5 Powerful Rules for Women Entrepreneurs to Live By

When I became an entrepreneur, I was motivated by one thing: freedom. I wanted the flexibility to follow my dream. Entrepreneurship allowed me to do work that was engaging and empowering.

I’m not alone. According to a Cox Business study, 61 percent of women entrepreneurs started a business to be their own boss, and more than 50 percent became entrepreneurs to have greater control over their future.

So, what holds more women back from taking the plunge? Sometimes, a “good enough” life is itself a deterrent. College, the corporate ladder, a family: Often these things feel comfortable.

“I was successful at a job that wasn’t really that difficult,” Linda Shesto, CEO of Pearl Aqua LLC, tells me. “When it was time to step into a new reality and become an entrepreneur, I wanted everything set up perfectly. I wanted the same formula for success."

But there’s no magic formula for entrepreneurial success, of course. Stepping into the unknown is scary -- and many women doubt their abilities, feeling like impostors. “I believe that no matter how thoroughly prepared a woman might be, she will feel unprepared, whereas a man will feel even more prepared than he really is,” Shesto says. Unfortunately, research supports this notion.

Other women hesitate to pursue entrepreneurship from fear of not having enough time for themselves or their families. Melissa Sherwood, CEO and creative director at Klara Kelly, says that the biggest challenge is balancing running her business with running her household. And there are many like her. Sherwood’s husband can leave work at the office. But she says that her home is her office, making it that much tougher to get work done when her kids are home.

Here, then, are five strategies to help you crush these types of entrepreneurial fears and succeed even as you step into the unknown:

1. Quit seeking validation and embrace your crazy.

This is your business. It’s yours because no one else has had the vision you did to start it. Stop seeking validation before you launch a new product, program or idea. The most successful people are those who were once believed to be crazy.

2. Celebrate even the smallest of wins.

To maintain a go-getter attitude requires positive reinforcement. Have you worked up the courage to make that call you’ve been putting off? Finally gotten through that stack of paperwork? Kick up your heels and celebrate! That energy will carry you forward.

3. Get specific

Now that you’re trusting your own instincts and celebrating along the way, challenge yourself to break down your vision into smaller chunks. With the freedom to do what you want during the day comes the increased need to stick to a plan. What do you want to achieve this month -- and what do you need to do this week to reach your goals? As we know, writing your goals down significantly increases your chances of success.

4. Know that making money is like making broccoli

A mentor once told me that making money is like making broccoli: You’re not afraid of using up the broccoli in your fridge, are you? You know you can always get more.

Similarly, if you’re committed to growing your business, you can’t be afraid to invest in your growth or do the things that excite you. Rather than worry about the money you’re spending, focus on making each investment worthwhile.

5. Decide to be grateful

My dad used to say that no matter how good or bad you have it, there’s always someone who has it better than you and someone who has it worse than you. Comparison is the root of despair. Every day, we get to choose to be grateful for what we have, regardless of where we want to be.

“At the end of the day, I work for myself, and you can’t put a price tag on that,” Sherwood tells me. “I also can’t put a value on the lessons that I am teaching my children as they watch me build my company.”

Like anything worthwhile, being an entrepreneur isn't easy. All of us, however, can be grateful for the opportunity to pursue meaningful work and build a life we love. What more could we ask for?

Source: http://cc.cc/4ye3

****************************************************

Love Candles? Love Jewelry? http://tiny.cc/BlissfulCandles

Guaranteed work from home job for college students, stay at home moms and more! http://tiny.cc/EmailJobs 

Build your own picture business free! http://tiny.cc/PictureBiz 

60% off unique jewelry every week! http://tiny.cc/DazzlinJewels 

Fashion Bloggers get paid to share fashion! http://tiny.cc/Fashion4Cash 

Share videos, make money! http://tiny.cc/VideoShareCash 

Clarity is the BEST person to give you advice & guidance! http://www.clarityfix.me 

Awesome products for everyone & every Holiday! http://tiny.cc/BeautyBliss 

Get paid to post, share and tag pictures! http://tiny.cc/Pics4Cash 

Get paid when your friends & neighbors watch tv! http://tiny.cc/TVCash

****************************************************

You Might Be an Entrepreneur If You Meet These 3 Conditions

1. The right skills

Marketing innovation. As Michael Ellsberg wrote in The Education of Millionaires, the prerequisite to selling is listening. It's important to understand people and their needs, build networks and relationships and create unique solutions to pitch effectively.

