The first few steps of your entrepreneurial journey are always the most difficult. When you’re flat broke and trying to get things off the ground, it’s easy to feel helpless and paralyzed. Once you can overcome this hurdle, however, it’s only a matter of time before you go from being flat broke to sitting on a cool million dollars.
To learn how to do this, we sat down with author and entrepreneur Eileen Wilder to discuss her experience as an entrepreneur, and what others can take from it. Here are 4 powerful takes from our conversation.
Competence Comes From Confidence
Though we typically draw our sense of confidence from our prior experiences and achievements, it’s much more difficult to do so when you’re taking your first steps into the world of business. As such, it’s important for rising entrepreneurs to instead start with a sense of confidence and build their skills from there.
Starting a business is a life-altering process, and understandably, many who do so feel unprepared. What they don’t realize, however, is that by allowing themselves to feel unprepared, they’re holding themselves back. By fearing failure, they prevent themselves from having learning experiences and growing as a businessman.
Often, self-doubt is the only thing between you and the skills you need to be successful. By replacing your self-doubt with confidence, however, you can take control of your situation, and from that, you’ll quickly develop the skills you need through hands-on experience. Don’t be afraid to take on a challenge, just keep an open mind and learn as you go.
Stop Waiting for the Right Time
Many people looking to launch a business spend days, months, or even years waiting for the right time, the right conditions, or the right market. While timing is certainly important, it’s not everything, and what begins as waiting for the perfect moment will just turn into procrastination.
To be a successful entrepreneur, you have to be willing to take a leap of faith, regardless of the risk. Though it may be nerve-wracking at first, the ability to make quick decisions is one of the most important skills you can learn as an entrepreneur, and soon, you’ll learn how to make the best possible decisions in the least amount of time.
Whether you’re buying someone a coffee or signing a million-dollar deal, the ability to make decisions and act on them will come naturally, and that ability will translate to money in the bank.
Seek Out Expert Advice
When we’re presented with new challenges, our immediate reaction is to ask how we should approach them. In the world of business, however, the better approach is to figure out who can give you advice. There are countless other self-made entrepreneurs out there who have achieved success, and chances are, they’re willing to share a few nuggets of wisdom with you.
Whether you’re reaching out to your peers or a business coach, don’t be afraid to seek out advice! Partnerships are the key to running a successful business, whether that’s in the form of deals, collaborations, or learning new information and skills. By figuring out who can help you, you’ll quickly learn how to help yourself and others.
Don’t Sell Yourself Short
When you’re just starting out, it’s far too easy to underestimate the value of your services or products. Doing this not only reduces your profits, but the value of your customer experience. When Eileen was just starting out, for example, she was providing entire coaching experiences for just $27. Seeing this, her coach suggested that she raise her prices to $21,000.
Naturally, her first reaction was one of complete and total shock, but then she realized: others have done the exact same thing, and have become wildly successful. Eventually, she decided to take her coach’s advice, and sure enough, it worked, netting her over $100,000 dollars on the first day she launched her high-ticket program.
So, why does this work? If you can provide a service for cheap, why would you make it expensive and less affordable? The thing is, the highest number of customers and the lowest prices aren’t always what you need to pursue. If you can secure just a few high-profile clients, you’ll be able to tailor your customer experience to each and every specific client. This creates a high-value experience for your high-dollar clients, while also making your job more manageable than ever.
Of course, this all goes back to our first point: confidence. By having that all-important confidence in your talents, you empower yourself to reach incredible heights beyond anything you can imagine. You’ll be able to take risks you never would have before, learn from people with the same goals and passions, and provide the ultimate client experience. Before you know it, you’ll go from being flat broke to living the millionaire lifestyle you always dreamed of.
If you want to find your ideal business coach, you should join the Rainmaker Family Challenge. Our Rainmakers are working parents just like you who want a better work-life balance that prioritizes family time over work. Join us and learn how to make it rain!
