Video: Become a Better Entrepreneur
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Posts tagged ‘tips for entrepreneurs’
May 19
5 Golden Rules of Entrepreneurship
1. You must love the business you open – Many young people tend to open a business because they think it can be lucrative, however nothing can be lucrative if you don’t love it.
Even if successful, you must understand that you can make money in anything, but you can’t be happy in everything.
2. Failure should be the least of your hesitations when opening a business – Many young entrepreneurs are so afraid of failing that the thought deters them from opening a business altogether.
I must admit that I was no different, as during my first few years in business, I tended to drink away a lot of anxiety about whether I would “make it.” Looking back, all the excess alcohol did was make me come close to not making it.
3. Work ethic + creativity + intelligence + vision + resiliency – As far as I’m concerned, this is the most pertinent formula when it comes to entrepreneurial success at a young age, as well as at an older age.
The great thing is that all of these skills can be honed. I am a firm believer that one can even make themselves more intelligent with a lot of work. 5 Golden Rules of Entrepreneurship Continued.
How Entrepreneurship Should Be Taught to Younger Generations
How Entrepreneurship Should Be Taught to Younger Generations
I took one of my interns out to lunch today and during, he preceded to tell me what types of businesses students proposed opening during college and which ones he was impressed by.
As he proceeded to go down the list, the ideas just got wackier and remained as unrealistic as they did immature.
It’s not a huge deal and entrepreneurship is about thinking and weighing business options as well as being fun, but where failure lurks in a business plan, professors need to be more candid that these plans will, ultimately not work (or have significant odds against the business owners).
Who’s fault is it?
It’s about 50 / 50, 1/2 falling on the professors and the other 1/2 the students.
How should entrepreneurship be taught?
Entrepreneurship needs to be taught in a realistic sense based on if the entrepreneur can sell the product, not invent something and hope it goes gangbuster, thus selling itself…
Article Continued: How Entrepreneurship Should Be Taught to Younger Generations
4 Tips to Build Your Business Ken Sundheim KAS Recruiters
3.2 Life Events That Drove Me to Entrepreneurship
3.2 Life Events That Drove Me to Entrepreneurship 
I never grew up telling myself that I would own my own business. As a matter of fact, until my last semester at college, I thought that I was there to chase girls around…until I did meet my wife who cancelled that activity.
I cared less about school.
I did okay – 3.49 I believe was my final GPA from Fordham, but the possibility of entrepreneurship never really dawned on me. What did I know about business? Also, I didn’t have the confidence in myself to buck the trend. I needed a job that was open with a stable company.
That is instead of having to create a job that didn’t exist from a company that I would have to start from scratch with real, viable business ideas…
Article Continued: 3.2 Life Events That Drove Me to Entrepreneurship
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4 Musts for the Entrepreneur
An entrepreneur must have a hybrid of skills to succeed and to successfully grow a business as well as sustain that growth. Businesses are living, breathing creatures and must be fed more and more revenue to survive.
The minute that the “Beast” witnesses prolonged famine, it shrinks then, within time, the entrepreneur gets tired and the company dies. To combat this potential failure, the business owner must become multifaceted – a chameleon of sorts.
Ken Sundheim WSJ 2011.
With the aforementioned thoughts in mind, what traits must the entrepreneur gain to become successful and to properly lead a group?
The following is a good place to begin and where it ends, nobody has a clue:
1. The Successful Entrepreneur Must Have Thick Skin
Entrepreneurs need to have thick skin. From what I have noticed and lived through, some people will do and say very hate filled things out of spite, jealously or personal dislike.
It’s a sad fact and will happen. The entrepreneur must adapt, to be able to anticipate and combat rejection. To give you a good example, I was told by a reporter at CBS that she didn’t want to interview us because she didn’t engage in negative thought.
This was because I warned her that I wanted honest reporting. Needless to say, she was the pot calling the kettle black.
I have gotten hate mail from competing firms claiming that they know our secrets and other personal things.
While many would be intimidated or hurt by such correspondence, to the entrepreneur, the hate mail is complimentary while the rejection from the CBS woman is frustrating: not hurtful, but annoying.
Regarding the hate mail, this correspondence tells the entrepreneur that people are angry and frustrated with his or her existence on planet earth. The entrepreneur smiles.
2. He or She Must Have The Ability To Recruit Talented Individuals
When I began a recruiting firm, I did it because I thought it was something that I could do. I got the idea from a book when I was just a kid.
As an entrepreneur, I randomly hit the business building lottery. For any business, recruiting and knowing how to obtain talent is immensely hard and the inability to do so, or having consistent turnovers, kills a company.
Therefore, this is an advantage that I hold dear. The entrepreneur must bring the right talent onto his team. Otherwise, the business won’t stand out.
It’s the entrepreneur who starts the business. However, it’s the first few employees who determine the entity’s success.
3. Marketing Skills
Marketing is a skill that each entrepreneur needs to have. I really don’t see much of a way around it. Whether it is marketing themselves to the public, writing a website or marketing their company to potential employees, entrepreneurs need to learn marketing.
You could only imagine how hard it was for my wife and me to recruit our own employees while still based from our apartment early on.
The two employees who took the leap of faith with us while we were still in that early stage, we hold dear. However, it could not have been done if it were not for our website, which was the only allure we had as a frontline defense.
4. Basic Psychology and Persuasion
Entrepreneurs need to know how people think, what their drivers are, what their turnoffs are. If he or she is to gain the ability to motivate others, this is a necessity.
As someone who is under 30 who had really no other work experience, I learned this through reading, the help of my wife and trial and error. Do I have it down pat? The answer is “No.”
Leaders are not born with a special leadership trait that some don’t or will never have. Instead, entrepreneurs mold themselves into leaders as they grow up. Knowing basic psychology and persuasion allows the entrepreneur to do just this.
However, this theory also goes back to the 1st trait mentioned. When you become a leader, you leave yourself open to judgment and consistent rejection.
Ken Sundheim runs KAS Placement, a sales and marketing staffing agency specializing in helping both U.S. and International mid to large size firms form sales teams from small business recruitment ken sundheim, headhunters, staffing firms the executive level sales manager to helping recent college graduates transition to a business development role. On his free time, Ken is a public speaker and likes to read non-fiction.
Ken Sundheim "Entrepreneurs B2B RainsKen Sundheim College Recruiter
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