Managing risk. Entrepreneurs aren’t risk takers as much as they're risk minimizers. One way to minimize risk is to bootstrap: Provide the resources for a startup with customer revenues. Another way is to follow the advice of Eric Ries, pioneer of the lean startup movement, proponent of the “build-measure-learn” mantra.

Test all business model assumptions, ranging from the notion of the customer problem to the hypothosized revenue stream. Startup expert Ash Maurya wrote in Running Lean that the job of entrepreneurs is to find a business model that works before running out of money.

Leading oneself and others. Entrepreneurs keep going when others stop trying. They overcome seemingly insurmountable obstacles. They build tribes. They transcend the status quo, form new relationships and patterns of behavior and bring change where it's sometimes unwanted.

Having experienced the process, entrepreneurs quickly adapt and confidently try new things. And things don’t always go as planned. Entrepreneurs, like leaders in the “fundamental state,”  a term coined by Robert Quinn in Building the Bridge As You Walk Across It, have the “adaptive confidence,” “detached interdependence” and “grounded vision” to figure things out.


2. The right process

Entrepreneurship is a discipline. Peter Drucker, sometimes called the "inventor of management," argued that entrepreneurship is a management discipline. It’s a process that can be learned and applied.  

Discipline implies a process. Entrepreneur and educator, Steve Blank, outlined the customer development process in The Four Steps to the Epiphany, which was validated and further refined by Maurya and Ries for their own startups (Spark59 and IMVU, respectively). The process begins with customer discovery or understanding problems from consumers' perspective and testing whether the entrepreneur’s solution fits. 

Then there's customer validation or determining how, when and where customers (the market) and the entrepreneur’s solution (the product) meet and value can be exchanged. And customer creation entails discovering how to entice the next wave of customers to move en masse toward the sales channel. Then and only then should resources be spent to build a company to support the business model.

That last step is called company creation. Before I became a lean startup convert, I used to ask students to do the company creation step first. They wrote long business plans outlining the structure of their company before any of them knew or had tested if they had a business model that worked. How wrong I was. And how much student time and resources I wasted!

3. The right heart

Love of the game. It takes much trial and error to find a business model that works. If a businessperson doesn’t love the process, he’ll lose energy not only before running out of money but also before it's even the right time to ask for money. 

Commitment. So what determines if entrepreneurs keep going? Love, like skill, involves both nature and nurture. It entails affection, passion and discipline. It requires both the heart and head. As is the case in a marriage, a commitment to putting others first is needed for getting through the tough times. The entrepreneur should find ways to complement others' skills and invite them to complement hers. Entrepreneurship is one of the ultimate team sports. 

Skills, process and heart can be learned. They also flow from some natural endowments.

The most difficult challenge in operating an incubator at the college level is giving students enough time to discover and develop the skills, process and heart to become successful entrepreneurs. And if they do, the next challenge is giving them the opportunity to prove that they deserve additional support to find a business model that works.

Source: http://tinyurl.com/AreUanEntrepreneur

**********************************************************
Love Candles? Love Jewelry? http://tiny.cc/BlissfulCandles
Build your own picture business free! http://tiny.cc/PictureBiz
60% off unique jewelry every week! http://tiny.cc/DazzlinJewels
Fashion Bloggers get paid to share fashion! http://tiny.cc/Fashion4Cash
Share videos, make money! http://tiny.cc/VideoShareCash
Clarity is the BEST person to give you advice & guidance! http://www.clarityfix.me
Awesome products for everyone & every Holiday! http://tiny.cc/LuxuryBliss
Get paid to post, share and tag pictures! http://tiny.cc/Pics4Cash
**********************************************************