come to fruition. Unfortunately, there is almost no way to grow your business forward without putting some money into it.
Thus, the only way to deal with this fear is to take control of your money and educate yourself. Financial ignorance is expensive and is one of the main reasons most businesses fail within that first one and half years of operation.
Learning about finance, and handling your fears does help as you ride out the wave of entrepreuership.
In A Nutshell
Fear is a fundamental part of our human pshycology and thats what makes entrepreneurship such a great adventure. These fears of entrepreneurs will always come along, but we cannot allow them to control us and hinder us from greatness. Rather, we must face them and embrace the adventure fully to fully appreciate it.
Facing fears is part of the entrepreneurial journey, and once you move past them, nothing can stop you.
Believe in Yourself!
5 Fears Every Entrepreneur Must Facebook
What other fears have you faced as an entrepreneur? Share them with us by leaving a comment below.
5 Fears Every Entrepreneur Must Facets
Image Credits: Top by Suzy Hazelwood via Pexels.
See also: